I’ve been thinking awhile about this post. What are you guitar players using for recording in terms of instruments, amps, amp emulators, acoustic guitars and mics. I, for one, am never satisfied with my sound, though I’m not sure, at times, what I’m looking for!
Right now I have a Fender VG (Virtual Guitar). It has some nice features with drop, alternate tunings and faux (very faux) acoustics. My goto amp emulator is Nigel on my UAD-1 card. Have NI Guitar Rig Lite but don’t particularly like it. Was going to purchase the AXE-FX II but that $2500 price tag is very steep. I recently tried out the demo of Scuffham Amps S-Gear (PC only) and for $75 it’s very nice.
For acoustic I have a Martin D-18 and use various mics. Neuman U-89, AKG-414 or Shure SM7. I never get an acoustic sound I’m happy with so any tips there would be welcome.
For a mic-pre I have the Manley Labs Langevin or sometimes use the mic ins on my MOTU 828 MK3.
So, what are all you guitar players using for your recording setup?
Up until last year I used a Mesa Single Rectifier combo, a palmer speaker load to get a rock sound, but since then I’ve had to downsize, and I was constantly frustrated with tweaking and never getting the perfect sound anyway, so I sold all that stuff and now use digitech RP500 which I’ve had for several years but didn’t use much. Now I use it all the time. Quite a variety of sounds, built in effects, balanced outs too. Turn it on, plug in the guitar, play. Love it.
Just wanted to share this regarding recording acoustic guitars. I like probably many of us have my studio at home. I live in a condo, and the room sounds great but I have a lot of external noise from outside, on the street so miking my acoustic can be a problem.
A couple of months ago I picked up a Fishman Aura Spectrum DI, and a Fishman Black Water pickup. Although the Spectrum DI is primarily used for live applications, it sounds great for recording, and has really helped with the noise issue.
i have also used it in conjunction with a mic as well. What I like is that the acoustic guitars sound very natural going direct without that “tinny” sound that acoustic/eletrics can sometimes get.
Highly recommend it.
BTW Gary, thanks for the heads up on the Fishman Aura Spectrum DI, and Fishman Black Water pickup. I will check them out.
As a side note to my acoustic guitar sound dilemma is that my AKG-414, Neuman U-89 and Shure SM81 are about 25 years old so the capsules are probably loaded with good old L.A. smog and other crud. I really should get those cleaned and/or rebuilt.
Hey Art, sounds like you need to borrow or rent a microphone and do some A/B testing!
Yes, I’ve thought about that.
One of my main frustrations is not having a good space to record in. I miss my studio! I built a great one when I was living in Nashville but needed to come back to L.A. Rebuilt my studio here then sold the house. Can’t wait to get into a house again so I can have a proper space.
Yeah, a good space is a plus. Good for you living in Nashville and LA at different times. More opportunities for you I’m sure. Funny thing, over the years Boston musician friends would announce they were moving to LA. 90% would return and usually pretty quickly.
P.S.- I’m not seeing any emails when new comments are posted today?
Hi Michael, Ironically most of the studio players I knew and worked with moved to Nashville and never came back. I never thought I would come back to L.A. but happy I did.
Thanks for the heads up on the comment e-mails. Been trouble shooting slow site issues and plug-ins have been getting deactivated and activated. Should be working now as I re-activated that plug-in.
Guitars……….. I have too many 🙂
For electrics I have a love/hate thing going on with both Guitar Rig & Pods. At the moment I’m finding guitar rig best for cleans and the pod best for OD. Though lengthy exposure to either of these tends to make me set up a real amp, break out the pedals and mic the whole thing. Which does take more time, but sounds much much better 🙂
Acoustics – I mic with either a sontronics condenser and/or a Rode valve mic, via a channel strip or valve compressor, depending on the mics.
An enjoyable addition to the MLR cannon.
