Hi,

I'm trying to decide whether to record a guitar player either direct into the board or live from his amp. Any ideas on the pros and cons?

Thanks in advance

There is no right or wrong way to record. If you are in a situation where you can mic an amp out. Give it a try. Experiment and do some test takes. Listen to the sound on as many sound systems as possible (monitors, car stereo, boom box, Hi Fi stereo etc...). Make small adjustments to eq and take notes. Then make another test recording. Do this until you are happy with the sound you're getting. The more you do this the better your ear will get and the easier the process will be in the future. I'm using a POD to record direct and I'm getting very good results. The advantages of recording direct are, you can record any time, any place, with the same exact sound. A mic will give you a more realistic sound but it depends on the type of sound your trying to achieve. Hope I was helpful.

Plug into POSITIVE -N-R-G-

[ August 10, 2001: Message edited by: POSITIVE NRG ]

Hey,

while we have this discussion going, what mics are you guys using? I've used the standard Shure SM 57 and 58s and have been happy but I'd like to get a "great" mic. My budget is about $350-$500. Mostly I record vocals and guitar amps. Ocassionally I'll need to record a sax or other horn. Right now I'm using drum machines but eventually, Ill have to record them too.

Hello, 57s and 58s are classic mics that are very useful for many things. If you want to get a mic for recording vocals and acoustic instruments, check out http://www.prorec.com
They have a great sounding board with some very experienced recording engineers and musicians. Just search the archives or post a question. I have learned a lot about recording from visiting this resource. Good luck!!!

Plug into POSITIVE -N-R-G-

Alesis makes a kick butt condensor mic for vocals that will beat the 57s and 58s for studio. they sell for 350 to 450 bucks.
BubbaBlues

Howdy Bubba!

Nodding my head in agreement.

Hey guys. One of my onlinerock.com pages has samples of several direct recording processors including the POD and the J-station. It is at:
http://www.onlinerock.com/musicians/chrisg/POD_Samples.html

However generally, when I can, I prefer to mic up a guitar amp if the amp sounds good. For example if I'm recording a band in my home studio that has some incredible sounding Marshall or Mesa-Boogie amps, I do my best to capture that sound with usually either a SM-57 or a Sennheiser MD-421 dynamic mic (another awesome guitar amp mic).
I also on occasion use large diaphgragm condenser mics as well. Sometimes instead of eq'ing to get extra presence, a good smooth sounding condenser mic can really give a guitar amp a nice polished sound. For clean sounds also condenser mics can be nice. But for songwriting, something like the POD or Johnson J-station is very handy to have as it allows you to quickly set it up, dial in a sound, and just start recording with decent sounding results.
So my answer would be to use both methods and see which gives you the best results. For micing stuff, just make sure to use a decent small mixer (like the Mackie's or Soundcrafts) or a decent quality stand-alone mic preamp like the Presonus Blue Tube. Then of coarse a decent mic. The SM-57 is a tried and true mic for guitar amp micing, but go to pawn shops and see what interesting but cheap mics you can find. For example I picked up a EV RE-10 mic for $40 bucks (which normally sell for a lot more) at a pawn shop and I use it all the time. But the SM-57 is one of the best all-around mics that can sound quite good if you couple it with a good mic preamp.
Best of luck!
Chris G.
aka-Dwimmerlaik
Dwimmerlaik home page null null [email]null[/EMAIL]chrisgie@txdirect.net