Week 8 - AA1

Recording electric guitars:

I used a Shure SM57 dynamic microphone, a Sennheiser MD-421 dynamic and a Rode NT3 condenser.
1st sample: I used SM57 and positioned it pointing to the edge of the amplifier to get "bassier" sound.
I got an 80's "full-of-mid-range-and-fat" sound of distorted guitar.

Sample 2: The same microphone, but pointing towards the amp's centre:
I liked the sound for an un-plugged event. Not exactly what I prefer guitars to sound like, though.

Sample 3:Having kept the position of SM57, I added an MD-421 to it and panned them to right and left respectively.
I used an equaliser for this track. I sent the recording sound not to analog channels of the pro-tools but to a stereo bus. I set another stereo track to have inputs from that particular bus channel and record the sample.
The result of this technique was to have a wide-fat sound, which normally is good!

4th sample: I used the room's reverberation as well as the amp. I positioned the MD-421 a bit far from the amp to get the result of the room’s reverb. Since I had delay and compressor, I again applied the same technique of using the bus channel.
It was a "trippy" guitar sound!

5th sample: SM57 and NT3 in an XY pattern; again using the same stereo technique. Although NT3 is not the best microphone to record an electric guitar with, I tried my best to get a good result out of this combination.


The result was a wide sound but I think it's not always useful. I think NT3 isn't the best to record guitars. Well, the more I record and experience, the more accurate my comments become.

To edit my final samples and apply fade-ins and fade-outs, I used Audacity.












...And my final pro-tools session:


References:
- McAvinchey, Dan: ‘Tone to tape: Tips for recording electric guitar’, Guitar Nine Records (Accessed [04.05.2007]), (http://www.guitar9.com/studionine4.html)
- Steven Fieldhouse 'Audio Arts I' Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 01/05/2007.
- Levine, Mike: ‘Electric-Guitar recording’, Electronic Musician (Accessed [04.05.2007]), (http://emusician.com/editorspicks/Electric_Guitar_Recording)