Recording Guitar Tracks at Home

Recording your music at home has never been easier. There are software applications that give you virtually unlimited tracks to record your masterpieces with as much bombast or subtlety as you so desire. So you're sitting at home with your computer, and now you think it's time to get down to business and track some guitars. Only, you don't know the best way to do it, Mr. Home Studio Engineer. The good news is that there are plenty of options for you to achieve the best sounding guitar tracks possible.

The Close Mic Technique If you want your tracks to sound as close to "professional" studio quality as possible, then you are likely going to want to go with the old tried and true method of close mic'ing your guitar cabinets. Some thing to consider for this are that firstly, you'll want to make sure you have at least one good dynamic microphone along the lines of a Shure SM57. You want to use a dynamic microphone because it will be much more adept at handling high pressure sound waves coming out of your speaker cabinet.

Next you need think about things like where you are placing your microphone. Keep in mind that the farther you are from the speaker cones of your amp's cabinet, the more air will be moved between it and the microphone you're using. So if you want the guitar to be super loud and punchy with very little ambient noise room, you're going to want it to be as close to cabinet as you feel comfortable with. Some folks start with the mic right on the grill cloth, others give a gap of a few inches. This is best deciphered for your own setup by trial and error. Open up a track, place the mic and record a little something. Play it back and see if you like what you hear. Adjust the position accordingly.

There's also some consideration that has to given to how far on or off the axis of the speaker cone you want to place the mic. The idea is that the air will move with the sound waves in different ways in relation to how close or far off the axis you are, this is another area where some trial and error will come in quite handy. For the most part, if you're using a one mic, close-up technique, you'll want your mic to be a little off axis but not too far.

Multiple Mic Technique Some engineers feel that just one microphone cannot possibly capture all the nuances of your performance well enough so they employ two or three different mics placed in different positions to get an array of sounds that can then be mixed and matched in the mixing stage to get just the right guitar tone. Typically you'll see a close-mic setup, then another mic a foot or two behind the close-mic and then you might even see yet another mic, this one possibly a condenser mic towards the back of the room, in an attempt to get a more air-filled sound record, possibly to get some "head room" into the guitar sound naturally, without adding post production reverb to the track.

The advantages to the multiple mic technique are that you can have two or more choices in tones to play with in your mix. Maybe the close-mic was just a little too brittle and punchy sounding, but if you mix it with a bit of the "room" mic it can water down the over all tone and make it a little more palatable to one's ear. When it comes to any recording situation, usually the more variety you can choose from later down the road without having to recreate the better.

Direct Recording (No Cabinet Required) Let's be honest, unless you have a basement or your garage is super soundproof and you have awesome neighbors, none of us can really record at super high volumes, which is sometimes necessary to get the best sound out of your amp. Luckily though, more and more amps are being built with some kind of direct recording feature. These direct outputs allow you to bypass the amplifier stage of your amp and just use the pre-amp and equalization (EQ) stages, letting you shape your tone and relative volume without having to play through a speaker cabinet at very high volume levels.

Some of these direct-outputs even have the ability to do cabinet emulation, letting you approximate the what the amp would sound like going through your speaker cabinet. This is a great option if you are digitally recording your guitar tracks. For starters it saves you any issues with the aforementioned neighbors or your domestic partners in having to hear you blast through that guitar solo fifteen times trying to nail it down just right. Secondly, your recording interface likely has some kind of auxiliary input, or better yet a line-level XLR input that would be perfectly suited to that direct output your amp has. This also allows you to keep your amp right next to you to adjust EQ settings on the fly.

Emulated Guitar Tones Via Plug-in Amp emulation technology has come a long way since the early days of massively expensive rack units or not-quite right sounding floor board models. There are now several companies that make software that emulates a myriad of classic amplifiers. Line6 and Native Instruments both make quite exceptional products that allow you to take your guitar and plug it into hundreds of virtual amplifiers.

The software technology is so advanced that it even allows to mix and match virtual amps with virtual cabinets and microphones, giving you even more variety of your recorded tone. You can run a Marshall JCM-2000 into a 4x12 cabinet stocked with Green Backs if you want. Or you can run an old Fender Champ through a tiny 2 inch speaker to give it the sound of a miniature amp. Most of these software plug-ins work hand-in-hand with your existing DAW software, and even offer a ton of effects and stomp-boxes to further enhance and shape your tone.

Just like using direct outputs for recording, the major advantage with digitally emulated amps is the recording volume issue. Another major advantage is that you don't have to have a museum-like collection of amps in your home. You can have all the variety you want right at your finger tips with a click of a few buttons. Clearly it would be awesome to have fifteen or twenty real amps and cabs and mics to play with, but for the home-recording artist it's just not completely necessary to achieve a really great sounding guitar tone.

Have Fun! Whatever you decide to do to record your guitar tracks, the most important factor is to have fun doing it. The big advantage you get in recording your music at home is that you have no time or monetary budget restraints, other than what you buy yourself. Experiment and play around with multiple techniques. Remember, you're not wasting tape, so just keep tweaking and playing until you've landed on that one sound you really like. Don't forget you're probably going to do this several times for each song, enhancing them with a couple of different guitar tones to flesh-out the overall sound of the track. It can be overwhelming at times, but if you just roll with the punches and keep an open mind, you can sometimes surprise yourself with what you come up with.