Here are a few "getting started" ideas, tips and tricks for recording and mixing electric guitars.
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LESS EXPENSIVE |
MID-HIGH RANGE |
GENEROUS BUDGET |
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MICROPHONES (Close) |
Shure SM57, Audix i5 (both good on snare drums) Cascade Fathead II |
Shure SM57, Audix i5, ElectroVoice RE20 (good on kick drums and some vocals), Sennheiser MD421 (good on drums too) Beyer M160, Royer 121, Cascade Fathead II |
Shure SM57, Audix i5, Sennheiser MD421, Royer R-121, 122 and 122V, Coles 4038 (great on drum overheads) |
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MICROPHONES (Room) |
Cascade Fathead II, any good multi-pattern condenser mic especially Røde |
Cascade Fathead II, any good multi-pattern condenser mic. |
Neumann U87, Coles 4038 |
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PREAMPS & COMPRESSORS |
Find a used M-Audio Tampa on eBay, Presonus Tube Pre with a Comp 16, Summit 2BA, Drawmer MX 60, Summit TD-100, GT Brick (active DIs and preamps) Focusrite Trackmaster Pro |
Great River MP-2NV, Universal Audio SOLO 110/610, Empirical Labs Mike-E, Purple Audio MC-77. Think about a 500 series rack or lunchbox if you're planning on expansion. |
Empirical Labs Mike-E, Empirical Labs Distressor, UA 1176, Purple Audio MC-77, EAR 660, UA LA-2, Thermionic Culture Vulture, Thermionic Phoenix SC, DW Fearn |
• Parametric EQ: EQ section with controls for frequency, gain and Q.
• Graphic EQ: An Equalizer with a number of slider controls set on octave or third octave frequency centers.
• Bell EQ: An EQ with a peak in its response.
• 'Q': How wide or narrow the range of frequencies that are affected by an EQ setting. A high Q curve is narrow and a low Q curve is wider.
If a specific band is centered at 1 kHz. a high Q setting will only boost or cut frequencies right around 1 kHz and not affect the signal too far on either side of the selected frequency. High Q settings are used more for surgical adjustments (sometimes called notching) such as removing a ring from a drum or mud from a guitar sound. EQ settings set with a high Q are less obvious, as fewer frequencies are affected, allowing more cut to be used.

A low Q setting affects a wider range of frequencies either side of the selected center frequency. Centering also 1 kHz with a low Q setting, the same curve looks like this:

