Recording guitar like the pros

Electric guitar sound is an elusive thing to get right in the studio. There are a million and one ways of recording guitar and that sound you hear in your head is always a little tweak or a knob fiddle away.

I recently experiemented with a great microphone technique when I was recording guitar for a funk rock/blues type track. This is something I remember the great engineer/producer Steve Albini talking about in a Sound On Sound issue a few years ago or so.

He liked using two completely different types of microphones in order to get a full and complete sound. By using two radically different microphones he was able to blend a full sound from such diverse microphone sources.

Which microphones you ask?

guitar amp Well, the specific microphone make and model don't matter that much. But we're talking about a large diaphraghm dynamic, like a kick drum mic and a small pencil condenser.

Recording guitar using these completely different mics, we get completely different characteristics, transient response and color.

I decided to try it a while ago. I took an AKG D112, known for being a kick-drum mic and a AKG C391, small diafragm condenser. I had been using the AKG C391 as overheads on drum-kits and for recording acoustic guitar.

I thought these were the two mics I had at my disposal that were as far apart in sound as I could get. Microphones that were used and designed for completely different things than the ones I had in mind.

experiment with various positions

I was recording a bluesy funk track of sorts, that had a tiny bit of crunch but needed all the notes to come through. So the amp wasn't overdriven that much, just a little bit of gain coming through the valves of the Fender Twin.

I tried a few different microphone positions, varying the distance, the angle and the position to the cone. I then recorded each position for a little while to A/B later on in the control room.

These are some of the positions I tried:

Both microphones equidistant, both on axis on opposite sides of the cone. The place known as the “sweet spot”.
391 on axis straight on the center and the 112 45° looking at the edge of the cone.
Switching microphones I put the 112 on axis and the 391 at 45° looking into the edge of the cone as well.

Of these three variations, constantly A/B’ing between them all I chose the 391 on center at 112 at 45° to be the best sounding one. It had the fullest sound without losing any definition.

We recorded a funky rock guitar with a crunchy tone so we needed it to be punchy and clear but still thick. A type of Stevie Ray Vaughan meets Red Hot Chilipeppers type sound.

The most surprising thing about the whole experiment was the bass response of the 391. It sounded much thicker than I would have thought and had a great low frequency response. This coupled with the typical high end sheen these types of condensers normally have I ended up with a great guitar sound.

Adding the D112 into the mix it just filled up everything that was needed in the sound spectrum giving us that thick and dirty dynamic mic type sound. Everything we wanted for that specific guitar recording.

Conclusion

It can be a lot of fun experimenting with various microphone techniques, especially ones advocated by the pros. There is a lot of research to be had in reading through some of the better known interview and tutorial books out there.

I find that interviews with producers are one of the more enlightening things to grab inspiration from.

But next time you're recording guitar, try this professional microphone technique and see if you can get that elusive guitar sound.

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