3 Bad Habits of Electric Guitar Recording (And What You Should Do Instead)

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[@jackleyton5504]

One mic, one speaker and three large, hollow aluminum barrels, and you have your guitar tone. Rock On.

[@goodtimefolkrock]

Bad habit # 4 : storing barrels of toxic waste in your studio.......

[@PeterJacobKotarak]

As far as the pedals thing goes, you're speaking as an engineer and not a musician. Guitarists with a lot of pedals are used to playing with them, and getting rid of them and abruptly changing their set up and tone will make them play worse. Not to mention if people are working on a modest budget, they probably don't have the opportunity to try out a bunch of different amps/guitars etc. It's all about getting the sound and making the client happy. That being said, I agree with what you're saying

[@lonnyhandwork422]

Sorry man. Have to disagree with the premise of this video. Everything you discuss here are perfectly valid techniques... but so is micing with multiple mics (say an SM57 and an R121) throwing the amp on the floor and plug into it with a 50' coiled cable and a ton of pedals. To say that these are "bad habits" is misleading.

[@willgaines5269]

The reason that I put multiple microphones on one amp, whether recording or live, is to give myself options to work with. I don't always end up using both of them, but if I want to, I can compare the sound I'm getting from any of the mics and decide which combination (or which one) gives me the sound that I'm looking for. This is especially helpful in a live setting when it's not always easy to go backstage and change the mic positioning on a whim.

[@robertm2000]

The best thing I ever did for my recording of guitar was ... I learned to play the damn thing!!

[@simons.2281]

as a guitar player in a psychedelic/doom band, I strongly disagree with this whole video. you want the full range of your guitar sound because it‘s basically the most important thing in this genre. you want many pedals because creating spacy sounds and different gain textures in jam sessions is what this music is about. same goes for shoegaze and other guitar/effects driven genres. outside of these genres though, I agree.

[@immatureradical]

So your list of bad habits about guitar recording are why do guitarists often like to capture a respectable portion of our sound, why do we use the effects that we like, and essentially, why do we want our tone on a recording to be similar to how we sound, and all of these as a sweeping statement where you don't seem to differantiate where your prefered approach might be more appropriate and when it might be not? Well, that doesn't sound very constructive, let alone relevant to the title of your video.

[@Eric_Thompson]

The is the first no-nonsense video on recording I've seen KZbin. Most other videos are filled with experimental unorthodox techniques instead of using tried and true methods applied with common sense. And for the record, most LDCs can capture the entire FR of a guitar amp using only one mic. Whenever I've done shootouts, LDCs always sound better than dynamics on amps

[@RAULDIAZ-re9ju]

Like the idea of lifting the Amp off ground.. But crazy how many studio engineers just leave the amps on the floor

[@Melvin7727]

I love your presentation style, but I respectfully disagree with most of those points in the first section of the video. For anyone curious:

[@giordash]

Great video. On pedals: in most cases, you should definitely have the simplest path to the amplifier. However, if you're recording a live off the floor session with a shoegaze band, you may not have that luxury. In this kind of situation, buffers and buffered bypass pedals are actually your best friend. What sucks the high end out of your guitar tone is the high impedance of the multiple feet of cabling from your guitar, in between all your pedals, and back to your amp. A buffer is going to lower the impedance of the signal through all of the cabling and restore much if not all of the top end you get just going direct into the amp. I highly recommend Axxess buffers, but if you can't get your hands on one, try throwing a Boss pedal (or another buffered bypass pedal) at the beginning and end of a long effects chain with 30+ feet of cable. Take them out and watch all of your top end will go with them. I encourage anyone to try this if you don't believe me. It will influence every choice you make after the sound comes out of the amp.

[@leonk6950]

I only singlemic guitars, but I think that especially for guitar driven genres ( metal, rock) it's great. Also, using similar mics that aren't completely the same ( sm75+beta75) and panning them hard left and right can give awesome stereo effects. I like doing such things and then, when doubletracking only panning like 80%. That gives even more space and immersion

[@JakeSusla]

Love the channel Ryan! I went to school for audio engineering and started as a part time studio engineer soon after I graduated. Even though I learned a lot of concepts and got a lot of mixing experience in school, there was only one live room for tracking. So heading into the studio my experience in recording was definetely sub par. Watching your videos have given me so many ideas and has helped exponentially with the tracking side of things and have greatly improved the sound of the songs I've worked on. Thanks for all the thorough videos!

[@underpressureman]

for the 57 could you just solder the resistor into the pins on the mic?

[@robbievalentine8239]

Excellent video my friend! Love the approach. Where can we find a link to some of your work!

[@russianvideovlogguy]

Ryan can you please provide a schematic for the step-down box?

[@edwhite7475]

thanks for the tips on the SM microphones. ive got some extra ones from when i used to gig live, im going to modify them now and see what happens.

[@KidHellacious]

Hey man. Been really learning a lot from your videos. Thank you. I don't know if you'll read this, but if you do, I'm having a lot of trouble. I love and take a lot of pride in my guitar tone but when I put a mic in front of it, it sounds like garbage in my daw. Just using an sm57. I guess my question is, is my amp too loud? I still have no idea how loud it should be...

[@pabloAXMO]

Love that Argentinian wine Barrel!! great tips! cheers from Argentina!