Originally Posted by: jasim.hdHello, everyone. Hope all is well.
So after many failed attempt and frustration with trying to get help to record my music, I have decided to do it myself, hence, I am planning to venture into the recoding world.
To keep things short, I have the following: good laptop, Focusrite Scarlette 2nd Gen 2i4, and Pro Tools First.
As a beginner I want to keep things short, only guitar line, bass line, and vocals. My question is: how do I actually record? Through mic’ing the amp? Straight through interface to DAW? What about effects? Use Guitar rig? What’s the left/right channels for guitar?
Obviously, I’m overwhelmed. So I really would appreciate any kind of help into this.
Thank you in advance and Happy New Year! :)
Hopefully you'll come back to this thread as it appears to have been unanswered.
First thing is; don't be intimidated. When you open up your DAW, it looks like the cockpit of a 747. So many things to look at. How does it all make sense?!
When you look at it in a simplified manner, basically you have a channel strip that is used to capture an instrument. Think of it as how you 'store' the recording. All the other things in that strip (eg - mix busses etc) are what you do with a recorded track. Basically that's it as far as a channel goes; it's where I store it and where I assign my tweaks so as to make what I've recorded better.
A great resource is the Recording Revolution. There is lots of free content including Graham's blogs and specific to you, a short 'getting started' tutorials.
Regarding how to record with a DAW; you already have the Focusrite so you have the interface through which you can connect to your PC. The Focusright allows you to plug in a microphone if you want to capture from your amp. In which case, you could buy a Shure SM57 (one of the most used mics for instruments ever) for about $110 and mic your amp, plug in to the Focusrite and off you go (assuming you realize the interface needs to connect to the PC...hehe).
You could also buy amp modeling software such as the IK stuff like the iRig. I did a review of my IK gear a few years ago. The hardware is out of date but I think the software review is still relevant. You can have a lot of options with modeling software. Lots of people bag on amp sims. Truth is; they can be a very effective tool if used right. I did this short dittie for a work thing (ignore the opening guitar tone in the 'ramp up' section). The guitar and bass were from IK Amplitube. Drums were from ToonTracks EZ Drummer.
Pretty much all of the stuff above gets you there.
There is a learning curve to reacording so even though I said not to be intimidated, expect that you will have to take some time to go through tutorials and fiddle around for yourself.
I few things to keep in mind:
Stereo/Panning - When you record an instrument, you're pretty much recording it 'mono'. There is no left or right...yet. Your guitar does not make 'left or right', that's done in the DAW. More below.
You see, in order to have stereo (left/right), you have to have two seperately recorded channels. That is to say, if you wanted your guitar riff to come out with that wide, awesome stereo sound, you have to record it twice. Once recorded, when you mix your recording, you will pan one of the channels to the left and the other to the right.
Semi-pro tip; you can't just take the same guitar track and double it and hope for stereo. When you hear that really wide awesome guitar sound, it's becuase the riff was played and recorded two seperate times. The wide effect comes from the natural variances in your playing each time you track the riff(s). If you just duplicated the same track and panned them left and right, it would sound mono and in the middle. Audibly, it's the same thing.
What instruments get panned left or right? Just a rule of thumb, call them melody instruments. That's to say; electric or acoustic guitar, paino/organ, mandolins, horns etc. In general, bass and drums are not panned L/R but are left 'up the middle'. While there is exceptions to the rule, it's still a good rule of thumb.
Input - Otherwise known as Gain Staging, once you've plugged your gear in to the computer, you have to decide how 'hot' you want your input to be. Between you/your gear and the recorded music is a master input level. Basically it is you telling the recording how loud you want to push in to the recorded track. It's like a dam. How much water do you want to let through the dam? While guitar players have a 'turn it up to 10' mentality, the opposite is true in Gain Staging. You want to keep it modest. You gain clarity when you Gain Stage correctly. In some instances, you could open the gates fully and get a certain kind of clipping and there are some metal recordings that do this, as a rule...don't clip.
EQing - The is what seperates the men from the boys. How do the great producers and engineers get such great and clear recordings? Understanding how to EQ. Why are some recordings muddy and dull? Because the person mixing the recording has way too much frequency overlap between instruments. Think about instruments as just frequencies. To the human ear, we do not want lots of clutter frwquencies. Our ears want to hear a little seperation in sounds. Though reverb and delay are powerful tools, the most powerful tool you have is the EQ. Get the EQ down first when you mix and it's all cake from there.
For that matter, as you get the hand of recording, you start to hear certain guitar tones that will mix better than others (more below). That said, you will spend a lot of time in the EQing of your tracks.
Effects/Delays/Reverb - My preference is to record pretty dry. By dry, that means with little to no delay or reverb. That will get added at the mixing stage for me. If you add a reverb pedal to the guitar during recording, you can't back that out when you mix. In mixing, you will have to add delay and reverb overall at the song level. You can imagine where that would make in issue for that guitar track you used reverb when you recorded it. This is not a 'never' concept but be judicious. If it is adding to the guitar tone, you may consider using it.
Guitar Tones - You know that monster tone you dialed in while practicing on your own? It probably won't work when you record. That recording of mine I linked above, it has a nice oomph in the riff. Yet the amp sim I chose was a Fender Combo sim and the overdrive was at like 50%. For that matter, I recorded it with my Fender Strat. Yet, it has a tone somewhere between the Stones and AC/DC. Part of the trick is the 'bass' section below.
In the Jet track I linked, there is actually 5 actual channels of guitar tracks. None of which is exactly the same. There is the overall implied riff in A. There is also a twangier open E I'm riding in parts. There's also a high E/B upstroke thing I'm doing too throughout. The overall effect is a consolidated implied riff but the low twang and the high upstroke brought a little more glitter to the songs that otherwise wasn't there. Some of the tricks in recording are hearing where you can add a little something in or, more importantly, when to remove something. Doesn't have to be big. You read sometimes that a rockin' songs had an acoustic guitar underneath the overdriven rockin' riff...Clarity....
Bass Guitar is Your Friend - Do not bury the bass guitar. Your song will have no guts if the bass is buried in the mix. The difference between a song that people might go 'that's nice' to a song where people grit their teeth, clench their fist and rock out; solid bass guitar in the mix. Without a solid bottom end, you got nothin'
......So, there is a nice chunk of thoughts I have on the subject. Spend time at the Recording Revolution in the free stuff. He also has 'pay for' services but so much great, free info.
