Clean solo guitar sounds characterless, how to improve?

[Sam Spoons]

Plugging an electric guitar directly into a line input is a bad idea, it will affect the sound adversely, using a DI box and a mic input will help but you still need an amp, either real or virtual to colour the sound. Electric guitars do sound 'flat and lifeless' if they don't have an guitar amp adding it's bit of 'magic'.

[bencuri]

Plugging an electric guitar directly into a line input is a bad idea, it will affect the sound adversely, using a DI box and a mic input will help but you still need an amp, either real or virtual to colour the sound. Electric guitars do sound 'flat and lifeless' if they don't have an guitar amp adding it's bit of 'magic'.

Possibly that's why I hear similar problems with other bands that I am describing. The clean guitar sounds are not like before. Almost everyone I know is plugging the guitar directly into the line in these days.

[Sam Spoons]

The impedance is wrong and passive electric guitars don't give enough level to drive a line input.

[James Perrett]

Almost everyone I know is plugging the guitar directly into the line in these days.

I'll bet you've missed something here...

Many modern line inputs have a switch associated with them which turns the input into an instrument input. Instrument inputs are more sensitive and have a much higher input impedance compared to normal line inputs which greatly improves the sound from a standard electric guitar or bass. You still need some kind of amp emulation in there for electric guitar though.

It may also be worth saying that there are some tiny amps around nowadays from people like Positive Grid which sound amazing for their size.

[Drew Stephenson]

The other thing to remember is that the PA speakers themselves will affect the final guitar sound (so it will sound a little bit more like an amp'd guitar than the DI will).

[bencuri]

Almost everyone I know is plugging the guitar directly into the line in these days.

It may also be worth saying that there are some tiny amps around nowadays from people like Positive Grid which sound amazing for their size.

Indeed, this is something I did not consider but would be a logical choice to try.

[bencuri]

This music is amazing, it sounds good anyway!
I like all of the sounds, I listened to the Logic one first, they are just different.
Playing live through amps, and loads of other variables in play, trying to replicate that is a bit of a wasted journey IMO.

Yes, but still I have to start moving to a direction from the point where we are. As I mentioned and shown examples, there were so many great sounds in the gentre (there are still artists who can create them, just refuse to tell how), but since Logic started dominating and they realized you can just plug the guitar in and start recording, the tones changed and I miss the old ones. Even if they stick to the new porcess for themselves, for my productions I want the old sound back. For me the new one is a pain to listen.

[bencuri]

By now I got quite a few responses and as it can be seen, many of them is about getting an amp and mic instead of plugging the guitar directly into the line in. Recording from the amp by mic is the thing I have never done. So I have a few questions:

1. Even so, I know that the Shure SM57 is a default choice many times. Will that be really suitable in my case? If not, as the first step which mic should I try?

2.I guess the placement is dependent on the amp itself. But regarding the amp-mic distance how long should that be? I know they place it relatively close. But it was mentioned that the room itself adds a character. One of my friends has a hall in their house where we used to record with friends in the past when we came together to play music. We did that at other places as well. Just with an iPad recording the live sound. We noticed that the best recordings turned out to be those that we recorded in that hall, possibly because of the acoustic characteristics of the space. I could go back there to record stuff with this guitarist I mentioned. So to have a room that has a positive impact on the sound. But in this case do I need to place the mic a bit further than normally recommended, to let the room sound more in? Or it does not matter if the mic is as close as usually recommended?

[Sam Spoons]

Yes, yes and yes. The 57 will work fine, position is important but you'll need to experiment, start with the mic halfway between the centre and edge of the speaker cone and a few inches away from the grill. The room will make an increasing contribution as you move the mic further away and, while a 'normal' living room probably won't add anything nice, a large, high hall/stairwell may do. if not mic close and add reverb later (or use the reverb in the amp).

I have a Positive Grid Spark Mini (and #1 son has a Spark 40), they sound pretty good with distorted sounds but only ok with clean sounds. I would not be going for one of those in this case, my choice would be a small valve amp, Vox AC15, Fender Deluxe Reverb or something based on the WEM/Marshall 18 watt style for choice, with a 12" or 10" speaker but, as you say, the JC120 seems to be a goto for this style so worth a try too*. Add some delay and quite a lot of spring style reverb and you should be close.

* The JC120 and JC60 have 12" speakers, the more recent JC-40 has 10", I'd probably avoid the JC-22 which only has 6.5" speakers. Smaller speakers may work but IME don't usually sound as good (which is where I think the Spark amps fail).

[SafeandSound Mastering]

This is impossible. I just checked your refs and recordings. (only in headphones on office PC)

They are FAR too disparate, different keys and tempos, nothing is ever referenceable with any sense when it is a different key and tempo. You are not helping yourself.

