All guitarists want to sound great…especially when recording their next platinum album. All too often, however, too much focus is on the gear being used and the sound that your ears hear coming out of the speaker. Unfortunately, sometimes the sound you hear and the sound that ends up going to tape are two different things.

These “tried and true” tips will help you get the killer tracks you’ve dreamed about. As with most challenges, the solutions are not based in rocket science; they’re practical, easy to remember and easy to implement. You just have to be aware of them. The efforts on the front end (or lack thereof) will dramatically affect the outcome…for better or for worse.

1.    SET YOURSELF UP – The first and best step to great sounding tracks is to make sure your guitar is set up and in top working condition. New strings stretched in, screws tightened, intonation set, action adjusted, nut and bridge saddles lubed, pots clean and crackle-free. If you can’t do it yourself, have a professional do it. Your guitar will play easier, feel better and sound great…all which lend themselves to helping you to deliver the best performance possible – buzz-free and in perfect tune. Consider using a product like Finger-eze, a string lubricant which sprays onto the strings and dramatically reduces the “finger squeak” that can plague a great performance.

2.    CABLES – Do yourself a favor and invest in high quality cables – for the instrument, for the effects pedals and for the speaker. Every professional guitarist uses high quality cables, and there’s a reason: they are the critical link between guitar and amp and between amp and speaker, translating the signal as transparently as is physically possible. There are several brands of cable to choose from (Monster, George L’s, Death Valley and Mogami are just a few); they can be a bit pricey, but they’re worth every penny. Consider them a “sound” investment in your musical future.

3.    GET PICKY – All guitarists have a favorite pick that works for their individual style. That said, the kind of pick you use can dramatically alter the tone of your guitar, and is particularly noticeable when recording. For example, for more attack on solos, a metal pick will brighten up the guitar tone. By contrast, a very thin pick (or one made of felt) can be the perfect choice for softer rhythm parts that need to sit well with other instruments. Experiment. Build your “pick library.” You can even have picks custom-made to your specifications (Red Bear and Blue Chip are two of the best). Before dropping a ton of dough on a new amp or effects pedal, some new picks might be all you need.

4.    ISOLATE – The physical connection between the amp and the floor causes the amp to sympathetically vibrate with the floor, creating an artificial sense of low end that can be difficult to EQ out and can make your recording sound muddy. By isolating the amp from the floor with dense insulation or a product such as the Auralex GRAMMA Pad, your amp will accurately reproduce the low end without vibrating the room. An isolation cabinet can also do the job, and they work especially well in smaller spaces (like a project studio or wherever high volume levels could destroy ears or strain relationships).

5.    EQUALIZATION – Great sounds should always be achieved at the source as opposed to “fixing it in the mix.” There are pickup selectors, volume knobs and tone knobs on a guitar; there are volume knobs and tone knobs on an amp. USE THEM JUDICIOUSLY AND IN CONJUNCTION WITH ONE ANOTHER. It’s amazing how subtly tweaking your guitar and amp together (usually by backing off the volume and playing with the tone a bit) can dramatically add depth, character, clarity and definition to your tone. Whenever EQ is added, the resulting sonic coloration will affect the way the guitar part “sits” in the final mix. Try to record your tracks “flat” (no EQ at all) at the mixing board…you’ll thank yourself later. The purer and unaffected the sound going to tape, the more options you’ll have available when you mix. It takes just a knob twist or two to make a guitar sound unnatural and color or distort the signal in unpleasant ways with drastic EQ settings. Once your performance is committed to tape, it’s easy to add to something; it’s almost impossible to take anything away. Don’t find out the hard way. Always remember: LESS IS MORE!

6.    MICROPHONE PLACEMENT – Once you’ve got the sound you want to track, you must make sure that the mic is correctly positioned. This placement is critical, because where this “close mic” is positioned relative to the speaker cone directly influences the frequency ranges that the mic will pick up. The closer the mic is to the center of the speaker, the more low and high frequencies will be picked up. If you move the mic to the outside of the speaker cone, the midrange becomes clearer and more defined. In conjunction with this, the angle of the mic in relation to the cone will also affect the tone. Angling the mic 45 degrees outward will reduce the upper midrange frequencies; conversely, angling the mic 45 degrees inward will increase low midrange frequencies. The “sweet spot” is there – just be patient and take some time to find it.

7.    GIVE ME ROOM – The sound of the amp is largely impacted by the room that it’s recorded in. Standing waves are created when a loud guitar amp is played in a small space. You can minimize the effect of standing waves by angling the amp at 45 degrees to parallel walls – this will help to keep prominent frequencies from building up in the room. Once you’ve got your “close mic” in position, you can add a second “room mic” that can be added for control of the room sound in the mix, creating the possibility for all types of sonic experimentation when to comes to the mix (for example, the room mic can be panned opposite of the close mic, then a delay can be added to just the room mic for a spatially distinctive separation effect).

8.    EFFECTS – That Godzilla pedal board you use for live shows might be chock-full of cool noise makers, but that doesn’t make it the best idea for recording. Using the least amount of effects to achieve the desired guitar tone when you’re putting it to tape is the only way to go. When effects are added in the mix, the overall sonic quality is higher and you have much more control over the parameters of each effect being used. If there are any pedals in your signal chain that are not being used, take them out of the chain – they will degrade the signal and cause excess noise. If you must use effects, think critically and creatively about which pedals to use, when to use them and in what order they’re used.

9.    DOUBLING UP – A straight “double” (playing the same part again on another track) might be all that’s needed to thicken up a guitar track, adding a sense of spaciousness and fullness. Doing it right takes practice…you must be precise and your timing must be “spot on” or it’ll sound like mush. It’s a good idea to use a slightly different sound when “doubling up” to broaden the overall sonic footprint, and then pan one track hard left and the other hard right. That said, doubling guitars in a dense arrangement can lead to trouble when it comes to the mix, as things can start to get muddy. Sometimes, doubling just the root note of a chord progression is a great way to thicken up a guitar track without adding too much harmonic information. For a dynamic lift in the chorus of a song, whole note doubles work well to emphasize chord changes. You can also try a clean picking pattern over sustaining power chords for texture and melodic depth.

(A)   GO DIRECT – Using a high-quality direct box, record a DI (Direct Input) signal directly from the guitar before it hits any effects or your amp – this way you can use the DI signal to re-record through different amps later, leading to creative uses of tones that would not be possible while recording the original guitar track. The DI signal can also be used in the mix as a way to fatten up the low end of a guitar track without having to double the part (the DI will add clarity to the low end, but won’t alter the rhythmic tightness of the original performance). (B) Record direct into the mixing board using any of the direct recording preamp/multi effects processors available (Boss, Roland, Line 6, Rocktron and Digitech all have formidable units on the market). These are powerful tools for sonic sculpturing. They all have tons of features and (by and large) are pretty easy to use – just dial in your sound and go. Many have speaker emulation circuits to make it sound like you’re actually recording through a miced cabinet. While there’s no substitute for a speaker “pushing air”, these units do have their place, especially for crunchy rhythm sounds and airy hyper-clean tones. Using tracks recorded with a mic, augmented with one of these preamp sounds, can really expand the tonal spectrum available for your use. The only limits are the ones you impose on yourself.

Just as a pilot goes through a flight checklist prior to taking off, you should apply the same discipline and focus and go through your own checklist prior to doing any recording, whether you’re booking time in a professional recording studio or recording a demo in your bedroom. These tips are proven to get the absolute best sound out of your rig and on to tape. They will serve you well…but only if you are committed to doing the due diligence and taking the time to get it right. Keep on rockin’!