Audio Recording

Recording clean guitar using light effects such as chorus, reverb are often tricky because of the clean nature of the guitar sound. This tutorial will illustrate two popular ways of recording clean guitar: using DI and the other is using a guitar amplifier cabinet method. Both method works and sounds great; it depends on what sound you are going to achieve as well as the availability of gears/equipments.

Recording Clean Guitar using Amplifier Cabinet

If you have a guitar amplifier with outboard effects such as chorus, you can record the sound of the guitar amplifier using two microphones: condenser and dynamic microphones. The technique is to record two channels at the same time coming from these two microphones which are aimed towards the amp. See picture below:

To create a delay/stereo effect, the dynamic microphone is aimed closer to the amplifier cone at around 3 to 5 inches distance while the condenser microphone is aimed farther (around 12 inches). This will capture the ambiance and adds natural reverberation to the guitar sound (from the room where it was recorded).

The detailed steps are as follows:

1.) Switch on your guitar amplifier.
2.) Plug the guitar into the Hi-Z input of your guitar. This will give the best sound for your guitar since the impedance are matched (the guitar pickups are also in high impedance).

Most guitar amplifiers are designed to provide a high impedance input, so double check with the manual.

3.) Adjust the desired tonal quality of the clean guitar to be recorded (bass, mid and treble).

4.) Add some light effects on the signal chain such as chorus.

5.) Once you have finalized the guitar tone to be recorded, aimed two microphones at the guitar amplifier (see the screenshot previously).

6.) Plug the microphones to your audio interface preamp inputs (you will be plugging two microphone inputs). Do not forget to turn on the phantom power for your condenser microphone.

7.) Launch your recording software. This tutorial is using Reaper Digital audio workstation. Adjust the microphone preamp gain levels of your audio interface to get the best recording signal as possible.

Make sure the signal level is sufficient and reaches around -16dBFS to -6dBFS maximum. See screenshot below:

8.) Hit the record button to record your guitar takes.

Some hints on mixing: Since you are now recording two guitar tracks at the same time (coming from those two microphones). You can pan one them at right and the other to the left of the stereo field. The mixing result would be great.

Since the guitars have been recorded with effects already, you won’t be anymore adding effects during the mix except for minor EQ and compression.

This is a sample recording of clean guitar with chorus effect using the following setup:

Saffire Pro40 audio interface (recording at 24-bit/48KHz)
Laney amplifiers
Rode NT1A microphones/ SM58 dynamic microphones
Dean Vendetta Guitar

Recording Clean Guitar using DI method

DI method is for those that do not have guitar amplifiers at home or does not have those extra microphones. This technique is recording the guitar directly without any single effects added on the signal chain. Then the desired effect (chorus for example) can then be added during the mixing session using software plug-in. This method is very simple. Follow the steps below:

1.) Connect guitar cable from your electric guitar and plug the other end to the Hi-Z input for your audio interface preamp. See diagram:

Electric Guitar === > Guitar Cable ===== > Audio Interface Hi-Z preamp input

Observe that in the above diagram, there are no effects added and the guitar is recorded dry.

2.) You will only be recording one track this time. So in your DAW; for example Reaper, check the recording level and make sure it is optimum (-15dBFS to -6dBFS).

3.) Hit the record button and track the guitar cleanly.

4.) You can then apply double tracking technique in mixing electric guitars. This works by doubling the guitar in the mix and then applying delay on one channel to create that nice stereo ambiance effect. Apply the desired guitar effects on the mix (such as a guitar chorus plug-in). Then I panned them at -50 to +50 respectively instead of +75,-75 but still using double tracked technique:

This is a sample recording using this method:

All guitars played,recorded and mixed by: Emerson Maningo