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

2011/7/7 Roberto Suárez Soto <talkingxouba(a)gmail.com>om>: I think it depends what effects you mean - if you are talking about guitar distortion and the like, my understanding is that most pros will mic the musician's valce amp and record whatever comes out - using the musician's preferred signal chain/pedal board. When it comes to effects like compression etc, these _may_ be added after the recording - but again usually using hardware effects processors (costing 10k plus). When my band recorded at a professional studio, though, the engineer/producer did add some guitar effects post-recording. It was a quick hack-job though and I don't know if she would have done that if we had two weeks instead of one day to record the song. Regarding what you should do in a home environment, I think trying to mimic the pros is a surefire way to problems - as people have already said - recording clean and adding effects afterwards opens the way to endless tweaking (and not necessarily a great sound). I would recommend reading Geurilla Home Recording - the author (Bobby Owsinski) is a big fan of getting the tracks right while they are laid down with little post-processing (for home recording environments). Personally I think the V-Amp2 is a great virtual amp - to my ears the distortion is very good - probably better than the Pod series in some aspects. If I were to try to improve my guitar sound I would probably go and buy a physical valve amp and some pedals - but as others have pointed out, this is an expensive route - and possibly won't get better effects. To my ears V-Amp2 is better than guitarix (at the moment) - seems to have more varied sounds, and less "fizzy", but maybe that's just because of the knobs! :) James