Secondly I am hearing delay on all these except Etepe as I mentioned (even before listening).

I go back to EQ, EQ it, to get it sounding 'fuller' if need be.

The later recording is of course cleaner than that old VHS/DVD video of the concert. I still hear subtle mono delay as a very distinctive part of this rounder sound on the live video, maybe with the highs rolled off in the delay line. Also the video is him playing solo and the mix with vocals etc.

Etepe - no delay (or no verb with long pre-delay)
Marcory has clear and obvious chorus effect.

So the target is not clear for starters.

Does it need to be more present when there is a vocal ? Probably not.

Not comparing like to like can cause more problems than it solves.

Try a tape emulation as well to thicken lower mids and naturally compress slightly, with different degrees of saturation to vintage-ify it up along with rolling off highs in delay. And EQ it into the correct tone cuts and boosts.

Something like Roland RE-201 space delay emulation would be a good start. (or any tape loop delay where highs naturally roll off a little.) There are plenty.

This should be quite easy, a 10 min job to get the bulk sorted out.

Also don't lock yourself into a sonic corner of perfect emulation of the past. There is nothing objectively wrong, you just want to retro-ify it a bit.

My experience is that good ref tracks need to be the same tempo and key otherwise there are too many differences to make any sense of it as an actual sonic reference point.

[tea for two]

I go back to EQ, EQ it, to get it sounding 'fuller' if need be.

EQ is your friend lol.

Bencuri : I mentioned EQ on page1 of this thread. It's a straightforward way to get nearer to the tone you are after. Starting with no chorus no delay no reverb. Just Guitar thereafter EQ. Hearing how it sounds in within the song.

[Arpangel]

This is great music, and I respect where you’re coming from, but, you know a studio recording isn’t a live performance, no matter how much you produce it.
Play it like you’re playing live, and record it that way, amp/mic choice is getting off the point, those aren’t a major concern, I'd set up just like I was going on stage, keep the recording process as simple as possible.
As for studio techniques, mic placement, types of amp, etc etc etc, just experiment, it's the only way to find out what works for you.
An SM57 great, so are loads of other mics, but you must think of the big picture, the overall sound, this homing in on small details isn’t good to me, you loose sight of where and what the main goal is.
Often, the core of a guitarists sound is primarily Him/Her, and the amp, get that right and you’re there, the rest is so variable and open experimentation.

[James Perrett]

Recording from the amp by mic is the thing I have never done.

I think that you are at the stage where you need to experiment to hear the effect of everything for yourself. Don't allow yourself to blindly follow what other people tell you to do - I've had some great guitar sounds by doing things in an unconventional way.

Yes, an SM57 pointing towards the edge of the speaker cone is a good starting point but the exact position and the best distance is a personal choice.

[SafeandSound Mastering]

These recordings have been made. Re-recording now seems slightly late and far from ideal, unless of course an even better performance can be delivered for every track recorded thus far ? A long shot.

That could possibly happen if the guitar tone at source is inspiring enough for the artist himself. That does not seem certain right now.

As they are done I would probably focus on making the existing recordings work which I am pretty certain they could.

[bencuri]

These recordings have been made. Re-recording now seems slightly late and far from ideal, unless of course an even better performance can be delivered for every track recorded thus far ? A long shot.

That could possibly happen if the guitar tone at source is inspiring enough for the artist himself. That does not seem certain right now.

As they are done I would probably focus on making the existing recordings work which I am pretty certain they could.

This is a misunderstanding of the case, but understandable in a way because you don't really know the background of the story in full. This musician circle has totally different view on sound and engineering than the community here. For example several famous musicians in this circle, who recorded famous songs, they have never been to an audiophile music store, sat down in front of quality equipment and listened to their stuff or other stuff from it. They have no reference. Some of them was going to concerts and studios in their whole life (these were not an Alan Parsons' like studio of course), recording, playing, but those who set the sound for them were other people. This 'aid' sometimes went as far as setting the delay for them that they used on every occasion. Most of you may find this odd. Even me I was surprised about this when I started working with them. They can play well but know little about setting even certain basic things properly, the way most people are used to here. When I visit them, I set up their multiprocessors. I set presets for some plugins, etc. Very often it happens that they record something and send it to me asking to check it and adjust it they way I feel, and send it back to them. So relying on my friend in deciding about solo guitar sound is not the way to go forward in this case. They rely on me any time, so what I can do is rely on good examples that I know about.

[bencuri]

This is great music, and I respect where you’re coming from, but, you know a studio recording isn’t a live performance, no matter how much you produce it.

I do know that live does not equal to studio, but I did not say I want to copy things 100% every way. I do want if possible, but if I can just improve it to a kind of 'okay' extent, that would be great too. Moreover I linked the live video as reference because I liked that sound, but I also pasted links to studio recordings where I like the sound better. So my question is not primarily for finding solutions to copy live sound in the studio, I just shown a reference that I found better than the recent sound.

