INVENTIVE GUITAR SOUNDS

[POFFHOTMAIL.COM]

I'm curious about everyone's electric guitar capturing techniques. What's the funkiest thing you've ever done to get that tone just right?

[stanner]

what we do, and its a road you can never go back on(sound-wise), remove all pots from all guitars-nothing but a cord between the pick-up coils and the pre-amp(tubes) and once you have it tweeked properly its the most gorgeous,pristine,beefy signal we've ever gotten!

[bchilderskc.rr.com]

I have a guitar with that exact setup, well - it has a pickup selector too, but no volume or tone pots. I also have one with EMGs and all the XTRA doo-dads. And another passive guitar with coil splitters and phase switches etc. I like 'em all.

 

Every time I read threads like this I go home and try some wacky signal chain but I seldom care for the results.

 

I usually end up with the usual guitar -> modest stomp boxes (phaser etc.) Amp -> Mic-> pre-amp ->recorder -> time based effects (chorus/delay/verb) It just sound 'right' to me. Probably just what I'm used to hearing.

[Anderton]

Well, you asked for the wackiest...

 

In the days before cool processors, I'd like to plug my axe into a little practice amp, and do ACOUSTIC processing. Point it toward a wall with a mic inbetween to get phasing, cover the amp with a cardboard box as a primitive filter, one time I even swung the mic back and forth in front of the speaker and got a weirdass leslie type of effect. Those were the days!

[KenElevenShadows]

This isn't terribly strange, but I usually use condenser mics, even for distorted sounds. I like the liveliness that it offers. As of late, I use a Audio Technica AT4060, but the small diaphragm condensers sounds cool too.

 

I've used a Pignose amp and had someone go out and open and close the thing while recording it.

 

I've recorded an amplifier aimed into the shower while sticking a PZM to the tiled walls as well as a 57 pointing at the amp. The singer's girlfriend went to use the bathroom , oblivious of the fact that every nuance of her, uh, "performance" was being captured by the mics in the bathroom.

 

I've stuck a small amp in the laundry room and recorded it with a microphone in the inside of the washing machine.

 

I've recorded amplifiers with cardboard tubes around the microphone.

 

I've recorded guitars through those little battery-operated amps that cost $39.00. Sometimes, this can actually sound really great.

 

That's enough for now...

 

Ken/Eleven Shadows/d i t h er/nectar

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[farrantaaol.com]

Now now, no p*** taking please,

 

In an attempt to get that Satriani "in a tube type sound" similar to some of the tones from the surf brigade but heavily overdriven, I put a boogie subway rocket on the floor with a 6" diameter 12 foot long plastic pipe right in front of the speaker with a Rode NT2 mic at the other end, sounded pretty cool considering the absurd way in which it was recorded !!!

 

Similar to Craig, I have pointed speakers at the wall and experimented with mic placement.

 

Another freaky thing I have done worked EXTREMELY well. I had a clean spanky strat sound in the recording room and was playing in the control room via a "Y" cord, one half going to the playing room and the other half going to a volume pedal and a boogie heartbreaker in the control room. The boogie was set to very very high gain but low-ish volume. When I wanted to sustain the clean note being recorded I wound open the volume pedal and got feedback off the boogie, the result being I recorded a long smooth sustain on a very very clean sound.

 

I had a lot of people ask how I did that !

I ripped the idea from a picture I saw of Slash doing a similar thing.