If you want to take your electric guitar recordings to the next level, you’ve come to the right place. Recording an electric guitar is not complicated at all, the difficult part is making it sound good, right? But there are some techniques and tricks that can greatly improve your recordings. Therefore, on this occasion, I will tell you the 10 essential tips for recording an electric guitar in the best way.
Guide
10 Tips for Recording an Electric Guitar1. Best way: mic the amplifier2. Type of microphone for recording3. Amplifier size doesn’t matter4. Find a good room5. Position it very close to the amplifier6. Record as cleanly as possible7. Duplicate track8. Make sure you use good studio monitors for mixing9. Cheaper alternative: Direct cable recording10. Improve your cable recording with a simulator
10 tips for Recording an Electric Guitar
1. Best way: mic the amplifier
The best way to record an electric guitar is to place a microphone on the amplifier and record that signal. While connecting the electric guitar directly is not a bad option, a microphone will capture the more realistic sound of an electric guitar. It is That is to say, guitar amplifiers excel at giving that unique tone to the electric guitar that we want to have in our recordings. And there is no better way to capture this by recording the signal with a microphone.
The path would be: Guitar connected to the amplifier –> Microphone captures the sound from the amplifier –> The audio interface receives the signal from the microphone and sends it to the computer.
2. Type of microphone for recording
So, what type of microphone is best for recording an electric guitar amp?
Most producers agree that dynamic microphones are the best option as they can pick up loud, loud volumes like those from an amplifier without causing problems. The famous Shure SM57 microphone (Amazon / Thomann) is one of the options most chosen and economical to record with good quality.
On the other hand, sometimes condenser microphones are also chosen for certain occasions to record electric guitars. But for them to be capable, they have to have a fairly high maximum SPL for them to achieve this. But generally dynamic ones are the best option to go with.
3. Amplifier size doesn’t matter
The size of the amplifier is a very misleading factor. The truth is that only the size of the amplifier matters when we talk about playing live, since high volumes are required. But when we talk about the studio… it is not a factor that matters not at all.If you have a 10 or 15W amplifier, it will be totally fine. A 50W amp will not sound better than a 15W amp for recording an electric guitar.
4. Find a good room
When we get into recording terms, the place where we position ourselves always comes to mind. It is important to find a place with good acoustics to avoid reverberations throughout the environment. It does not mean that you have to acousticize your room (although You can also do it), but rather find a room with little echo. Some factors help a lot to generate good acoustics, such as carpets, furniture and shelves. But there are other types of signs that do not help much, such as empty rooms, bathrooms or very large unfurnished rooms.
5. Position it very close to the amplifier
The best position of the amplifier in terms of distance from the amplifier is very close (between 1 and 10 centimeters). This is done to avoid room reverberations and unwanted noises as much as possible. Regarding the position of around the cone of the amplifier, the best way depends on the sound you want to get. If you position the microphone in the center of the cone, you will get a bright sound with more low and high frequencies. If you push it further towards the edge of the cone, you will have an emphasis on the mid frequencies with a more balanced tone. Closer to the edge is often recommended for this reason, but it really depends on the sound you want to achieve.
6. Record as cleanly as possible
Another tip I can give is to record as clean of effects as possible.
Why?
By recording the clean guitar signal, we will have a better margin to later edit the guitar in the mix as we want. You almost always have better results this way. When recording with effects, many times the recording does not sound the same and you cannot go back.
What is the exception?
Firstly, an exception to this rule is if you have analog effects that are difficult to imitate by DAW VSTs. And second, if there is an effect such as distortion that is vital to your song and you cannot find it the same in any VST .
7. Duplicate the track
Track duplication is one of the best-known techniques to generate a better feeling of depth and realism in many instruments and voices. This technique consists of recording the same thing twice with the guitar and then panning each track to a different side (left and right).This makes the guitar sound much more powerful and with a much fuller and deeper feel.
8. Make sure you use good studio monitors for mixing
This is one of the basics of production, using studio monitors to mix. To be able to hear what was actually recorded, you need a reference point that shows the reality of the track. This is what studio monitors do. studio, display a flat frequency response, to hear the mix without alterations. If you are new to the production field, you don’t want to spend too much money to start, you can check this list of cheap but good studio monitors.
9. Cheaper alternative: Direct cable recording
As I mentioned in point 1, the best way to get a realistic electric guitar sound is to mic the amplifier. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t get good results using direct cable. If you don’t already have a microphone to record amplifier, connecting the electric guitar directly into the interface can get a very good sound. This eliminates the worry of external factors such as ambient reverberation or noise. It is much simpler and sounds very good. In the next point I give you tips to improve these recordings.
10. Improve your cable recording with a simulator
To improve direct cable recordings and achieve a sound similar to that of the amplifier, you can use a VST guitar amplifier simulator. It is an economical and quite useful option to achieve a professional-sounding sound using guitar wiring. There are free options such as PositiveGrid’s BIAS AMP 2 or various LePau simulators. You can check in this other post all the amplifier simulators there are.
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