| Home recording and general music post from the archived Yabb Recording Website Message Board. Some of the info here may be outdated but many of the audio recording and home studio tips are still good. Note: The only tags I made and attempt to convert are italics, bold, center and underline. So if you see some gibberish surrounded by brackets, just ignore it.
Recording Website Archived Yabb board Post
Febuary 2001 Yabb Message Board Archive
Subject: Guitar with or without effects?
by Ciccio | 06/05/01 at 16:41:16
Hi! I must record an electric distorted guitar but i don't know if is better to record it directly with the effects or without effects and adding them later!
thanks in advance
Subject: Re: Guitar with or without effects?
by Jon_B | 06/05/01 at 19:36:01
It's best to record w/o fx and add them later so you can hear it along with the rest of the mix. Otherwise it is easy to add too much, too little, or the wrong type of fx.
BTW I've heard (and recorded) distorted guitar w/o fx that sounded great for that in-your-face sound.
Subject: Re: Guitar with or without effects?
by BananaHead | 06/05/01 at 19:50:35
Each way has a different sound... it's up to you to decide which is the right sound for the music. The listener hearing a mic that is in turn hearing a guitar amp/cab with effects, is different from the listener hearing effects that have been put *on the microphone* which is in turn hearing the amp. It that makes sense. They create different effects. Putting the effects before the guitar amp is a more realistic type sound, and putting them on in the mix is a more over-the-top pop/effecty type sound. IMO obviously.
Subject: Re: Guitar with or without effects?
by Haywire | 06/06/01 at 04:42:30
Yeah, it depends on the application. If you're just looking to have distorted guitar as a "fixed" texture in your mix (if that makes any sense) you may be able to add it to a clean track and achieve your goal. For me, I have to record it with distortion. The character of that distortion can be highly variable as you play, dependent upon volume levels, changes in picking technique (attack), chord voicings and so on. For me, that's desirable.You won't hear those nuances when you treat a clean track with the effect. But maybe that isn't an issue for your application. Depends on what you're looking for.
Subject: Re: Guitar with or without effects?
by Harry | 06/06/01 at 04:48:59
I agree with Haywire. The sound I hear while I'm playing has to be at least fairly close to the sound that will end up on the recording, because changing the sound could change the way I play.
Subject: Re: Guitar with or without effects?
by Ciccio | 06/06/01 at 16:12:13
Thank you very much!
I 'll record the guitar with distortion and later add reverbs and delays!