Recording - July 2013 - 24

By Joe Albano
Recording the guitar would seem to be
among the most straightforward of tasks
in the recording studio—just choose a
mic, point it in the right direction, and hit
the big red button. Of course, nothing is
ever as simple as it seems, and, as with
so many aspects of recording, the devil is
in the details. And those details can make
the difference between a merely okay guitar sound and a great recording that
brings out all the nuance and richness of
a brilliant musical performance. In this
article we’ll take a look at those details,
and explore some of the winding pathways to superior guitar recordings. This
month we start with electric guitar, and
next month we’ll deal with the
acoustic guitar.
Options and more options
Traditionally, recording electric
guitar involved a basic set of tasks:
choose the guitar and amp, get a
good sound in the room, choose
and position the mic (or mics), and
go. Nowadays, modern technology has added a few more wrinkles.
The amp, speaker and mics can
be replaced by an analog or digital
amp simulator on the way in. Or the
sound of the amp/preamp can be
sent directly to the recorder, bypassing the speaker/mic. Or the guitar
can be plugged directly into the
recorder or run straight in through a
DI (direct injection box), and the dry
guitar recording then run through
plug-ins after the fact, to provide simulated amp/speaker/mic tones. Or
a dry-recorded DI guitar signal can
be re-routed back out into the real
world through a real amp/mic after
the fact—a process called re-amplification. Or some combination of
these techniques can be employed.
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RECORDING July 2013

Reamping: a second bite at the apple. Graphic courtesy Radial Engineering.
At left: the Royer R-101 ribbon mic, popular for cabinet miking.
While purists tend to stay away from digital simulations, many others
embrace them—either way, there are a lot a different solutions to getting that
guitar track down these days. To get the ball rolling, let’s start with the basics
of traditional electric guitar recording: guitar —> amp —> mic(s) —> recorder.
The preliminaries
The sound of a good guitar track starts in the player’s hands. Many guitarists
have a preferred instrument, and if that decision is made by the player, it can
be one less element to worry about for the engineer or producer, who in other
situations might get involved in the choice of the instrument. If you’re going for
a very particular guitar sound, half the battle is won if you choose the right
instrument and select the best pickups up front. For example, if the song calls
for a bright, crisp, clean tone, a guitar with single-coil pickups (like a Fender
Strat or Tele) is probably a better choice than one with dark fat humbuckers
(Gibson or PRS). If a jangly sound is required, the bridge pickup would be a
better choice than the warmer-sounding neck pickup (on any guitar).
These decisions are usually left to the guitarist, and an experienced player
will instinctively go for the right option. However, if you’re recording a less seasoned artist, then a little direction from the engineer/producer at the outset
might avoid a lot of work later on trying to adapt a less-than-ideal tone. But
tread lightly here... musicians (even novices) can be very sensitive about “their

Recording - July 2013

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