Basics of Recording Electric Guitar

Ready to record electric guitar? Before you put your pick on a string, make sure these basics are in place. 

By Craig Anderton

Recording electric guitar is simple, right? You just plug the guitar into an interface’s guitar input, go through a DI box into a mixer, or stick a mic in front of an amp. But there are a few other basic considerations you need to consider first.

THE INSTRUMENT

The type of guitar, choice of pickups, string material, and tone control settings make a huge difference in the overall recorded sound. Get as close as you can to the sound you want by working with these options first, then start experimenting with the mic and amp. Check intonation prior to the session (and whenever you change a string), and check tuning constantly: It’s virtually impossible to fix an improperly tuned or intoned guitar in the mix.

MINIMIZING EMI

Power supplies, transformers, dimmers, and other sources of EMI (electro-magnetic interference) can get into your guitar’s pickups. Turn all dimmers full on or full off. Turn off any gear that isn’t being used. Experiment with the guitar’s orientation with respect to other gear, and choose the position that gives minimum interference.

MICROPHONE TYPE

Dynamic mics (like the Shure SM57) are the “old standby” as they can handle high power levels and have a naturally “warm” tone that complements amps. Large-diaphragm condenser mics are also popular, typically with any pad switch engaged due to a greater difficulty handling extremely high SPLs compared to dynamics.

They also tend to give brighter highs and lower lows. Newer ribbon mics (the image shows a Royer ribbon mic placed close to a cabinet for more bass buildup) are gaining popularity for miking amps, because they’re not as fragile as older ribbon types. They tend to pick up more room ambience, but remember that excessive levels can damage older ribbon mic elements.

MIC POSITION

The relationship of the mic to the amp speaker has a major effect on the sound. Pointing the mic directly at the speaker gives more highs than angling the mic, as a mic’s off-axis response tends to pick up fewer high frequencies. However, where you point the mic also matters; for example, pointing toward the outside of the speaker may give a “tighter” sound than pointing at the center. Also, if a cabinet has multiple speakers, try each one—not all speakers, even ones from the same production run, are identical. The distance from the amp also makes a difference. Placing the mic further away from the speaker picks up more room sound and ambience. For best results, listen in the control room while someone else adjusts the mic; or, adjust the mic yourself, while saying what you’re doing (“Mic pointing at cone, 2" away). Listen back to which sounds best, then re-create the setting you described.

MIC LOW PASS FILTERS

Engaging a mic’s low pass filter, if present, can “tighten up” the sound as it usually affects frequencies below the range of the guitar. This reduces hum and room rumble but doesn’t alter the guitar tone.

RECORDING DIRECT

To preserve your guitar’s high frequency response and output level, record into an input with a high impedance (at least 100, and preferably 220, kilohms). Many audio interfaces have an “instrument input” for this purpose; the illustration (click to enlarge) shows the two front panel guitar inputs for Avid's Mbox (3rd generation). Standard passive direct boxes may not be suitable. If you’re using stomp boxes or other effects prior to your audio interface, its impedance is not an issue: Impedance matters only for the first device “seen” by the guitar.

COMBINING DIRECT AND MIKED SOUNDS

The sound coming from the mic will be delayed compared to the direct sound (approximately 1 millisecond of delay for each foot of distance between the mic and speaker). Combining the direct and miked sounds may sound “thin” due to the comb filtering caused by this time difference. In a DAW, temporarily pan both mics to center and nudge the miked sound forward (earlier) in time to compensate; compare the mix of the two sound sources until you achieve the best tone.

MULTIPLE CABINETS

It’s common to set up two (or more) cabinets and mic both. Variations in the cabinets and miking create a convincing stereo spread when one cabinet is panned more toward the left and the other panned more toward the right.

MULTIPLE MICS

There are two main applications for multiple mics. One is to have a mic (or mics) close to the amp, and one or more mics in the room to pick up ambience and reflections. The other is to place two mics on a single amp and vary the blend between them to create a particular sound. In the latter situation, it’s common to use very different mics (for example, a dynamic and a condenser). During mixdown these can be set to different levels, have one thrown out of phase compared to the other to give “pseudo-EQ” effects, and possibly even have different processing, to create a sound that’s very different compared to using a single mic.

BIG AMPS VS. LITTLE AMPS

Using a big amp and cranking it to get your “sound” will also put lots of reflections into the room where you’re recording, and when these are picked up, may give an overly-diffused effect. You may obtain better results by cranking a small amp, which may sound the same to the mic but not be as loud. This may also be a necessary solution if you’re recording in a location where noise can bother others.

