You should try it all. Probably mic'd into the brick for rock guitar, dual mono, would give good results. The direct outs into the brick wouldn't be bad either.

Yes, try it all. How 'bout stereo xlr tracks + a close mic track + an ambient mic track, then mix and choose later. This is common if you have the tracks. Love those L6 pods. Got one last year, tho I still use my old Rockman alot.

freakydave wrote: Yes, try it all. How 'bout stereo xlr tracks + a close mic track + an ambient mic track, then mix and choose later. This is common if you have the tracks. Love those L6 pods. Got one last year, tho I still use my old Rockman alot.

OK! I am surprised that someone still uses a Rockman these days. I can't get over the noise levels, even with the factory upgrades from the early 80s...what's your secret?

Perfect, budget friendly, scenario.....?

So what in your opinion is the best, budget friendly, solution to my guitar woes?
Buy a modeler, mic his rig, all of the above? Does the J-Station have a good library of crunch/distortion? Or would a Boss or Line 6 offer more options in the , "heavy", realm?
I have 600$ in the immediate budget.

Gear:
The Brick
Sm57
Rode NT1000
CAD E-200
Rode NT5 stereo pair
Behringer V-Amp 1X12

Is there such a thing as being able to record a , "magical", mono track and having it be all the beef you need? Or do the pros layer discretely to do the trick? Whenever I try to layer guitar tracks, they seem to conflict (detract from one another) more than complement one another. Myself, I find beauty in simplicity. I don't want this project to take eternity to record, then eternity plus, to mix.
The guitarist likes a distortion sound, think AudioSlave, System of a Down distortion. I've found it is much easier to dial in a convicing cleaner/ambient sounds with his gear.

Ideas/feedback appreciated.

Joshua

Mic an amp thats sounds exactly like its supposed to sound.

Can the guitarist play the same part through completely without mistakes over and over? If so then its going to be easy to get a large sounding part............ How many tracks do you have?

Simplicity usually is found within the arrangement of the parts of a song. If you are recording to 24trk 2" through a nice API console in a great room with a great guitarist then one mono track may be all it needs to be.

Re: Perfect, budget friendly, scenario.....?

jfavela wrote: The guitarist likes a distortion sound, think AudioSlave, System of a Down distortion. I've found it is much easier to dial in a convicing cleaner/ambient sounds with his gear.

record it EXACT twice then either hard or half pan the guitars. for system of a down (not familiar with audioslave tone that much) you probably doubletrack too, it gives a much more rich, solid, blended tone. but if you like up front, probably one pass is enough, or maybe 2 takes and keep one lower volume in the mix.

i would say mic it, but also experement on layering mic AND DI and adjusting. micing gives great color, but DI can add some extra thats not there (with the occasional downside of TOO much highs/sub making it sound unnatural, depending on equipment used/processing).

but best off just hard panning or half panning 2 takes (probably miked if you have a good setup) from what it sounds like.

My secret is opto-couplers. I basically modified a circiut I found in a Craig Anderton (I think)article back in the early 80's, for a bunch of pseudo-rack-mount effectsbased on an opto-coupler. I added it to somewhere near the inputs. I had a hard time making it fit! I'd have to dig pretty deep to find the schematics. It involves a noise phase-canceling ckt also. A friend did some mods to it also but I don't remember what. I wouldn't use it for a serious recording tho, cause these mods only cut noise by around 6db.

I Fender Pro Junior will do the trick for small wattage, all tube, trickiness. A Line6 Guitar Pod driving one of those actually puts out some totally recordable tones, not to mention the tones it generates all on it's own.

i never htought about running a POD into a tube amp.. interesting wish i could try it. got a sample of it?

Check out the songs "Away", "Whisper", and "Holy Night Part II" on this page I have up with mp3's. They're good examples of the guitar port plugged into small watt tube amps. The electric slide work on "Away" has some interesting delay modulation effects I think. The guitar work in all of those songs was done in mono.

http://www.soundclick.com/pro/default.cfm?BandID=117445&content=music

wow sweet tone! very boxy, like a half wah fed into a half stack. i like the play style of the lead too, very harmonious, and just connects with that acoustic.

and arent just about all guitars recorded in mono? you just got 2 guitars in extremes in the stereo field. :p

though i will say one thing, there is something very pleasing sounding about a mono guitar, though i wouldnt want to hear songs of nothing but, it makes for some killer breaks and riffs and stuff (finch 'letters to you' has some interesting mono work that sounds killer).

Rider, that's right. You nailed it spot on. A lot of those electric guitar tracks I was going for the sound of a rig I used to own that was a 1964 Marshall Lead 100 MOSFET with a matching half-stack of 4 X 10's and an original 60's VOX wah pedal used as a filter. Noisey, but sweeeeeeet.

Al those tones were accomplished on those soundclick tracks using a Line6 Guitar Port with one channel of the audio out feeding the pre's of a 1967 Tandberg Model 12 RTR tape deck (tube driven). I mic'd the speakers of the tape deck (2 X 7"s) and it was as simple as that.

And yes, most electric guitar tracks are recorded in mono. But a lot of folks track with their amp, cab, and effects simulators in stereo; which is great for background ambient guitar work but can miss the mark for convincing lead or rythm riffs. Some guys can make that work and I know some of the pro's have made that work, but I've never had any success with it myself.

A mic'd tube amp (small watts) is often a very convincing way to go. Walls of stacks are nice if you're in a big studio, it's true. But in a home studio (IMO) it's much easier to accomplish authentic tone with the small watt tube amps.

thats probably why mesa boogie verbs are so highly rated, because nice size, not terribly high wattage (100?), great tone (from what i hear). one of these days im going to guitar center and trying theirs out, if it sounds as good as people say i would say screw a stack and just go with it, but it would always be nice to have a marshall around heh.

whenever i get the cahs too i want to get a couple boss EQ pedals and get my amp set back up for recording. put EQ on the pre (mid boost, wah like but flatter so not as pushy) and on post (cutting down some low mid and altering the highs to give a more shaped, high gain sound). my amp is a trace elliot 2X12 supertramp.. solid state but sounds sweet regardless, and capable of some very unique guitar tone that sounds between tube and solid state. i did tracking with it until i got my behringer pedal (which sounded not TOO bad, but mostly used it for laziness of not wanting to move the amp on the futon and position the mic perfectly, not to mention the clangs of the dog walking around, which made an eerie effect on one song though, and this parenthesis is as long as a paragraph, bah).

OK I'm gonna do some guitar/bass recording for a demo and was thinking of the following setup:

Guitar and Bass into M-Audio Audio Buddy into Audigy 4 Soundcard.

What you guys reckon of the quality of such an setup?