Here’s a few quick ideas for crafting your tone when recording electric guitars. Because many of us working at home in our project studios don’t have access to a lot of outboard EQs (I sure don’t), I’ve left the use of EQ out of the equation. Personally, I’m of the mentality that you should work with the source you’re recording to craft the tone, then use microphone selection and techniques to further craft the tone you’re looking for. There is certainly a place for EQ, but I’m a believer in not only keeping things as simple as possible, but also holding out on EQ as much as possible-using it only as the last coat of shine to a source that is already great.

Multiple Mics
Using multiple mics allows you to blend the response curves of the mics together, creating a tone full of warm nuances. It’s kind of like taking a photograph with several different lenses at the same time, and then blending the qualities of these lenses together to create a picture with a unique look.

Multiple Amps
Grab an amp splitter or A/B/Y pedal. There are lots of companies that manufacture these. You can get a simple two-way splitter (A/B/Y pedal), or if you’ve got a little more cash on hand you can get more sophisticated with a multi-way splitter.

In any case, split your guitar signal through two or more amps. Then blend the tones together just like in the technique above. You can use the same type of mic on every amp, or try different combinations for more complex tonal shaping.

Layering parts with different tones
One of my favorite things to do is to have the musician perform the same part multiple times, but change different parts of the setup, such as the guitar, the amp, the pedals, the mic, the pre, or all of it. This way, you’re not only getting variations in the tone of the guitar, but also in the nuances of the musician’s playing. Really makes the overall track have a big sound in the end.

*EXTRAS*

So there’s three fairly basic and widely used techniques to capture a great guitar tone in recording, but I thought I’d throw in a few extras as a bonus.

Phase Alignment
There is some great outboard gear, as well as some software phase alignment tools on the market. These tools allow you to play with the phase of the signal-continuosly sweeping it from anywhere between 0 deg to 180 deg in phase adjustment. When it comes to electric guitars (especially in rock) playing with the phase of signals can create some really interesting and inspiring tones.

Mic Placement
Another way to play with the phase of signals is to simply change the placement of two or more mics in relation to one another on a source signal. Equally as interesting and inspiring as above. When positioning microphones, play around with their position and distance on an individual speaker as well. Mic’ing directly in the center of the speaker (mic pointed at the dust cap) will get you a tone that has a lot of high frequency content (but could sound thin). As you move the mic to the edge of the speaker the highs will begin to roll off. Playing with the distance of the mic to the speaker will cause the proximity effect to come into play.

Using Pedals
My favorites are fuzz and octave fuzz boxes, clean boosters, and chorus/short delays. But distortion boxes, EQ/filter pedals, compressor pedals, and phasers/flangers can all be great as well.

If you try some of these techniques out, please come by and share your thoughts or links to sound clips in the comments. Got any of your own techniques? Feel free to post those in the comments too.