I love recording guitars.

Cirrus

Gushy happy toddler style post here.

It's just so much fun! The last two weeks I've been tracking guitars for my band's second album. We've got a band practice room that I've kicked the other guys out of and set up as my personal recording den with a Vox, Marshall, Mesa and Orange. After our last gig a couple of weeks ago I tore up my pedalboard and I've been having a ball trying out different combinations of guitars, pedals and amps. Experimenting with mic techniques, and just generally treating the Drum/ Bass/ Vocal tracks as a blank canvas to throw guitars onto.

It's been awesome. At the weekend I'm going touch up a bunch of stuff, then it's over and I'm going to have to go back to spending my evenings and weekends in the real world, which'll suck. (for a week at least, then back to do backing vocals, synths etc then endless mixing.)

guitarfishbay

Only one of the photos is loading for me, but sounds like great fun!

So how do you feel about that Mesa combo now you've had some more time to explore it?  I take it that is a Handwired Vox Ac30 head + cab?  Bet it sounds great.

Looks like it might be a fairly big reherasal space too, is this in a rehearsal facility or have you rented something and converted it?

Cirrus

Looks like linking to dropbox pictures doesnt work then, doh! Gone back to trusty old photobucket.

The Mesa Stiletto Ace is great, it really is like a hot-rodded Mesa-Boogie-ish JCM800. The tone stack is weird though, and for a few days I was worried I'd made a horrible mistake as it was painfully bright on the gain channel. Then I tried running the treble all the way off and treating the mid knob like a treble knob - and that's the ticket. It roars and has just a hint of that mesa wall of chainsaws thing going on despite having a quite Marshall-ish picking dynamics. Plus it's a closed back cab which is awesome - plenty of low end punch available. Series effects loop sounds good, and the cleans are nice in both fat and tight modes.

It's also about as loud as the big bang if you crank it up.

No idea what they were thinking making the treble knob deal with such harsh frequencies, but now I've sussed it I can't wait to gig it in a fortnight or so.

Yeps, it's a HW head+cab but i've done quite a lot of tweaking to it, with guidance and assistance from various clever bastards on this forum. Honestly Between the AC30 and Stiletto, the Marshall and Orange hardly got used - just the orange sometimes for extra depth/complexity on layered distortion sounds.

It's a rehearsal facility. We lucked out by knowing the band with the biggest lock-up room when they decided to move out so we nabbed it about three years ago. Some weekday evenings noise from other rooms would preclude recording vocals/ quieter instruments but for cranked amps and close miked cabs it's ideal really!

PolarityMan

Sound clips?

Cirrus

An album's worth lol. I'll do a few clips this aft.

Deijavoo

I'm about to start recording my new band's first ep and I'm not as excited about the guitars as I am the drum sound this time. No idea why as I currently love my new rig. However a mate of mine has just bought a Matchless Independence I fancy blagging a shot of for one session. That could be fun.

Cirrus

Drums are pretty fun too. We did ours over a 7 day period by dry hiring a studio. Was pretty intense, I think if we did it again we'd do two 4 day spells instead. I guess part of the fun I'm having with guitars is just that everyone else is leaving me the fuck alone to get on with it haha!

Was fun experimenting with different drum mic techniques - I found that I like "underheads" out in front of the kit more than overheads. The studio had a decent mic collection too so I got to try C414s on the toms and a U87 out front of the kick + as a mono overhead.

Deijavoo

Ah, we're gonna use our venue stage as a drum room with carpets hanging all around from the very high ceiling. I'll post pics next week.

Cirrus

Nice! I'll keep an eye out.

Cirrus

Clippies on soundcloud, hope this link works. Just various guitar tracks solo'd from the unmixed session files.

https://soundcloud.com/cirrusband/sets/bunch-of-recording-clips/s-UKyyt

guitarfishbay

Cool stuff!

BTW are those cushions in the first picture or have you wrapped some rockwool slabs in fabric to make bass traps (looks like this)?  If so how did you secure it, tape/staples/etc?  Also what did you think of the RE20?

Cirrus

Huzza! Someone listened

I did consider afterwards that most of the tones in the above clips, when removed from context, sound a bit bland. If I was doing isolated clips to show off I'd probably have tweaked things a bit differently. And obviously in the mix I'll at least consider taming bottom end rumble on the overdriven guitars!

The cushions are rockwool slabs wrapped in gauze then fabric, tie died by the wonderful Miss Cirrus. The gauze'd slabs were glued to a wooden back panel and the fabric was staple gunned to the wood round the edges.

