4 Tips for Recording Electric Guitar
Electric guitars have been a staple of musical recordings since they were first invented. While getting a perfect sound out of your guitar and amplifier can be hard enough, recording them can be an entirely different puzzle.
Because of its prominence in modern music, it is important to get a great sounding electric guitar. However, there are many tips and tricks to help you get the best recording possible!
Get Good Cables
This tip might seem a little basic, and it does come with some controversy, but it is without a doubt important to try: use good audio cables. High quality audio cables can drastically change the sound of your guitar to a sound that is more full and of higher fidelity (clarity).
The electric guitar is an electric instrument, meaning that the sound has to be transmitted through a cable. It’s no surprise that a thicker, higher quality cable can improve your sound up to a point.
It is important to mention that there are people who do not believe the cable quality will make a difference to the sound of the guitar, or at least not a major one.
However, many people swear by the use of higher quality cables and say that it does indeed affect the sound of your electric guitar. Nevertheless, we feel that this might be a great tip for you to experiment with for yourself.
Determine mic placement
The next question you might ask yourself, as you begin to record your electric guitar, is where to place your microphone. Even just a few inches can make a huge difference in the sound that is captured on the recording. So where is the best place to set the microphones?
Well the answer is: “that depends”. In all honesty, the general consensus is that multiple microphones should be used when recording a guitar amp. A simple technique is to use 2 microphones: a dynamic mic to capture a focused, mid-heavy sound, and a condenser or ribbon mic, to capture a broader, more general sonic picture.
However you choose to experiment, it is important to ensure that your microphones always stay in-phase with each other to prevent any issues later in the mix.
Choose mic or no mic
Perhaps the previous tip won’t work for you because you don’t have a guitar amp or perhaps you are looking for a different sound?
Fear not as the world of recording direct and utilizing amp modeling software or pedals has grown quite extensively in recent years.
Even the basic free amp modeling software included in many common DAW’s (such as Logic Pro X) have grown to such professional levels that many guitarists are ditching their amps and making due with recording direct.
Many pedal makers are now producing miniature attenuators or direct boxes loaded with their own amp modeling software making it possible to record straight from your pedal-board without additional processing.
Record at a high volume
If you do decide to record from an electric guitar amplifier, as many of us still do, there is one tip that may just save you from hours of re-recording.
And that tip is: to record at a fairly loud volume. Now this might require you to hit the “pad” switch on your preamp or microphone (or both!) but the question is, why would you do this?
There are two simple answers. First, when an amplifier (specifically a tube amplifier) is pushed in volume, the sound that comes out of the amp is richer and more full of harmonic tube saturation. This will ultimately improve the sound of your guitar!
Secondly, the high volume of the amplifier mixed with the close proximity of the microphones will create a higher volume contrast to any background noise pollution, often-times making it inaudible, thus ensuring a cleaner recording free of unwanted noise.
