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[Bruno Gouveia]

Hello!

I would love to be able to record a great electric guitar sound directly to the mixing board / ADC without the usual combination microphone & cabinet /speaker.

I'm now studying electronic engineering and learning a little about op amps I mounted a very simple buffer to connect to the pickups. There was an enormous difference that you can hear it here: http://bestsoundoftheworld.com/audio/guitar-direct.mp3

So my question, do you have good sounds recording directly?

And are this guitar sounds from Metallica's last album recorded directly? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56GE8d8ms1s

[Rob Darling]

The amps are probably out in the live room.  When they go to record, he tells the assistant to "go ahead and arm all four tracks"- probably some combination of mics on an amp/amps.

You can use a Sequis Motherload http://www.motherloadusa.com/ or Palmer PGA04 - http://www.mercenary.com/pga04addimop.html.

With these boxes, the speaker level output of your amp goes into them instead of the speaker of your amp.  It kicks out a line level signal.  Good stuff.

[Nick Sevilla]

Hi Bruno.

There have been many models of DI boxes (short for "Direct Inject").

The method started in the 1960's, and although Joe Meek, George Martin, etc, sometimes claim to be the first, it was actually Les Paul, in his home studio, who first dabbled in this.

Nowadays, you can also have a multiple output DI box, in order to record the direct signal, plus sending it to amplifiers too, thus recording the same performance through several flavors of sound devices.

Cheers

[Fibes]

To me direct guitar recording works best at both ends of the spectrum.

1. Super Clean through a preamp and a compressor to get a totally dry, sterile and present tone. This is not to be confused with a gorgeous Twin reverb/Dumble clean sound which is one of the most difficult to emulate IMO.

2. The uber dirty super fuzzed out tone. Distortion pedal direct to a preamp is unlike anything a fuzz into an amp can create.


The rest of the fake stuff trying to emulate real amps, real rooms, real speakers and real microphones is a long way off from the sonic bliss i'm accustomed to.

[rankus]

I am with Fibes on this one.  Nothing like a 100% clean guitar tone jacked straight in.  And is there anything more raunchy than a Gtr > RAT Pedal > Pre Amp ?  LOve that stuff!

[j.hall]

yup, fibes nailed it!

[Jesse M]

The vast majority of people don't have the ears that someone like Fibes has, so I would check out the Native Instruments Guitar Rig.

[NelsonL]

And yet, you'll never ever achieve Fibesdom without micing up amp after amp after amp...

Back to the original post-- I don't think they're using a sim or a palmer box etc, not that anyone explicitly said that.

I think they're DI-ing the track, multing out to several reamps, and printing a blend of amps. I'm sort of guessing based on a few clues in the sundry youtube clips.

Maybe Terry can ask Greg, if he sees this?

[compasspnt]

Just saw it.  I'll ask Greg, bu I also wager he will not want to say exactly.

[BiasRocks]

Bruno Gouveia wrote on Sun, 15 February 2009 23:15

Hello! So my question, do you have good sounds recording directly?

I like direct for things like clean electric or nasty tones such as stomp box into a mic pre-amp. Typically I will mic an amp for most sounds.

Quote:

And are this guitar sounds from Metallica's last album recorded directly? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56GE8d8ms1s

Sounds like multiple amps to me. The tell is around 7:50 he asks the assistant to turn the Marshall and "Crank" on standby, everything else on.

Mark

[NelsonL]

compasspnt wrote on Wed, 25 February 2009 19:33

Just saw it.  I'll ask Greg, bu I also wager he will not want to say exactly.

Thank you, and quite understandable if that's the case.

[mdbeh]

Jesse M wrote on Wed, 25 February 2009 01:41

The vast majority of people don't have the ears that someone like Fibes has, so I would check out the Native Instruments Guitar Rig.

So now micing a guitar amp is a Special Expert Technique too?  I just don't understand this mentality.

[RSettee]

There's some nice sounds to be had for cleans--and it certainly is quicker--but rock tones or overdriven tones just don't sound natural with an amp emulator or speaker emulator. As Fibes mentioned, some have gone directly into the board with a fuzz pedal (the Beatles did this on "Revolution", I believe), but it's certainly something that I wouldn't want to hear all the time.

[Alécio Costa - Brazil]

I have not recorded many bands in the last 5 years, but have to tell you most do not want to spend time tweaking amps (!!), setting up microphone combos and so.

Generally they come in and ask: do you have those cool presets from Band XXX where we can start with" or... "I like the sound you achived on album Y"?

SO... shame or not, a combi of Amp farm, Guitar Rig, Chrome tone, Amplitube is quite common in this very semilazy/"savin-money" community.

[Nacho]

Oh man, I might be stepping on some toes here but I consider recording electric guitars direct a capital sin.  Call me oldschool or outdated but no simulator, DI box or plugin can replace the sound of a nice miced guitar amp.

It's just my humble opinion.