I love the RE20. Captures big low mids muuuuch better than any shure mic I've tried (even the SM7) and seems to capture a higher presence peak sizzle than the sm57. That works well on the AC30 - I've not heard any other mic that gives me the low mids up close I hear out in the room. It was paired with the SM57 just to give it a little extra bite come mix time.

guitarfishbay

Cirrus said:

I did consider afterwards that most of the tones in the above clips, when removed from context, sound a bit bland. If I was doing isolated clips to show off I'd probably have tweaked things a bit differently. And obviously in the mix I'll at least consider taming bottom end rumble on the overdriven guitars!

I thought they sounded cool and I liked the crunch sound of the Mesa - I haven't heard many Stiletto clips so it was nice to hear some.

Cirrus said:

The cushions are rockwool slabs wrapped in gauze then fabric, tie died by the wonderful Miss Cirrus. The gauze'd slabs were glued to a wooden back panel and the fabric was staple gunned to the wood round the edges.

Cool.  I've been looking at ways to build some myself.  Up until now I've bought customer returned commercial traps on eBay for around half retail depending on condition - but it still works out cheaper to make your own.  I did buy some B&Q rolls of insulation recently to use as super cheap corner solutions though.

Cirrus said:

I love the RE20. Captures big low mids muuuuch better than any shure mic I've tried (even the SM7) and seems to capture a higher presence peak sizzle than the sm57. That works well on the AC30 - I've not heard any other mic that gives me the low mids up close I hear out in the room. It was paired with the SM57 just to give it a little extra bite come mix time.

Cool.  Do you find you automate the blend between the mics much or do you use it to create an ideal sound and leave it there?  

Danny1969

@Cirrus

Nice clips.  I love that kinda sound, like early U2 with delay before the drive, really atmospheric 

The underhead drum trick you describe is often used to tame the cymbals as higher room mics tend to bring out more cymbals ....... being higher frequencies are more directional and such. Drums are the hardest things in rock to record by far, so many variables. There's a tendency these days to sample replace but I just love the sound of a real kit properly recorded. 

Cirrus

Danny1969 said:

@Cirrus

The underhead drum trick you describe is often used to tame the cymbals as higher room mics tend to bring out more cymbals ....... being higher frequencies are more directional and such. Drums are the hardest things in rock to record by far, so many variables. There's a tendency these days to sample replace but I just love the sound of a real kit properly recorded. 

That's exactly why I liked them - for some of these songs I want the drums to be quite dirty, so I pulled them far enough back to get some room sound, genuine roomy low end on the kick, and I'll compress them. To much cymbals would end up sounding trashy, but I stuck a pair of c451s over the top which I'll sneak in for more clarity if need be.

It kind of sounds like the frequencies that come off cymbals horizontally are totally different to the ones that radiate up and down too - much less brash, somehow more smooth.

I recently produced a song for a metal band and I really rammed home the concept of not just sample replacing and editing the drums. They have an actual human drummer live and people seem to like them, why not let them actually hear that on record?

Cirrus

guitarfishbay said:Cool.  Do you find you automate the blend between the mics much or do you use it to create an ideal sound and leave it there?  

I try to get a balance that makes sense straight away as I'm tracking then bus them to one group track and treat it as one sound from then on, unless once I'm mixing it enters my mind to change it. Ideally it's set and forget - otherwise I'd be bogged down for hours wondering what blends work best with loads of variables.

Deijavoo

Hhmm, when tracking the drums last Sunday we ran my amp at the lowest audible volume and ran out from the slave with headphone mix from that. I noticed that while my dirt channels sounded utter jeer the clean tone had some of what I always feel I lack when I record.

I think mic on each of my speakers in my 2x12 and a slave is the way forward. Oh and double tracked.

guitarfishbay

Doesn't hurt to take a slave signal. You can always apply whatever can IR you want at a later date which gives extra options if needed.

Cirrus

What do your clean tones lack recorded and what did the direct give you out of curiosity? If you slave and mic, try sample delaying the direct signal to keep it lined up with the mics. As a by the by, if I make a den for my ac30 with the acoustic panels (one up each side and one over the top like Stonehenge, then the remainder blocking off the front and back) I can record cranked ac30 right next to fully miked drums with low enough spill as to be a non issue.

Deijavoo

See this is where I fall down and use the word "punch" as a cop out. I literally can't think of any better way to describe it. 

 It's not a standalone solution but together with what I normally get recording I think I could have the right mix I'm after. NOW I'm excited about recording. :-D

indiansummer1

is that robanna's in birmingham? cool place, wondered what sort of size the lockups are there.