Big Guitar Sounds!!

Hi Everyone,

I am about to record a demo with my band which we plan on doing ourselves (minus the mixing and mastering). We are a drum, bass, guitar and vocals four piece. When we have recorded in the past I have mainly just played two or three guitar parts to compensate for solo's, breaks etc. But it has lacked the big sound that other bands get when they record who also only use one guitarist. (Led Zeppelin and Free to name but two great sounding bands).

I was wondering if anyone could offer any tips or advice from their own experiences to help us to gain a bigger sound on record than we have done in the past?? Or if anyone knows how legends such as Kossoff and Page were able to create such a huge sound?

If you would like to hear any of our previous recordings you can visit either

www.theblackdogs.org OR

www.myspace.com/theblackdogsrock (Live recordings)

Cheers.

We got a really full guitar sound by layering tracks with different amps and guitars.....

For example, I recorded one track with my Ernie Ball through my JCM 800 head, then overdubbed that same rhythem track with my SG through my 800, then layered a 3rd track using my Ernie Ball through a Soldano Hot Rod 50 head. Mixing these 3 sounds made the guitar tracks nice and full......

Our other guitarist did the same thing, but he only used his SG and 3 different heads (JCM 800, Soldano Hot Rod 50, and a Mesa Dual Rectifier).

So for every song we did (except one, which was a live jam in the studio), there are 6 tracks of rhythem guitar blended together.

Page got his sound by playing around with the placement of mics around the cabinet. One thing he did was place a mic across the room from the cabinet, which picks up more of the low end. A mic right up on the speaker will pick up more high's and mids.....He used multiple mics in different places at the same time....

Are you setting up the recording gear yourselves or will you be in a studio with an engineer? If you have a decent engineer he should be able to do a basic mix as you are recording, you just need to arrive with two or three examples from bands with the sound you want to achieve so he knows what you are looking for. If it's just yourselves and you havent a clue about mastering, then just try recording the rythm tracks as tights as you can with whatever sound you like the best one to the far left and one to the far right. Then put the bass guitar in the middle - this really fills things out. Lead should be a little off centre and to the opposite site of any other drop ins' with vocals in the middle. It's amazing what a little sound placement can do. I'm going to a studio myself in about 6 weeks for three days and will have an engineer throughout. I'm a one man band so I will be doing all rythm tracks at home through a mesa boogie rectifier recording preamp direct to pc through an M-Audio Delta 1010. This saves a lot of time and the preamp provides real studio sound (not like digital modeller) as it is anologue. Solos will be done in the studio because the most time needs to be spent getting the tone right in between take 100 of some crazy run (head wrecking).
If you can, try recording a full rhythm track onto a laptop and then out of the pa for your jam sessions. It helps to get ultra tight, but also, if you can get the quality good enough in the comfort of your own home you will then be able to spend more time getting the drums and vocals right and get a bit of mixing thrown in at the end.

Sorry to post off topic here, but Superhuman, how do you like the Delta 1010? I'm thinking of getting one of those.....How many tracks can you record at the same time? From what I understand, it's 8 audio tracks and 2 midi tracks, is that right?

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the advice, very useful indeed. I like the sugesstion about using different sounds from different amps and guitars to fill things out. I've tried this to some degree in the past and it has sounded pretty good.

We have the ability to record everything ourselves. The plan once we had achieved a good sound doing that was to then go into the studio with all the recorded tracks and mix and master them with the help of a good engineer.

All this is pretty new to us so we're just trying to make the whole process as easy going as possible (recording at home, not thinking about studio costs etc). Hopefully all will be good.

Cheers again.

Yep, I know Dimebag used to always do even his leads twice (at least) to get a fuller sound. And Page was quite the recording tone experimenter back in his day...trying different rooms, mic placements, and of course amps.

Originally Posted by: JFRICKSorry to post off topic here, but Superhuman, how do you like the Delta 1010? I'm thinking of getting one of those.....How many tracks can you record at the same time? From what I understand, it's 8 audio tracks and 2 midi tracks, is that right?

That's right 10 tracks in all, 8 audio and 2 midi. Untill now I've been using a Tascam US428 which I thought was pretty good but the sound quality on the Delta 1010 is amazing. Basically you get perfect studio quality with no hiss, pops or crackles and zero latency. Other USB interfaces are very powerfull but still have a certain degree of latency especially if you record a very long stereo/multi-channel wav (eg - full song from start to finish in one take).
PCI cards may be old technology but as the man says, "if it ain't broken don't fix it". Your CPU won't suffer with this at all, I have yet to experience any noticeable latency. Highly recommended. Check out the site for the full spec: http://m-audio.com/products/en_us/Delta1010-main.html I picked a brand new one with all of the add on software on E-Bay for $359, way below retail price. I did a lot of research before I bought it, I was also looking at one of the Creative EMU cards buts decided against it after reading bad reports in a lot of forums. M-Audio Delta 1010 seems to be the best value, most stable and best quality for the money.

The last time I recorded in a studio I used a 40 year old Vox AC15. Close miked at the front and rear then two ambients in the recording room (4 channels all in all). I actually played the guitar from the control room as it was too loud to be in the same room with it (amazing amps those AC15s!) and feedback was a real problem. Seemed to work well for me.

I've also used the layering technique but found that the guitar sound could get a bit muddy and ill-defined as it's virtually impossible (for me at least!) to play the track exactly the same each time :D

Let us know how you get on.

Cheers

Dick

Originally Posted by: SuperhumanThat's right 10 tracks in all, 8 audio and 2 midi. Untill now I've been using a Tascam US428 which I thought was pretty good but the sound quality on the Delta 1010 is amazing. Basically you get perfect studio quality with no hiss, pops or crackles and zero latency. Other USB interfaces are very powerfull but still have a certain degree of latency especially if you record a very long stereo/multi-channel wav (eg - full song from start to finish in one take).
PCI cards may be old technology but as the man says, "if it ain't broken don't fix it". Your CPU won't suffer with this at all, I have yet to experience any noticeable latency. Highly recommended. Check out the site for the full spec: http://m-audio.com/products/en_us/Delta1010-main.html I picked a brand new one with all of the add on software on E-Bay for $359, way below retail price. I did a lot of research before I bought it, I was also looking at one of the Creative EMU cards buts decided against it after reading bad reports in a lot of forums. M-Audio Delta 1010 seems to be the best value, most stable and best quality for the money.

Cool man, thanks for the info. I've been researching sound cards and this one seems to be the best bet. Thanks again......