Getting a killer guitar sound when recording

Introduction

A guide to getting an awesome guitar sound when recording – exactly how you want and need it!

Scenario

We're in the studio recording the big demo, we've layered down our own drum tracks and also the bass is in the mix and now we're ready to record the guitar. However we have a variety of different sections and feels to record... The first is a beautifully clean picked section, the second is a distorted section with vocals on the top, the third is a bass heavy distorted section and then the final topped off with an 80's Eddie Van Halen guitar virtuoso solo!

Clean Section

We want to capture a nice general sound from the guitar, we don't want it too muddy neither do we want it too crisp as it will overpower anything else in the mix. The trick in this is to use an industry standard microphone, positioning and the correct acoustical balance with regards to baffling. The industry standard microphone for guitar cabinets is the Shure SM57, it has a relatively even frequency response and the unique design of its wind filter allows you to get the dynamic cartridge as close to the source as you like.

For positioning you want to have the microphone half way across the radius of the speaker cone (radius is half of the diameter... remember?), you want to aim it 90 degrees to the speaker cabinet as so the cone is actually at an angle to the microphones aim. Where distance is concerned depending on the “deepness” of the sound required use between 2”-8” from the speaker cone; obviously the closer to the cone the deeper the sound, the further away the more ambience will be captured. Where post production is concerned you may want to add a touch of light reverb or very light delay to make the guitar sound “glisten”.

Distorted Section with Vocals

This follows very much the same profile as the last section however with a few subtle differences. The first is to remove the mid section from the guitar sound without having to tweak EQ settings on a mixing console – remember it is better to have a good sound from source than have to modify it heavily to get what you want. To get the middle section less prominent in the mix you want exactly the same positioning as with the clean section however instead of aiming the microphone 90 degrees to the speaker cabinet you now want to aim it so that it is parallel with the speaker cone... again distancing will give you a deeper or more ambient sound. Experiment and find what suits your particular song best.

Bass Heavy Distorted Section

Here comes the fun, we're going to make your guitar sound far more powerful and “meatier than it actually is... and without heavy modification to your source sound. How? Remember when we recorded the drums? We used a specialised microphone for the kick drum... it was significantly larger than any of the other microphones because of the larger diaphragm... that larger diaphragm was better suited to capturing the low end of the kick drum... similarly it's better at capturing the “meat and balls” of your guitar.

You want to have your volume quite high for the purpose of recording this section, it will help get more movement into the diaphragm and therefore a better response where low frequencies are concerned. Depending on the level of definition required aim the microphone closer towards the centre of the radius for more definition, and towards the outside of the cone for less definition. It's particularly crucial in this part of the recording phase that you baffle the guitar cabinet and microphone... cover the entirety with a heavy duty duvet. This will soak up any excessive resonance starting from the high frequencies down... hence a better bass response!

Guitar Solo

We're almost at the end now and we need to go out with a big bang, that being the fastest solo with more cheese than a factory at cheddar gorge could ever create. What's the best way to capture this and make sure it sticks out in the mix? Simple... clear definition and a good mid range response. How? Think about it... what part of the speaker cone has the least flex in it, has the most response and is responsible for the movement of the rest of the cone? The centre! But not directly in the centre, it's just off centre where the dust-cap (that dome shape) meets the rest of the speaker cone.

Using a Shure SM57 aim the microphone at this point, distancing will create more definition and attack or more ambience. Generally for solo's you want more attack and definition so you want to have a distance of that around 2”-4”. Again it is crucial to have a baffling of some sort – if anything it avoids the risk of unwanted noise from getting to the microphone (someone dropping an ashtray for instance! [it happens] ).

Where post production is concerned in this case a very light double delay effect will really make the fast parts of the guitar solo seem spectacular and in the slower regions it will also make the guitar sound sing. Not too much... it needs to be very feint!