And you can improve things. That's why I included this video where he is playing in his room and I recorded it. This already sounds better on the video than the recording from the line-in to the computer:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VnlXwx ... sp=sharing

So this is already 1 good example for when the sound became better. Of course I cannot record a song by phone, but there was a situation at least where it turned out to be better.

Secondly, you might have seen I have shown you example from working solutions. Like these:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cOg6NT ... sp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cOg6NT ... sp=sharing

This is another guy, the former bandmate of my friend. He is very good at engineering, most of the recordings they made in the past was engineered by this guy. Unfortunately the song in the example is a bit low quality on the internet (I have the CD and it is much better), but you can hear that the feel of the guitar that you hear in the song is very similar to how it sounds in the video. This guy is called Makaba, and when this tutorial came out, we couldn't believe our ears: to experience it in 'real life' situation that the Makaba sound can be heard. I know several version of this song: CD, Casette extended, live: I can tell you, even if there is difference because of the PA and the recording gear, when you hear this guy play this song infront of you, it does sound very similar to all of them, you recognise his trademark sound, except for badly engineered concerts. So you see getting 'THAT' sound is possible.

And this is what is not so in case of my friend, because during his career it was never him but others setting his sound, and he has no idea how it was done. So anything he plays recently sounds different than before. This is the problem.

And you can say well: why don't you rely on his choice of the recent sound, and that's it. It was not his choice. Since he moved to the UK, he left that circle that assisted him to set his sound, and after he settled he learnt how to use Logic, but has no experience about modifying sounds professionally, has no reference, so he can record and edit, but cannot set things. He can in a basic level, but not the the extent to keep the quality like before. So he is asking me all the time to help, but for certain things like improving the solo my knowledge is limited as well.

There is a third example which is another story, this is a working solution, and I do know the tricks for it, provided the artist was correct when describing to me:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vSwS9F ... sp=sharing

This guy said they recorded this with Fender Stratocaster with gauge 12 strings. About the amp he did not tell anything, or if they recorded through the line-in, but it is not a big problem, because very likely if I would go this way, I could replicate this sound or get something similar easily. One of my friends only has a Mexican Stratocaster, a decent Marshall amp, and when I play such stuff on his gear, it sounds great. So In this case the problem is already solved, there is just one problem: my friend's playing style is a bit different from the playing style of the guy who played in this last example, and based on my experience in this genre, the Fender Stratocaster sound is not for my friend. He never chose to buy it. If everything fails, I will go and just try the Stratocaser, but I know very well he plays differently, and the guitar like the Vantage and similar ones are much more his world. That's why I decided to pick sounds from his own career and present them in my opening post, to try to find solutions copying them to some extent, rather than trying to focus on examples from the career of others.

[SafeandSound Mastering]

I believe this is a case of over complication/over thinking.

Go back to basics, whatever you deem them to be at this stage.

Granted we can all disappear up our own backsides from time to time, it needs to be checked.

The important thing is if a reference is presented, I have always believed it should be 1 and only 1.

Recall the very definition of the word reference. It is singular for starters.

The key and tempo should ideally be the same as that which is being produced. Otherwise some potential difficulty already begins.

I cannot add more to this as it is moving off in a way that makes less and less sense. One must try and be logical even in the field of creativity. (at times especially in the field of creativity, otherwise there can be a fine line between creativity and chaos, and chaos takes you away from clarity of need.)

All the best with it, you need to gain clarity again.

[Chet Leeway]

Almost everyone I know is plugging the guitar directly into the line in these days.

It may also be worth saying that there are some tiny amps around nowadays from people like Positive Grid which sound amazing for their size.

Indeed, this is something I did not consider but would be a logical choice to try.

I've got a couple of small Positive Grid units, and I've got to say to me that seems the easiest way to get a useful, consistent tone both for practice, live and recordings. As I understand, this player isn't into the technical side of things, a simple plug-and play gadget sounds like the right way forward. They're not pricey either.

[The Red Bladder]

This is great music, and I respect where you’re coming from, but, you know a studio recording isn’t a live performance, no matter how much you produce it.
Play it like you’re playing live, and record it that way, amp/mic choice is getting off the point, those aren’t a major concern, I'd set up just like I was going on stage, keep the recording process as simple as possible.
As for studio techniques, mic placement, types of amp, etc etc etc, just experiment, it's the only way to find out what works for you.
An SM57 great, so are loads of other mics, but you must think of the big picture, the overall sound, this homing in on small details isn’t good to me, you loose sight of where and what the main goal is.
Often, the core of a guitarists sound is primarily Him/Her, and the amp, get that right and you’re there, the rest is so variable and open experimentation.

