How to Record a Guitar

Let me say something right here, right now –

A $200 Fender Squire Guitar does not sound like a REAL Fender Strat even if it's from the first shipment.... it's 1/4 the price of a REAL Strat cause it sounds 1/4 as good! You get what you pay for!

To get a great guitar sound, you need a great guitar, same for an amp. However, not many of us can afford Pink Floyd’s David Gilmore’s Fender Strat Serial No. 0000. So the purpose of this article is to help you get the best guitar sound you can, or how not to get a really BAD guitar sound when recording!

I have a theory that most of the BEST guitars were built before The Beatles made it big in the US – that is, before February 1964.

A mate of mine reckons the best Gibsons are from 1960-64.

I base this theory on the fact that before the Beatles hit in 1964, guitars weren’t selling in HUGE volumes, wood was relatively cheap, and there were lots of it, and most of it old, so the wood used in the pre-1964 guitar was well “cured” and perfect for its purpose “to sound really bloody good with strings and pick-ups attached”.

Along came those pesky bugs, and all of a sudden shops weren’t shifting a guitar a day, they were shipping 5, multiply that around the world, Leo Fender was jumping up and down as were Gibson and Gretsch.

Now I reckon about 6 months later, one of the guys from the back room would have said “Hey Leo (Fender), you know our store of wood out the back that’s been there for 5 years, well it’s gone”. So goes my theory that as time went on the woods used were less cured, younger and generally of less quality – as the Beatles got bigger, guitars were created from lower quality woods.

Anyway, I know a lot of folk won’t agree with that, but I’ve recorded over 300 full length CDs and over 1,000 demos, and my main session guitarist has many of those classic guitars – I’ve heard them. I am rarely impressed by new guitars – BUT and there’s always a BUT – sometimes a guitar comes in to dispel all the theories -  I’ve got my best slide guitar sounds out of a crap Jap copy, and my best acoustic guitar sound out of 1 mic on a brand new acoustic guitar – so, never say never!!! But I digress...

How to mic up an electric guitar

I have written an article recently on “How to mic up Drums” – it was simple – A-B-C-nothing can go wrong.

With a guitar, it’s WAY more subjective, but I’ll give you an idea of what I do, it may not be the “Holy Grail” of recording a guitar, but if you do as I say, you’ll be at a good starting place, consider it a “Get out of jail free card”. It’ll stop you from going in the wrong direction.

As in my “How to mic drums” article, I’m aiming at the “Rock-Pop” guitar sound – not jazz or fusion, which might need more brightness, or metal stuff that needs way more “Grunge-overdrive” or roots/blues which needs more air and room sound.

Firstly, if you have an amp with a “Presence” knob, turn it off.  Do you know what it is? Most guys don’t – it’s an “ultra high” treble control. I reckon guitars are pretty bright – turn the amp off and play an “E” chord – does that sound bright? Well, leave the presence knob off unless you have a really old Gibson or something that is really dull!

So put the Bass and Mids on kinda 1, 2, 3 or 4  and treble on 2,3,4 or 5.  Most amps won’t need the tone knobs to be more than 5.

MIDS - Watch out for “honk” – pull the mids back 1 notch and the volume up one notch – sounds better?

BASS - Adding bass often just adds “woof” – not bass – be very careful.

TREBLE - Guitars are already bright – watch you don’t cut someone’s head off with this powerful knob!

OVERDRIVE / DISTORTION - Here’s a big one – say you’ve got a $2,000 amp and a $150 stomp box – where do you reckon you’ll get the best overdrive – ding! 1st prize - answer... the Amp. Don’t have your $150 distortion pedal on 10 and your amp on 1 – get it from the amp and if it needs it, add a pedal  for that extra edge.

One thing to note, I’ve learned that if you want a guitar to sound No.8 overdrive on a recording, you’ll need to record it with a No.6 overdrive – in other words, on a set of speakers, an amp and guitar sound MORE overdriven than it does in the room.

In general, I find most guitars are recorded too bright with too much overdrive/distortion. Bring it back a bit and see if it sounds better. It probably will.

MICS - I will normally use a “soft” mic and a “hard” mic. The hard mic is always a Shure SM57, everyone uses them, I can see no reason to change, get an older one if you can, the new ones from Mexico don’t sound as good.

I use an AKG C-12 or a Neumann U-87 as the soft mic. These are pretty expensive mics, but most large diaphragm condenser mics will do – BUT WATCH OUT – most new mics you buy these days, especially Rode mics, are WAY too bright.

So place the mics facing the centre of the cone, and if that’s too bright, face them a bit towards the edge more.

Make sure – MAKE SURE – the mics are in phase.  To make sure, flip the phase of one of the mic channels and if it sounds absolutely disgusting, then that means this setting is WAY out of phase, which means your previous setting, unflipped, is WAY in phase – good.

If there’s not much difference between the sounds when you flip, then the mics are only kinda in phase – move one and try again.

Depending upon the song, you might want a room mic, any mic will do as long as it sounds good. Try Figure 8 or omni – see what sounds best and flip the phase again and see what sounds best.

F/X or no F/X?

Good question. It’s always possible to add effects like reverb, delay, chorus, flange etc. on mixdown, but sometimes it’s better to do it live, with the effects on the guitar when recording. Sometimes when you add it afterwards, it doesn’t sound as realistic or funky. Guitarists also tend to play to the sound they hear, so if you’re doing a funky rhythm with delay or a Pink Floyd solo with reverb, you play accordingly.

Sometimes though it might be wise to add it later if you’re not sure how much effect you might want on the track. The more you record, the more you’ll be able to judge how much you want... just keep at it!

So there you have it, now NOTHING can go wrong.

Permission to reproduce this article is available to all,
as long as you include attribution to myself including contact details
and let me know where you have used the material.
Jeff Cripps
A# Sharp Recording Studio
Email: jeff@asharp.com.au
Phone: +612 9153 9988

[ Back to Resources Index ]