[LAU] Applying effects when recording electric guitars: before or after recording?

Brent Busby brent at keycorner.org
Sun Jul 10 21:24:40 UTC 2011


On Sun, 10 Jul 2011, Loki Davison wrote:

> For me, I record with all the effects on as I just want what I hear to 
> be on the recording. The way you play changes depending on the effect 
> you have on, and you'll change your phrasing depending. The 3 knob 
> reverb on my fantastically lovely supro amp totally changes how I 
> play.

Since this thread has been going on for awhile, I guess I'll mention 
what I've been doing for this:

I'm using a mixer with 4 subs, plus a main L/R mix.  It also has direct 
outs on almost all the channel strips.  Basically, that means that I can 
have up to two stereo submixes per overdubbing pass when recording, plus 
as many direct out's from individual instrument channels as I want, all 
without touching my main L/R mix.

That allows me to setup the instrument channels to all either go to one 
of the two pairs of subs (which are being used as two assignable L/R 
mixes), or for some individual instruments to not get routed to 
anything, and get recorded off of their own channel strip's direct out. 
No actual instrument ever gets routed to the board's main L/R.

What does go to the main L/R is the effects return mix.  Each 
overdubbing pass catches the effects that are being used with the 
instruments in that pass, recorded from the main L/R.  The main L/R gets 
recorded on its own track in Ardour for each overdubbing pass, so you 
end up with the wet mix you were listening to while you recorded, and 
the dry instrument tracks, all separated by overdubbing passes.  (In 
other words, you'll get a separate "wet" track in Ardour for each 
overdubbing pass you do, that came from the main L/R for that pass.)

The advantage of this is you have all your dry tracks, the effects 
returns that you listened to while you played them, and the ability to 
substitute or mix in other effects if you're not happy afterward.  The 
disadvantage is that the effects are shared on each overdubbing pass 
between all the instruments in that pass.  There's no way around that 
except to do more passes, with fewer instruments in each one, if you'd 
like to isolate your wet mixes more.

There's probably a more professional way to do this that they use in big 
studios, but so far, that's the solution that I've worked out.  And 
considering that I've only got a 4-sub mixer, this may be the best I can 
do with my setup anyway.

-- 
+ Brent A. Busby	 +
+ Sr. UNIX Systems Admin +	Vote for Cthulhu.
+ University of Chicago	 +
+ James Franck Institute +	Why settle for the lesser evil?


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