Tuesday, September 8, 2015

How Other Room Recording Techniques Can Help Your Tone And Band's Sound

By Mark Grove

With Detroit Bluesman Dee Curtis


This is a great repost from 2008, with a little help from blues artist Dee Curtis.  Sometimes having that extra amp in another room or just off to the side whether you're onstage, in the studio or in a booth can help take your tone to a whole new level, or even give your sound elements you didn't think were possible.
This is a short post and I implore you to take action and use these tips to help your sound, what ever you're doing, be it a recording, live or play session work even.

With Dee Curtis

While reading an interview on recording with Daniel Lanois in a back issue of Guitar Player, Daniel said something about recording amps and mics in another room while playing in another room. That made me think, I should do a small piece on that for Canadian Guitar Player online.


Next, I asked Dee Curtis who's a consultant to Canadian Guitar Player, and a Detroit based blues musician about recording amps and what Lanois was getting at. The interview in question had to do with recording a guitar track with one amp in the main room where you're playing, and having another amp set up in the hall or adjacent room. Dee automatically knew why the second amp was being used.
                                                                                                                                                             Dee said...
                                                                                                                                                           "First of all, you use the amp that's in the room with you as a reference monitor only. Now,in order to track the amp in the other room you need to split the signal. Me being the recording for dummies person I am -- I asked Dee if you could just use a cable plugged into the amp going to a console, and recording it separately from the one in the main room. Dee replied that you need a splitter box so you can split the signal.

Isolation amp: You use the amp in the other room to isolate the sound because there is no sound, and it prevents other instrumental or vocal sounds from bleeding through into other tracks. This also makes it easier to record a cleaner track without having to do major edits. This is like having your own make-shift isolation booth. Make sure you have both amps miked and set up properly. You may have to experiment with Mic distance and placement. By the way, that's a Jimmy Page type recording tip guys. You can either have the mic set up to point straight to the center of the speaker or just off set a little.

You can also place the mic behind or in front of the amp. This a bare bones way to improvise when recording,without having to buy expensive boards or digital recording equipment.

Question for musicians. I'm not sure on this. If you can answer this I'll profile your band on my site.

If you put a mike behind the amp does it give you more bottom end? I don't know.

Just email me here guys. mdgrove0@gmail.com


Mark Grove www.canadianguitarplayer.ca


Thanks to Dee Curtis our consultant here on the blog.


Dee Curtis Music Consultant and Canadian Blues artist

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