How to record a FULL RANGE guitar sound?

[albee1952]

Since you don't really know what your room is doing yet, check the bottom octaves with the best set of headphones you have. You really asked 2 questions here. #1-how to RECORD a full range sound. And #2-how can you make it sound full range, now that you are mixing.

Re #1, many good suggestions already. with an open-back amp, I often mic the cab from both sides, flip polarity on the rear mic and balance(both for live mixing, and for recording). When recording, I will also check for time-alignment by zooming in and using Tab to Transient on the front and rear tracks, and nudge the rear(if its off) so its exactly lined up with the front. Room mics are great, except that they pick up everything(like the drums)

Re #2, make sure your room and monitors are not fooling you(going thru the same ordeal in my new room right now). Maybe duplicate the track a few times and use EQ(and AIR KILL) to divide the frequency ranges, giving you more control. Maybe leave the track with just the lows in the center, but spread the high tracks across the stereo field with some mono-stereo enhancement, a stereo room reverb or some judicious delays that are panned hard. What you heard in the room, during recording, would also have included some extra "oomph" if the amp was sitting on the floor, maybe some stage resonance(some stages are worse than others), lots of room reflections and even some PA contribution

Last 2 cents, experiment Maybe none of these ideas does the trick, but maybe spurs you to try something else that nobody has mentioned. Maybe send the DI track out thru a bass amp and record that(nudge into alignment) and use that track to fill in the bottom.

[kasman]

You might also experiment using a multiband compressor or dynamic eq plugin to attenuate higher frequencies and emphasize the mid-low frequencies.

[jclark5093]

Tried a dynamic EQ, that helped some, but I found what really helped was cranking my master volume. Once I put it close to 100dB, it sounds much closer, so there must be a fletcher-muncen thing going on, that's all it comes down to. I need to check some curves at lower levels (where people actually listen in their car with passengers, living room, etc) and perhaps make adjustments to the EQ based on that... I've never take this into account, always understanding that's for mastering, depending if it's going to vinyl or cd, I never know, but because there's no bass this time...

Very odd experience for me!

[Bookerv12]

I still remember with sorrow the day that I learned....
The only way to get the guitar to sound like it does in the room, is to have the recorded guitar playing back at the same sound pressure level as it was in the room.
This is difficult, because even if you do capture the thump, as soon as you turn the sound pressure level down, that effect is gone.
Harmonic generating pluggins are a good place to start, MaxBass, RBass, etc....
To fool your brain into thinking it's there.

[DannyB_KY]

Some of you mentioned recording the guitar amp with a ribbon mic.

Ribbon mics are usually Figure 8 pattern. What do you with the backside which faces the room?

[jclark5093]

Originally Posted by DannyB_KY

Some of you mentioned recording the guitar amp with a ribbon mic.

Ribbon mics are usually Figure 8 pattern. What do you with the backside which faces the room?

Pick up the sound of the room? I think that's part of the idea, anyway... Still doesn't get the full sound, and I believe I've come to a conclusion that makes sense:

After much thought on the matter, I realize that in person, in the studio or in a concert setting, we hear music differently than we do in the control room, or in the car. In the car, we hear music differently than we do in headphones. My theory is that a part of this is because a part of what we *experience* when we listen to music is kinesthetic and not auditory! We have kinestethic sensory receptors in our muscles and joints, and the neural pathways seem to be the same ones that sense cutaneous pressure! So when you're at a fireworks display and feel the "boom/thud" of the short bright bursts (the ones that remind people of canons?) you don't just HEAR the explosion in your ears (which wouldn't be able to be captured with normal studio microphones, or reproduced on normal studio monitor speakers either), but you FEEL it as well. Maybe using a subwoofer backwards as a microphone could accomplish this, and then playback on a system that has a subwoofer that goes down to 4Hz or something (with whatever *massive* power requirements it would take to get those frequencies close to what they are in the room, with or without taking the fletcher munsen curve into account).

Otherwise, the thing I'm lacking (that I want to accomplish) is to get the feeling of the "chest pounding" you get at a concert in front of a full stack of 4x12s. That's not possible with SM57s, 421, 409, U87, or anything else I can think of.

How do we get that THUD? That CHEST pumping BASS response from a 6 string electric guitar amp?

[Darryl Ramm]

I’m not sure the point of this thread. If the best you are using is a low-end pair of M-Audio monitors you are not going to reproduce the sound of a live drummer and guitarist in the room.

You tracked in untreated presumably relatively small room, the drums and guitar amp are very likely to be exciting room modes. That could very well give pleasant low-end extension... which playing back on low-power monitors in a different space is just not going to reproduce. And cranking up your monitors trying to produce higher SPL will likely just produce a muddy mess.

This whole discussion seems a waste of time until you improve the monitoring.

I also don’t follow why you did not jump on suggestions earlier of micing the room. Seems a good thing to try. Or so at least try backing off one of the cab mics. and give yourself a chance of picking up more room resonance and reverb to see what that does.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[amagras]

You won't get as much as a full range with a Blues Jr. unless it's been modified, and still... Try at least a half stack or a 4x12. Also make sure to get all the stereo room you can as previously mentioned.

[jclark5093]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

I’m not sure the point of this thread. If the best you are using is a low-end pair of M-Audio monitors you are not going to reproduce the sound of a live drummer and guitarist in the room.

You tracked in untreated presumably relatively small room, the drums and guitar amp are very likely to be exciting room modes. That could very well give pleasant low-end extension... which playing back on low-power monitors in a different space is just not going to reproduce. And cranking up your monitors trying to produce higher SPL will likely just produce a muddy mess.

This whole discussion seems a waste of time until you improve the monitoring.

You won't get as much as a full range with a Blues Jr. unless it's been modified, and still... Try at least a half stack or a 4x12. Also make sure to get all the stereo room you can as previously mentioned.

The Blues Jr makes big sound in the room. Guess it's a lively room as Darryl Ramm suggested. Even with mic'ing the room, or using the A room in my local studio, or recording at a venue in a hall (lively room on purpose, no?) I don't seem to be able to capture the BIGNESS of the single guitar amp, because of 1) the SPL which doesn't translate well, mixed or not, and 2) some of the experience of the music is not audible - that part is difficult to reproduce even for cinema - took a long time before anyone figured that one out!

[amagras]

You could get really big guitar sounds with a sm57 if you find the right amp, but big is relative. A Blues Jr might sound big alone but if you take the time to compare it's nothing next to a real amp. I'd rent at least a Deville with greenbacks if I were you. The bjr was intentionally crippled in design so it wouldn't be a strong contender to its bigger brothers. What you are hearing is probably volume, remember that loud sounds better, once you put that in the context text of a mix it is not loud anymore, and the true tone of the amp shows.