I have a pretty dated and antiquated setup here in Japan which is partly due to the fact that if you tell your students here you are looking for something, it often turns up a few weeks later. So my guitars are a Tokai(well known for their Strats) Les Paul and a Morris (A Japanese budget range which at the top end and makes pretty good guitars) acoustic.
I still use Cubase SX1 and an Edirol UA700 Audiocapture interface with a fairly standard laptop.
For recording electric guitar I usually use the input on the interface which has modelling effects. They aren’t particularly good but work well in the mix on rhythm parts. For lead work I prefer something which cuts through and so I mic up my Fender Champ with a SM58 and/or a Rode NT2. (One thing that worked well was putting the amp on a small low fairly hefty table and miking it up and then covering it with quilts. The table resonated as well as the amp sound.)
I tried a tube mic but it was a bit too airy and clear.
I also tried the Johnson J-Station but didn’t feel it cut it.
For recording acoustic guitar I use the NT2 and I have a little trick to make it stand out yet work well in the mix. In Cubase SX1 their is a plugin called Craig Anderton Quadrafuzz (which might be available still) has a setting called ‘bright notes’ which is for bass but works brilliantly on acoustic guitar.
I do feel that even with a very basic setup, if you know your kit well you can still get pretty good results.
Cheers
Ian
Hi Art,
>For acoustic I have a Martin D-18 and use various mics. Neuman U-89, AKG-414 or Shure SM7. I never get an acoustic sound I’m happy with so any tips there would be welcome.<
Well, the D-18 is a large guitar. Have you ever tried using a Small diaphragm condenser instead of your large diaphragms or the Shure dynamic? I have two Oktava MC-012's I like to use in some cases. Aim it where the neck meets the body, about six inches away.
BTW- I visited the Martin guitar factory last month! They have a tour, museum and shop. I could email you a link to pictures if you're interested.
Hi Michael,
I think you may be thinking of the D-28 as a large guitar. I had one of those but while that was great live I think it’s too big for recording. The D-18 is a small body guitar and is usually a good recording guitar. I have tried micing at just about every position. I misspoke on using an SM7 it’s actually a Shure SM81 which is a small diaphragm condenser mic. I haven’t tried a dynamic though. I do have some SM57s so I will try that. I recently got a Seymour Duncan “in hole” pickup which makes the Martin sound a bit like a jazz guitar. Combing the pickup and mic sound is kind of cool though.
Love to see the pics. Thanks!
Hmm… a nice Martin, good microphones both large and small diaphragm. Different mic placements. I don’t think the 57 will do much for you. I guess it’s either your recording space or you’re just too picky! I think I heard some of your acoustic on Music Loops? Didn’t notice a problem with the sound. I’d like to get a Martin triple 0 someday. Just as soon as the music business picks up and people start paying again right… 🙂
When we were living in Nashville I heard a lot of Taylors and really liked the way they sounded. I might go for one of those or maybe try out the new James Tyler Variax. Didn’t much like the original Variax. Sigh… Maybe I am too picky.
Hi Art,
Did you ever try a double or triple O sized guitar? They seem to record really well. How about putting the mic over your shoulder at ear level or in front of you just above your head facing at a slight angle. These seem to work pretty well along with the 12th fret mic. Just food for thought.
Thanks for the tips euca but my space is too noisy (computer noise, though the computer is in a closet) for any distance micing.
Yeah a guitar thread! I have a Hughes&kettner Zentera which i’ve been using for over 10 years. This combo has 2 speakers for live but i always use the direct outs, these sound great directly into the computer. It even has Spdif outs so direct stereo if you like.
All rockguitar sound i play 2 times with different eq settings and pan hard L/R.
If i am in a hurry then the Waves CLA Guitar plugin is a great way to record crunch and heavy parts. All of the Waves CLA plugs are great imo (esp the vocal, bass and guitar plugs)
For acoustic i use a Garrison and record through a tube preamp.