Lower Q settings are generally used to change the character of a sound, rather than correcting a particular problem.
• EQ: Some will argue, but I believe that any boost of over 5 dB is an indication that you've done something wrong at the recording stage (unless you're deliberately creating an effect). A different mic, different guitar or amp settings or a different mic position would be a better solution.
Your ears are more capable of hearing a boost than a cut at the same frequency. Generally, a 5 dB boost is in a mid-frequency is about as obvious as a 9 dB cut, depending on the 'Q' You can use this to your advantage. To find a frequency where there's an annoying element to the tone of the instrument, first boost the frequency in the approximate area where you think the problem is. By sweeping through the frequencies with an increasingly higher Q, you'll be able to isolate the tone - it will be much more pronounced. Now cut the gain at that point so you're notching out that sound. Balance the Q and the level adjustment so that you're reducing the sound without affecting the sound in the surrounding frequencies. Remember, do this final adjustment listening to the whole mix; you'll often find that less notching is needed than you would think if you listened to the track solo'd.
• EQ: First, get rid of the low junk that shouldn't be there. Hopefully, you recorded using an HPF set at 80Hz, but you'll probably need to scoop out more than that. For lead parts, you'll probably set the HPF to a higher frequency - maybe 150 Hz. The trick is to make room for the bass, while not thinning the sound too much. A common problem is that guitars and bass clash, and the sound is indistinct and muddy, and the bass becomes swamped by the low end of your guitars. Another reason to make EQ adjustments when hearing the guitars and bass in context - solo'd won't work hear, and you won't be impressed with the guitars in isolation.
Secondly, there can be muddiness anywhere from 100 to 500 Hz. Find out where it is by setting a fairly narrow EQ dip (higher Q) and play with the inverted bell until you find the spot where you've got rid of the less useful mud and achieved some definition.
Unfortunately, the effective mid-range of guitars (around 1 – 4 kHz) occupies the same space as vocals. So getting them to coexist happily is one of the challenges you will face when mixing. As the vocals need to be prominent in most cases, you'll have to learn how to use EQ and compression, delays and reverb together with riding faders or using automation in your mixing techniques to make these two components work together.
• Bypass: It's there for a reason. Use it often, and once again, make adjustments in context, not solo'd. It's all too easy to tweak your way into a worse sound - be critical, and if your changes aren't adding to the sound rethink your approach.
• Room Mic: Your room mic can greatly increasing the 'fatness' of your guitar track. You can tweak the apparent size of the room (from studio iso booth to arena) with some judicious delay in front of the room track. Ten miliseconds of delay creates the impression of roughly 10 feet of added distance. It's fake, because it messes with the reflections ratio of what would be natural in a bigger room, but it can work.
In the mix, the room mic can really help create some space, and set right in the mix, can add a different element of 'fatness.' Experiment with a touch of a really short room reverb preceded by EQ rolling off low end and higher frequencies, unless you recorded in a large bright room, in which case the natural room reverb may be all you need, particularly when well processed. Pumping compression can be a great effect too - medium attack and short release. Mixed just behind your main guitar bus can add a great dimension.
Speaking of the room mic, one trick is to use the vocal track to 'duck' the room track - just set up a good compressor with a side chain driven from the vocal track(s) and adjust your compressor to clamp down on the room track during the vocals. This is great to get some movement and dynamics into your track, and help create a space for your vocals which are roughly in the same part of the spectrum as the guitars. Just don't set the attack and release too fast or it'll sound fake.
• Stop listening to solo'd tracks. To isolate a noise, a bum note, or adjust broad effect parameters (to get the routing set and make sure the settings are approximately right), go ahead, but don't waste your time fine-tuning guitar sounds in solo - they almost certainly won't work when in the mix. You need to make these changes when listening to your track in context with the other instruments and vocals. You'll be surprised how often a great sounding guitar track 'in the mix' sounds quite awful solo'd.
• Thickening: Create one or two extra tracks. Make copies of the guitar tracks or regions. Insert a pitch shifter plug-in on each copy, and adjust the cents slider slightly. Also EQ one track so that it is different from the original - you can get brutal with HP and LP filters.
• SubMix channels: Useful for controlling. processing and maybe automating your guitars. Instead of outputting your tracks to the mix bus, route them to a new bus and bring that bus up on new track(s). Now you can add additional processing (see the compression section below) or add the final touches to get them sounding right. Pan to taste - although I often prefer to not use extreme L-R, but instead narrow the stage slightly - your material will determine the best choice. Experiment with adding a really fast delay to one side, returning to the other, with different EQ.
• Dual Stage (Serial) Compression: Often, two compressors are better than one. You need two compressors (or plug-ins) of different types. The first is set to just control the peaks. Use a fast compressor (an FET compressor is good) with the threshold set so only peaks are being affected. Use a fast attack and a fairly aggressive ratio, depending on your tracks. Follow this with another compressor (perhaps a Opto or VCA type) where the threshold is set much lower, with a lower ratio and slower attack than the first compressor, which will affect the body of the sound and help add sustain. Depending on your track, reversing this order of compressors can work better. See here for more details on compressor types. Finally, if you're sending your guitar tracks (perhaps the rhythm guitars) to a guitar sub mix, you can apply more yet more compression on the bus, maybe with a muti-band compressor which can make it play better with other elements of your mix, especially vocals.
This technique often works well on other instruments too, drums and vocals in particular. Set right, two compressors together adding quite heavy compression can sound much more natural than one.
• Parallel Compression.
A technique often used for drums and vocals, this works really well for guitar tracks too. The idea is to have some/all of your guitar tracks routed to a sub mix. Then send the individual guitar tracks to another bus. This bus gets EQ'd and heavily compressed. Bringing the return of the parallel compression bus up so it's just below the level of the main guitar sub mix; this can add a great thick, fat sound without affecting the main attack and definition of your original guitars left unaltered on the GTR SUB (see below). Here's a simple routing which may help you set this up. In the example, Logic is used, but you can adapt it to your system easily.

There are several options which may apply to your particular tracks - whether you send pre/post fade is a consideration, and depends on whether your guitar parts are mostly static, or if you're likely to be riding these levels in a mix. Remember that if set to post fade sends, changing the send levels will affect the effect, as the compression change depending on the levels seen at the compressor's inputs and the threshold set.
That's it for now. Please add additional tricks and tips in the comments section. If this brief article encourages you to try to create your own sounds, then great. Above all, have fun, and help keep alive the concept of developing great rock guitar sounds and textures.