Recording Heavy Rhythm Guitars At Home

What’s up Krank Addicts? Welcome to “The Producer’s Chair”, a new column here on the Krank website. In this section we’ll be hooking all you guys up with some killer info with tips on how to record better with your Kranks, little production tricks and insight on helping you make better recordings from some the industry’s best producers! Serving as our resident knob tweaker and host columnist will be producer and studio whiz Chuck Alkazian. Chuck owns the prestigious Pearl Sound Studios in Detroit, MI, and has produced and worked with the likes of Saving Abel, Ted Nugent, and Filter just to name a few. Chuck is a complete Krank Addict and our go-to guy for all things “tone”! Take it away Chuck…

Hi Krank heads, happy to be here on the Krank site helping you guys out! Let’s start this month by discussing a subject many of you have written in about: the recording of heavy rhythm guitar tones. Most home recording enthusiasts seem to struggle with getting the rich, full and ballsy guitar tones they hear on their favorite recordings so let’s go over some steps on helping you achieve a huge guitar sound!

Obviously tone starts with your guitar and the type of wood as well as what pickups and electronics it has, all is part of achieving the sound you desire… Truthfully this subject is a column unto itself but realize with passive pickups the signal from your guitar will hit the preamp of your Krank head softer where the hotter active pickups will front load the amp with more gain, either one will create different dynamics. Active pickups often are a favorite choice for getting higher gain sounds…but just about every engineer will say you can never go wrong with a stock Les Paul either! Again wood and pickups! But for the sake of this column just understand different guitars will produce a softer or harder guitar signal and that will affect your overall gain structure.

So let’s begin with your amp setting: start with a modest gain and EQ setting and adjust presence and brightness to your taste. Realize you can kill a great tone with too much eq – make it too bright and it sounds thin, make it too bassy and it becomes muddy and interferes with the bass – so be moderate. One of the most awesome features on all the Kranks is the Sweep knob so when recording dial it in small increments and really hone in on the frequencies you want, it will help you to not over eq! Remember every instrument has to sit in it’s own space in a mix so go for the most natural tone!

Another bad mistake made here is dialing in too much gain! Many guitarists, especially it seems those gainiacs with a weapon of choice like a Krankenstein, want to try and squeeze every drop of gain they can out of the amp which in many cases may be how they setup their live rig. But in the studio the more gain you use, the more saturated and smaller your tone will be and you will lose low end and punch. Dial back the gain and watch your tone become more full! If you desire more gain and that stacked kind of sound, record a few more passes of the same performance. Then add a little bit more gain for each pass and see what happens! It’s often hard for a gainiac guitarist to learn how to play with the gain dialed back in the studio but I guarantee you will be happy with the results!

The next step is the microphone and placement. I would say generally the most popular and accessible choice for amateurs and professionals alike is a Shure SM 57. That’s what I use myself for most all of my guitar tones as do many producers like myself! It’s a workhorse mic that always seems focused and tuned into THAT guitar sound. Place it closer off axis or on axis to the cone to achieve a thicker or thinner tone. Of course you should know there are quite a few others mics as well that are excellent choices to record guitars with that are relatively inexpensive depending on what you’re trying to achieve.

Lastly you really need to have an open sounding mic pre that can handle that tone. It’s pretty crucial to have a rich mic pre that has the headroom to represent the true sound of the guitar amp… Most people are probably using the pre’s on their digital workstations. Actually for the most part you can get amazing results with these pre’s! One thing to be careful with here is the overall gain on the preamp. While you want to get the pre hot enough to record a moderate level getting the preamp gain too hot can resort in unwanted distortion, especially when recording heavy gain guitars!

However if you’re looking for a bigger, more commercial sound you definitely want to invest in a higher quality mic pre. You’ll find in higher quality mic pres they will allow you to capture wider sounds as well as utilizing the expanded headroom that comes with them to produce cleaner sounding tracks, or even at times adding gain for effect to rhythm guitars. Another great thing about investing in a high quality preamp is you will essentially have the same type of mic pre that would be used in a big studio! Obviously you’re limited to point by the recording system you’re using at home but a quality mic pre will certainly add depth to your recordings.

There are A LOT of great choices out there to choose from. This is definitely an area of “you get what you pay for” so a pro quality pre can be pricey but you will certainly notice what you’re paying for! Also simplicity in operation is a good thing in general. Many producers and artists will tell you they love Krank amps because of their simplicity in getting tones and preamps are no different. Choosing preamps is very subjective so I would strongly suggest getting on the net and researching as many preamps as possible before deciding what works best for you and your wallet!

Hopefully these tips will help you capture a better rhythm guitar sound when recording! So watch your gain levels, your distortion settings and watch how much eq your using at the amp…. This little checklist should yield great results! If you guys have any questions regarding any of this feel free to send them to me here on the Krank website and choose “Artist Relations” in the drop menu!

Till next time!

Chuck

Here’s a video report of Chuck recording rockers Bobaflex!