Hey guys, in this video we’re going to go over the best way to record electric guitar
in the home studio. The technique we’ll go over will provide the most flexibility
for editing the guitar performance, as well as the actual tone of the guitar after we’ve
recorded it. For this tutorial, we need a device to record
the electric guitar and output back out to an amp after. The best system for this is
a guitar interface like the Avid Eleven Rack that I’ll be using in this video. I’ll
link to those in the video description so you can check them out. We’ll also need
software to record the guitar, so we’ll use Reaper since it’s commonly used for
home recording. One of the big issues we have when recording
guitar alone is it’s difficult to play the guitar and tweak the sound out of the amp
and microphone at the same time. Instead, we should use a technique called reamping,
where we first record a direct signal, and then send it back out to the amp from the
audio interface and re-record with the amp sound. That way, we can make as many changes
to the amp tone as we would like. If we just record the guitar amp to start with, there’s
no way to make any changes and we’re stuck re-recording the performance if it doesn’t
fit well in the mix. The only thing we won’t be able to change after are the pickup positions
and the tone knob settings. Let’s start with our Reaper project. For
this project, I have an electronic drum recording and a bass track. This will replicate how
you would be recording this, where you have these instruments in your project and need
to get the guitar to blend nice with them. First we need to make sure our audio interface
is setup properly. Go to the Options menu and select Preferences. Go to the audio section
and set the Device to ASIO. The ASIO Driver needs to be set to Avid Eleven Rack ASIO (64-bit).
Then press OK at the bottom to save the settings. Now we can start configuring our tracks. Right
click on the blank track area and select Insert new track. Set the Input to Guitar In under
the mono section. This is the direct guitar signal from the Eleven Rack with it acting
as a direct box. We can also setup a second track with our
amp simulation from the Eleven Rack. Create a new track, and set the input to the Stereo
Eleven Rig input. Now we’ll want to set the amp simulation preset and settings on
the Eleven Rack. This doesn’t need to be perfect. We’ll use it to get an idea of
what our final track will sound like and make sure our performance is good, but with this
technique we’ll still be able to make changes after.
Press the red button on each track to arm them to record. Now just record a guitar track
along with the other instruments we have. Once that’s done, we’ll have two guitar
recordings. One is the stereo amp simulation, and the other is our direct signal that we
need if we want to reamp the signal after. With these recordings done, let’s now go
over how we can create our final guitar sound. We’ll start with some signal routing for
the direct guitar signal. We need to open the signal routing section, then add 3: Reamp
L as the hardware output. We have to use this specific output on the Eleven Rack. Guitar
amps work best when the signal going into them is at an instrument level instead of
line level and sending too loud of a signal through will create a lot more noise from
the amp. Connect a ¼” instrument cable to the reamp
output on the front of the Eleven Rack. Then connect the other end to the input of your
guitar amp, or to the input on any pedals you’d like in the signal chain.
Now Reaper is configured to send the signal to the Eleven Rack, but we need to configure
the Eleven Rack to send the signal to amp. First, we’ll change the input on the Eleven
Rack to Reamp so it accepts the signal from Reaper. Otherwise by default it still wants
to process and output the signal from the guitar input. Now disable all the amp, cabinet
and pedal simulations for the preset you’re using. It doesn’t matter what preset you’re
on. With all these disabled, the Eleven Rack will now output the direct signal through
the output to amp jack on the front. Place a microphone near the speaker of the
guitar amplifier. For this, I’m using a Shure SM57, since it’s a pretty commonly
used guitar amp microphone. Use an XLR cable to connect the microphone to the microphone
input on the front of the Eleven Rack. Insert a new track in Reaper. Set the input
to Mic In under the mono section. Arm the track for recording and adjust the
level using the gain knob for the preamp on the front of the Eleven Rack, while the guitar
is playing through the amp. Record a track in Reaper. Don’t worry if
it’s not exactly how you like it to sound at first. You can go back and make as many
adjustments to the microphone position and amp settings as you need until it sounds right.
I recommend making changes and recording, then muting the guitar amp and playing it
back since it can be difficult to judge how the actual recording sounds with the guitar
amp playing in the same room. Now you have an easy way to get the perfect
guitar tone. We can even do things like record with different microphones, layer different
amps, combine amps with the Eleven Rack simulation, and pan the tracks in stereo.
Thanks for checking out this video on the best way to record guitar in the home studio.
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