Re: [LAU] Applying effects when recording electric guitars: before or after recording?

2011/7/7 Roberto Suárez Soto <talkingxouba@gmail.com>:

>     So, what do the real pros (that'd be you ;-)) do? My first thought is to
> "prototype" using the preamp's effects, and once I have a good idea of what
> I need, record "clean" and apply effects in Ardour. But that sounds like a
> lot of work; and before doing it, I'd rather ask if there's some shortcut.
>     Thanks in advance.
>

I think it depends what effects you mean - if you are talking about
guitar distortion and the like, my understanding is that most pros
will mic the musician's valce amp and record whatever comes out -
using the musician's preferred signal chain/pedal board. When it
comes to effects like compression etc, these _may_ be added after the
recording - but again usually using hardware effects processors
(costing 10k plus).

When my band recorded at a professional studio, though, the
engineer/producer did add some guitar effects post-recording. It was a
quick hack-job though and I don't know if she would have done that if
we had two weeks instead of one day to record the song.

Regarding what you should do in a home environment, I think trying to
mimic the pros is a surefire way to problems - as people have already
said - recording clean and adding effects afterwards opens the way to
endless tweaking (and not necessarily a great sound). I would
recommend reading Geurilla Home Recording - the author (Bobby
Owsinski) is a big fan of getting the tracks right while they are laid
down with little post-processing (for home recording environments).

Personally I think the V-Amp2 is a great virtual amp - to my ears the
distortion is very good - probably better than the Pod series in some
aspects. If I were to try to improve my guitar sound I would probably
go and buy a physical valve amp and some pedals - but as others have
pointed out, this is an expensive route - and possibly won't get
better effects. To my ears V-Amp2 is better than guitarix (at the
moment) - seems to have more varied sounds, and less "fizzy", but
maybe that's just because of the knobs! :)

James
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Received on Thu Jul 7 20:15:04 2011