This!

60 years of making all the usual stupid mistakes now speaking -

All the great producers I have ever experienced focused in on getting a great vibe going in the studio. Mickie Most put it "It's all about a group of musicians creating a great performance! The rest will take care of itself!"

The worst way to record an electric guitar is via line-in to a desk or one of those ghastly digital boxes. As above - a valve amp mic'ed up front and back. The live sound you posted sounds like a Fender Twin - but could have been anything decent. And record everything and all at once - the whole band. You can replace parts as needed later on, but that performance has to be at the heart of the recording.

Back in 1980 I was running a music shop and combined demo studio in Germany and I swapped a new synth for a Telecaster. I still have that Feder Tele - and I stick that in the hands of visiting musos that rock-up with something weird and/or far-Eastern.

I suppose I must have recorded a PRS at some point in the game - but I can't remember having done so. But if it works for your man, stick with that, but for a bell-like quality, I'd go for a pukka Tele. Strats sound more R&Roll.

[bencuri]

This is great music, and I respect where you’re coming from, but, you know a studio recording isn’t a live performance, no matter how much you produce it.
Play it like you’re playing live, and record it that way, amp/mic choice is getting off the point, those aren’t a major concern, I'd set up just like I was going on stage, keep the recording process as simple as possible.
As for studio techniques, mic placement, types of amp, etc etc etc, just experiment, it's the only way to find out what works for you.
An SM57 great, so are loads of other mics, but you must think of the big picture, the overall sound, this homing in on small details isn’t good to me, you loose sight of where and what the main goal is.
Often, the core of a guitarists sound is primarily Him/Her, and the amp, get that right and you’re there, the rest is so variable and open experimentation.

This!

60 years of making all the usual stupid mistakes now speaking -

All the great producers I have ever experienced focused in on getting a great vibe going in the studio. Mickie Most put it "It's all about a group of musicians creating a great performance! The rest will take care of itself!"

The worst way to record an electric guitar is via line-in to a desk or one of those ghastly digital boxes. As above - a valve amp mic'ed up front and back. The live sound you posted sounds like a Fender Twin - but could have been anything decent. And record everything and all at once - the whole band. You can replace parts as needed later on, but that performance has to be at the heart of the recording.

Back in 1980 I was running a music shop and combined demo studio in Germany and I swapped a new synth for a Telecaster. I still have that Feder Tele - and I stick that in the hands of visiting musos that rock-up with something weird and/or far-Eastern.

I suppose I must have recorded a PRS at some point in the game - but I can't remember having done so. But if it works for your man, stick with that, but for a bell-like quality, I'd go for a pukka Tele. Strats sound more R&Roll.

I completely agree with this, this is one of my goals to record them live and in 1 go, because that approach results is much better outcome than this line-in method in the studio for this band, but I also need to adapt my projects to the reality: and the recent situation is that they are not open for that kind of recording in ever case.

The PRS is not a choice of this guy. He received it as a gift to have a good quality guitar from a friend, this was available so he uses what is available.

[Arpangel]

I'd go for a pukka Tele. Strats sound more R&Roll.

This situation is like a lot of things in music production, just get the damn thing, you won’t regret it. People love music, and if you love it that much, it should be a priority, some spend ages in a pickle trying to get vocal sounds, just get that U87 for gods sake! Same with instruments, sometimes you just have to admit that you need it, just bite the bullet and get it, you will thank yourself a zillion times over, and you’ll have it for life, why? because it "does the job"

[ef37a]

Almost everyone I know is plugging the guitar directly into the line in these days.

I'll bet you've missed something here...

Many modern line inputs have a switch associated with them which turns the input into an instrument input. Instrument inputs are more sensitive and have a much higher input impedance compared to normal line inputs which greatly improves the sound from a standard electric guitar or bass. You still need some kind of amp emulation in there for electric guitar though.

It may also be worth saying that there are some tiny amps around nowadays from people like Positive Grid which sound amazing for their size.

Yes James, two mixers I know of have high Z line inputs. The Allen and Heath ZED10 and a small Soundcraft whose model number escapes me.

Yes too that plugging directly into a mixer or AI gives a very "fizzy" sound but there are pedals around that have analogue 'emulated' outputs that eq the signal to emulate the HF filtering effect of a guitar speaker. The Blackstar HT-Dual is one such if OP can find one. (then of course you don't need a HZ in on the mixer!) Staying with my old firm, the HT-5 is a very compact amplifier and should be easily loud and clean enough for recording.

Speakers make a HELL of a difference!

And lastly, my son would say that a clean guitar sound comes down to a precise left hand technique. Applies to classical guitar in the main but if the electric is buzzing on the frets? Hiding to nothing.

Dave.