Recording - January 2010 - 22

you wish to use, bypass the amplification section and just use the speaker-cabinet emulation. Choose the mic and speaker cabinet that you like best. ~ Branching out: Tracking one signal, blending many sounds. The sound of a single performance can be ‘enhanced’ by sending it to more than one track and blending different cabs and/or mics; you can use the same cabinet on the second track and just change the mic and/or mic placement and this could be enough of a sonic difference to get the results you want. Gtr 2b” (receives signal from Bus 10), and their outputs are set to the Main Outs. Note: In Pro Tools you can assign the track output to several physical outs or busses by simply pressing down the Control key on your keyboard before clicking on the designated output selector on the track, and selecting a different destination before you let go. Once more than one output is assigned on your channel, there will be a plus sign “+” to indicate that the signal is being sent to multiple locations. This is very useful as you send the one “amp head” signal to different mono “speaker cabinet” tracks. Even if you choose consecutive stereo pair busses as your cabinets, I recommend that you send to two separate mono signals, one to 9 and then one to 10, for example. This is more direct and straightforward when working with panning. Although some may feel otherwise, I feel that this method is better than creating Aux Sends from the “amp head” track. Thus far we have three mono tracks—one audio and two auxiliaries. The audio track is the only one you need to record-enable, consider this track the amp head, and any 30” with a dynamic 57 mic and a “4x12 Green 25W” with a condenser 67 mic on axis. I used just a little bit of the speaker breakup function as I find that it’s a bit touchy, and a little will go a long way. Note: Why two mono tracks? If you were to create a stereo aux track instead of two monos for the speaker cabinet tracks, then you could not have two separate sounds to blend, as you would have to bring up one stereo instance of a cab emulator. ~ Adding depth, ambience. Depending on how much reverb and effects you decided to track to tape, you might want to add some ambience or effects in the box. There are different schools when it comes to tracking wet or dry. I like to record with little to no reverb and effects so I can focus on getting the best possible tone. The advantages of adding the ambience and delays later with this particular way of HGRM is the stereo effect that sending one mono track to a stereo delay and reverb can have. In this example I used some basic plug-ins that are included in Pro Tools: D-Verb for my reverb, Extra Long Delay II, and Short Delay II for my chorus sound. FIG 2 This step adds a bit of personality and seriousness to the guitar sound. Although the sound may be ‘more complex’, it also could be more interesting, but it’s important to find complementary differences so the ‘polar’ sounds attract rather than reject, so to speak. Figure 1 shows an audio track labeled “Lead Gtr 2”, its input is set to Analog 3, which is where the signal from the guitar amp (through the Hot Plate) was plugged in, and the stereo output is routed to buses 9 and 10. I then created two mono auxiliary tracks, which you’ll see labeled “L Gtr 2a” (receives signal from Bus 9) and “LRECORDING JANUARY 2010 additional aux tracks where you’re sending the signal are your speaker cabinets. So the audio track requires no plug-in. On the aux tracks you will want to open an instance of any guitar simulator plug-in that will allow you to bypass all but the cabinet emulation. I opened an instance of Digidesign’s Eleven in each track, bypassed the amp head and scrolled through the speaker cabinets until I heard a combination that I liked. It’s a good idea to check the sound in context with the rest of the band, and then tweak it some more if necessary. I ended up with the cab that Digi calls “4x12 Classic Figure 2 shows the one blue audio track (labeled “Lead Gtr 2”) on top (where the amp head should be), and the two yellow speaker cabinet tracks just underneath it, called “L Gtr 2a” and “L Gtr 2b”. Three red stereo aux tracks follow, “Reverb Return”, “Delay Return” and “Chorus Return”. You can see D-Verb with the Reverb send from “L Gtr 2a” right next to it, and the Extra Long Delay II plug-in under it with the Delay send from the first cabinet track. ~ More than the sum. I’ve used up to six aux tracks to create one sound, each aux track with a speaker cab emulator from

Recording - January 2010

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