GETTING SUSTAIN WITH RE-AMPING

Re-amping involves recording a dry guitar sound to a DAW, then running it through an amp or amp simulator plug-in on mixdown to allow choosing the perfect tone for the track. However, it also makes sense to play through an amplifier and record both the amp and dry guitar sounds. The amplifier can give more sustain, or even controlled feedback; and if you like the sound, you can always use it and not have to bother with re-amping. An added bonus is that the amp sound will often make a good complement to the re-amped sound, and facilitate creating a stereo image.
Photo courtesy Royer Labs

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The Many Uses for Digital Delay

Use your digital delay to produce many more effects than just echo—including flanging, chorus, doubling, and reverb

By Jon Chappell


The two most important effects in a guitarist’s signal chain are distortion and delay. And if you derive your tone strictly from the amp—whether it’s squeaky clean or buzzsaw nasty—then the digital delay is numero uno.

The Deja Vu, by Seymour Duncan, is an example of a delay pedal that includes modulation control, and can therefore be pressed into service providing effects like flanger and chorus, in addition to conventional delay-based effects. (Click images to enlarge.)

Many guitarists think of delay (a.k.a. “DDL,” for “digital delay line”) as the effect that produces an echo sound, and while that’s true, it doesn’t begin to tell the whole story of what a delay is capable of. A full-featured digital delay unit, one with precise controls, complex modulation circuitry, and good display read-outs can produce a range sounds—from flanging to chorus to doubling to ambience to slapback, to discrete repeats that can be synched to tempo-dependent rhythmic values. The Seymour Duncan Deja Vu is one example of a delay unit that includes extensive modulation controls, but other pedals, including the Empress Superdelay and Diamond Memory Lane 2 have them as well.

Many smart guitarists employ more than one delay in their chain, assigning them different duties, even if each has identical parameters. A DDL is one effect that works especially well when chained together with itself. Let’s take a look at the many roles in which a digital delay can serve the guitarist.

BASIC DDL OPERATION

Most people know, or can intuit, the way a delay works: it produces an exact copy (a sample, or digital recording, really) of the original signal in real time, and blends the signals together. The normal parameters are Delay Time (how long in milliseconds after the original sound the copied sound plays), Effect Level (the loudness of the repeated signal relative to the original), and Feedback, which is just another way of saying “number of repeats” (which goes from a single repeat to infinite repeats).

All delays feature two outputs, which allows you to route the original, straight signal to a different place from the effected (repeated) signal. You can get the blended signal from one output (the most common usage) so that you can plug into one input on your amp, as most guitarists do. But you can also send your outputs to two different destinations—to different channels on a stereo amp, to separate mixer channels, or even separate amps entirely to produce a true stereo guitar signal.

With longer delay times, you can create drippy-wet sounds to fill out a slow-note solo in ballad or produce the famous “cascade” sound, which includes Van Halen’s “Cathedral,” Nuno Bettencourt’s “Flight of the Wounded Bumble Bee,” and Albert Lee’s “Country Boy” or his solo on Emmylou Harris’s “Luxury Liner.” With super-long delay times (from a few seconds to several seconds), you can turn your delay into a live multitrack recorder, laying down successive looped passages to jam over. Units such as the DigiTech JamMan, Line 6 DL4, and Boss Loop Station series are loop recorders, and are actually several DDLs in one box that allow for overdubbing loops.

With all these different possibilities at your delay’s disposal, let’s take a look at some sample control settings that will get you on your way to producing the many different types of effects available on a DDL.

TIME DELAY AND OTHER EFFECTS

The length of the delay time is the primary factor in determining the effect you want to create, whether that’s a modulation type (flanger, chorus) or more ambient (reverb, echo). Figure 1 shows a graph of the different effects in order of increasing delay time, shown in milliseconds (thousandths of the second). Most high-end delays have a modulation feature, which is some variation (or variations) on a low-frequency oscillator that sweeps the delay time up and down. Depending on the initial delay setting and the amount of feedback (regeneration), it’s the modulation control that can create a flanger and chorus sound, or generally turning the signal whooshy. Keep the modulation control on zero if you want the delay effect a sound like the original input signal.

Fig. 1. A graph of time in milliseconds and the associated effect produced.

Some stomp box versions dispense with the modulation control, so you won't be able to get a very deep sound in the flanging and chorus departments. But subtle effects that approach a true chorus is sometimes all that’s called for to give a sound a slight sense of movement.

