| 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 Some of the info here may be outdated but many of the audio recording and home studio tips are still good.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: direct guitar recording
by Andre | 06/06/01 at 19:15:26
Hi Can anyone help.
I am trying to build a studio over the next year or so. Can anyone advise me to what is the best way to record DI guitar so that I can get a versatile and pro sound. Any good advice on which are the best units our there such as the Lexicon G2, Digitech ADA, etc.. I recently bought a J-Station, but I think it lacks warm and presence, but it may just be me !!
Any advice would be great I am willing to look into tube preamps, incombination with effects etc. (anything for a great sound) So if any one can get a really great guitar sound without miking an amp, I would really love suggestions.
Thanks for your time
All the best
Andre ::)
Subject: Re: direct guitar recording
by Jon_B | 06/06/01 at 20:14:56
I'm sure there is stuff out there that is pretty good, but the reason people usually don't want to mike a guitar amp is because it's loud. I use an attenuator between the output of the amp and the cab so I can crank the amp (it has tubes in both pre and output sections) without ear damage/stuff rattling/neighbors calling cops. I use a Marshall Power Brake, but there might be less expensive units that do the trick.
Subject: Re: direct guitar recording
by xigaa | 06/07/01 at 00:06:11
I've been recording DI on a Roland 840ex for about a year, and have been happy with the results. I've had to tweak the parameters a lot, especially compression -- which can make it too noisy. But I think I've found some lush guitar sounds, from clean & punchy to aggressive & dirty without a preamp. I'd recommend checking out the outboard Roland gear VG-8? or maybe the Boss stuff. ;D
Subject: Re: direct guitar recording
by Haywire | 06/07/01 at 01:59:08
Andre, in addition to the Power Brake, the Sholz Power Soak and the THD Hotplate are both attenuators. I've never used an attenuator, (but over the years have gotten to know many a law enforcement officer on a first name basis)but from what I've heard, your tone will suffer as attenuation is increased. This stands to reason. That's not to say that you can't get some cool sounds going that route, but power tubes and speakers don't like attenuation. Having said that...some amps now have power soak capability built into them (Hugues & Kettner and Koch to name a couple). That would be another option, albeit a pricey one.
You could also look into building a speaker isolation cabinet. Again, I have never used them, but it's an option worth looking at, and you'd be better able to preserve the natural tonal qualities of your amp.
You may want to try to borrow a POD v.2 and see what you think. I'm not big on gizmos, but this thing is amazing to me, and fun to experiment with. I have gotten some very nice DI sounds with it ;)
Subject: Re: direct guitar recording
by Harry | 06/07/01 at 02:48:31
Second time in two days I agree with Haywire:
try the Line 6 POD. Don't be put off by the cheap price. It sounds more realistic than other digital boxes I have heard. I'm no pro but a friend of mine does session work and sells soundtrack stuff, and he has used the POD succesfully for those applications.
Subject: Re: direct guitar recording
by Bonafide | 06/07/01 at 09:25:52
I also have to agree about the Line 6 stuff. I used the POD and POD Pro last year exclusively until I started micing my Fender for a different approach. Some of the Line 6 guitar tones to tape were simply amazing. Like anything it takes practice. Funny thing about the 'modeling' sounds, some of the sounds might not sound 'right' in the headphones or going down to tape (In this case hard disk) but 'in the mix' those guitar tones were just smokin', very alive and present.
cheers.
Subject: Re: direct guitar recording
by Andre | 06/07/01 at 13:53:46
Thanks everyone for all you time in replying,
I really apprecaite it
Andre :)