I have fairly cheap mics (Rode and Blue) but they work well enough for me.
I also double alot of parts when playing acoustic.
I always add compression and a bit of Waves Doubler to the sound.. 99% of the time i’m happy.
Tip for beginning acoustic players and recording is: don’t hit the strings so hard!!! You kill the sound that way.
Tip 2. try playing without a pick, just with fingers if you want a warm sound.
Tip 3 don’t use really, really new strings when recording because of the high fret noise you can get. Esp when adding compression and reverb.
Great tips 50Styles. Most of this I do, doubling, fingers, etc. I do try to use newer strings on acoustic as I like the clarity. I go in an lower the fret noise with a volume envelope. I don’t kill the fret noise, just bring it down. Tedious but really doesn’t take that long.
I either use podfarm 2.0 or direct recording of my amp (mesa boogie mark v). When recording the mark v, I run it into a hotplate set for load, then take the hotplate line out into my daw. Once in the daw, I apply speaker impulses to mimic the sound of a miked cab.
I am planning on getting a line 6 variax guitar in the near future. I haven’t had luck miking my acoustics all, and hope to improve on those tones with the variax.
My setup is very simple. I’m using a Boss GT-10 as an interface. I bought it for playing live but now I’m only doing home studio recording, its sole purpose is as the input for my electric guitars. From there, it goes into Rammfire (GR4). No mics or amps involved.
If I had the budget, I’d buy an Axe-FX Ultra in a heartbeat, but would only use one or two sounds and therefore be a waste.
I have to add something about guitar amp software. I’m always looking for better amp emulators and was going to pop for Fractal Audio Systems AXE-FX II at about $2500. Then I discovered Scuffham Amps S-Gear – http://www.scuffhamamps.com/. $75 and a free 15 day trial. Man I love this! Never could get into NI’s Guitar Rig and had been using the Nigel on my UAD-1 card. Anyway YMMV but check out Scuffam Amps.
Hi Art,
From a guitarist’s perspective, what is it that you don’t like about Guitar Rig? You’re not the only one who’s underwhelmed by it. There was a thread on VI about guitar processors and Guitar Rig didn’t even get mentioned.
Is it the architecture or the sound? I’m not a guitar player, so I’m not familiar with how all of the amps and stomp boxes should sound.
Cheers,
Michael
Hi MichaelL, I only have the light version of Guitar Rig but the “crunch” sounds very digital to me. I think the Scuffham Amps S-Gear comes a lot closer to sounding like a real amp.
@Art, That S-gear stuff sounds great and at a great price!! I am running Mac so I guess I will have to wait until it’s available, bummer!
That’s right, I forgot it’s PC only.
Hey Art,
I just listened to the S-Gear demos. Sounds great. Guess I’ll be adding this the the toolkit when the Mac version comes out.
Thanks for the heads-up.
@Dennis, sorry for drifting from the original post, but you could use this plug too!
Cheers,
Michael
I’ve been thinking of writing a post “Calling All Guitar Players” to discuss what everyone is using. I guess I should get on this and move all these comments to there:)
I’m using a 40 year old Twin that has ten tubes and weighs over 80 pounds. 🙂
Eh…you guitar players.
You haven’t lived until you’ve hauled around a Leslie!
I’m sooooo thankful for plugins.
Michael
Our band had two Leslies and who do think was called on to help lift those suckers into the van. The guitar and bass player!
Well worth it’s weight though!!
OMG, at one point I had two of those. There are parts of my body that haven’t been the same since!
My Twin is like an old friend. I got it when I was around 17 years old and I’m 49 now! It’s the only gigging amp I’ve ever owned and it has seen some serious use. It was modified in the 80’s with channel switching and an effects loop. The guts are now mounted in a new custom built housing, the original gave out some years back. I’ve been through countless sets of wheels and tubes. If anyone needs the name of a great tube amp repair shop in the Boston area I can get you a name!