The Feedback control, also referred to as regeneration, determines how many times the output, or effected signal, is fed back into the processor. With the Feedback control at zero, a single repeat is produced, which is good for cascades, harmonies, and loops, but not good for ambient or more swirling textures.

Cranked to the max, the Feedback control produces infinite repeats—or runaway feedback of Feedback, if you will. About five or six repeats are good enough to produce reverb and slapback (an effect popular in rockabilly vocals), as each successive repeat gets quieter, simulating a natural echo.

The Effect Level determines how loud the effected signal is relative to the original input signal. At 0% you won’t hear any effect (the signal comes through dry); at 100% the effect signal is at equal loudness to the original. So if you take the following three steps of 1) setting the delay time long enough (200ms or longer) to hear a separate repeat; 2) putting the effect level at 100%; and 3) applying no feedback or modulation; you will hear two identical repetitions of a note or chord struck once. To a listener who can’t see your hands, it would sound like you played that note or chord twice. This is the key ingredient in the cascade sound, but it’s also good for other rhythmic repeats that are synched to the existing tempo.

EFFECTS SETTINGS

Figure 2 shows how to roughly set your knobs to achieve some different time based delay effects. Exact settings will depend on the musical situation and your particular tastes. But it’s a good idea to establish the time delay first, and then the effects level, before moving on to feedback or modulation.

Fig. 2. A four-knob schematic showing various settings for delay-produced chorus, reverb/slapback, cascade, and loop.

CONCLUSION

Most shorter delay-time effects are “set and forget”; you dial it up according to how it sounds in isolation and don’t have to do anything more for the effect to cooperate with the surrounding music. In other words, one setting can apply to fast or slow tempos, 16th notes, or whole notes. But when the delay time gets past the slapback stage into the 200ms+ range, you have to structure the delay time to the particular tempo and rhythmic values you’re playing. That’s when some math is necessary, but where the real fun begins.

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Fret-King Black Label Unveiling Helps Make 2012 the Best NAMM Show Yet for JHS

Winter NAMM 2012 was the most successful show yet for worldwide trade distributor John Hornby Skewes & Co. Ltd.,  with the global unveiling of the all-new Fret-King® Black Label™ range of electric guitars and basses and other new instruments drawing  huge attention from punters, players and press from across the world.

Leeds,  UK-based JHS was making its fifth appearance at the musical instrument  trade's highest profile show, held annually in Anaheim, California, and  saw  its Hall E 1212 booth – stocked with more than 100 guitars from the Fret-King, Vintage, Santos Martinez, Encore and SpongeBob SquarePants Real Musical Instruments ranges – subject to more interest than ever before.

Fret-King  Black Label was the star feature of the show for many, with its array  of classic and artist-inspired models receiving plaudits  from all who saw and played them, while a number of new models from Vintage guitars also drew praise.

A number of high profile players were present on the JHS booth to showcase the new gear. Renowned string bender Jerry Donahue played a series of raucously received sets with his Fret-King Black Label Series JD guitar, which he designed in cooperation with Trev Wilkinson. Donahue also played a surprise set with fellow guitar great Will Ray, his Hellecasters bandmate, and the band reunited on the Saturday  night to play their first show in 11 years as they headlined Deke's  Guitar Festival.

Worldwide 12-string authority Paul Brett is the proud owner of two new Vintage signature acoustics – a 6-string and a 12-string – and he made his presence known on the JHS stand, with players like 3-time Grammy award nominated Peter Case commenting favourably on the exquisite Brett signature guitars.
US distributors of Fret-King and Vintage guitars, MDG (Musical Distributors Group), were also a solid presence on the JHS booth, attracting interest from existing and new US dealers.

JHS Managing Director  Dennis Drumm said: "Another great  NAMM – US dealers clearly love the Vintage brand, Fret-King Black Label  totally ‘hit the spot’, and several new export markets will be  benefitting from Vintage and Fret-King being available in their  countries. SpongeBob SquarePants too will be spreading his  quirky musical humour even further abroad in 2012. Definitely the  busiest and best NAMM ever for JHS!"
For more information on all the new gear released by JHS during NAMM 2012, check out the Fret-King and JHS websites.

Useful links:
John Hornby Skewes & Co. Ltd.:

www.jhs.co.uk

Fret-King:

www.fret-king.com

MDG:

www.musicaldistributors.com

The NAMM show:

www.namm.org

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