Recording Guitars with Dead Soul Revival part 2

Recording Guitars with Dead Soul Revival part 2

If you’ve been following my “first single release” journey for my new band deadsoulrevival.com you know I’ve been examining how we recorded our upcoming release. Today let’s talk some more about recording guitars and some ideas you can use yourself.

As a guitarist one thing I’ve learned over the years is to think ahead when laying down parts. Specifically to imagine what my parts will be in a live context. 

A lot of times in the writing process I’m cutting and pasting around guitar parts so I like to make sure I am clear on what the “meat and bones” main rhythm track will be when actually tracking. This is also when I start honing in on what I want the tone to sound like.

When I’m dialing in a main rhythm guitar tone generally I’m looking for a balanced sound.  Nothing that pokes out too much frequency wise. The reason for this is I am thinking ahead to the mix. It will be easier to manipulate the tone at that point (if I need to) if it’s already balanced. 

I wouldn’t want to reach the mix stage and then realize there is no low end on the guitar or that it sounds muffled.  This is why it’s important to listen to reference mixes through your monitors so you’ll know if you are in the ballpark.  Pick reference songs you know well. 

Also keep in mind reference recordings will often make you think there is more low end of the guitar than there actually is.  Usually that low end is coming from the bass.

If one area is poking out too much I’ll end up having to eq that area down or turn the guitar down. These are a couple of problems I see over and over with tracks I receive to mix. Neither of solutions these is preferable so I like to work it out ahead of time. 

That’s not to say that unbalanced tones don’t have their place. For me there is usually some other element that counterbalances that or a full bodied tone is stylistically inappropriate.

As a side note one of the things I really like about tracking with a Kemper is that a lot of the patches already have a balanced frequency range.

When I first I got my Kemper I went though the patches and marked my favorites. Kemper has a free computer based editor “Rig Manager” that makes this pretty easy.

They also have a user based rating system so I went through and listened to their highest rated patches. Then I move the ones I like from their online database over to my Kemper. Highly recommended.  I’ve tracked some songs with an Uberschall, others with an Orange. The Soldano 100 has been a fave for leads.

If you don’t know, the Kemper takes audio snapshots of mic’ed up guitar amps.  It’s basically a preamp with these captures plus effects.  You can of course capture your own amps, but so far I’ve been happier with the ones that are included or sold by 3’rd party companies.  SinMix has several that I love.

If I was dialing in a traditional rig I would suggest the same mindset: a balanced tone.  If you’re not getting that you either need to adjust your amp’s tone controls or move the mic on the speaker cabinet. 

Moving a mic toward the center of the speaker cone will get you more high end and toward the edge will bring more low end.  When mic’ing cabs I usually use two mics: a Shure 57 and a Sennheiser 421.

This way I have two tracks I can blend to taste and use like an eq. Make sure you check their phase against each other.  Out of phase tracks can sound hollow and lack low end.

Until next time…

For more about recording guitars check out my course the Sound Visualization Method.

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