Korgscrew
Group: Super Admins
Posts: 3511
Joined: Dec. 1999 |
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Posted: Sep. 29 2003, 11:01 |
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Combine all the answers here and I think we just about have a definitive one.
The secret, when it comes to distorted sounds, is in the 'lo fi' guitar amp - the speaker acts like a band-pass filter, cutting off much of the treble and low bass frequencies, which are what make an electric guitar sound so nasty (the treble frequencies especially) when played direct through full range speakers like those in a hifi or PA system. Miking up the amp captures this filtered signal, which will then (hopefully! ) sound good through the higher fidelity speakers it's played back on (the standard microphone for this, by the way, is the Shure SM57 - being a moving coil dynamic microphone, it also rolls off some of the high frequencies, helping to take the fizz off the sound).
Increasing in popularity now are the amplifier simulators like the Line 6 Pod (not to forget their Pro Tools plugin Amp Farm, and similar products such as IK Multimedia's Amplitube, available for VST and DX compatible softare as well as for Pro Tools systems), which are designed to digitally mimic the desirable effects of a whole array of different guitar amplifiers. For what it's worth, I think they're quite good now, but I find they do some types of sound more convincingly than others, and when it comes to distorted lead sounds, I personally miss the interaction between the guitar and amplifier which happens when all the air gets vibrating!
There have also been analogue speaker simulators for quite a long time, which can also produce usable results if used carefully.
This doesn't answer the question entirely though - the truth is that bands record guitars in all sorts of ways, and if you can think up a way of recording the guitar, there's probably a group that's going to have done it. You'll probably already know of the long chain of things which Mike fed his guitar through in the 70s (including the overdriven input stage of a Teac tape recorder, something also used by Ritchie Blackmore in the same way to get some of his guitar sounds in the 70s). The patches on the Roland GP-8 effects unit he uses now will include some kind of electronic filtering, to give a similar effect to that of a guitar amp speaker, though Mike's modern guitar sounds tend to have a lot of high end in them.
Straight direct injection, without any kind of speaker simulation, tends to be done mostly with clean sounds, but not exclusively - sometimes a buzzy unfiltered tone is just what the artists/producer is looking for.
I hope that's of some help...
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], but I know about a studio method called DI [Direct Injection] - this consists in the guitar's signal going through effects/compression/equalizing into a preamp and, from this, directly into an amplified desk - with no guitar amp and no microphone. (Guitarists hear the sound from headphones or in-ear monitors.) Pink Floyd did this, Queen did this, Clapton did (and maybe still does) this, and I've also seen with my own eyes a guitarist friend do this in a studio. So it's maybe a pretty standardized method.