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Recording your Guitar -
Wet, or Dry?

Studio Overviews

Posted by CapnZilog - Feb 15, 2006
@ 03:41:28 AM

mp3

Pedals vs. plugins - getting the
use out of both, and in the right order

[From the Reader
Mailbag]

"I'm having a difficult setting my gear to
get a decent lead sound. Generally ppl use a overdrive pedal
to the lead channel of the amp + chorus + delay + reverb.
Using my Vox tonelab alone is pretty ok but when recording
with Sonar problems occur : I try to record with a dry signal
with no time-based effects only overdrive and I stack
EQ,comp,delay and verb on a FX bus in Sonar. So far results
are so-so at best."

---

This method
represents the purist 'studio' approach, but beware: effects
like compression and EQ placed before (or within) an amp are
going to have a different sonic character than applying them
post-amp with a plugin. Now, if your -amp- is a plugin
(Amplitube, ReValve, etc.) then you can modify the signal with
more plugins before the signal hits your 'virtual' amp but
this may or may not sound identical to the pedals you
prefer.

My own opinion is that for most situations, the
analog part of the chain (meaning everything between the
guitar cable and the amp, no time-based FX) is best done
outside of the computer while the time-based FX part of the
chain (delay,chorus,reverb) is best done inside the computer
using plugins.

The reasons for running time-based
effects as plugins are twofold. First, time-based FX make
editing difficult. For example, if you have a BOSS Delay Pedal
on and you make an accidental string noise, that bit of noise
is now echoing around and you can't easily get rid of it in
the mix. Whereas if you recorded dry, you can mute it before
it hits the delay.

The second advantage to running
time-based FX as plugins is so you can adjust them in the mix
non-destructively. More than anything else, tweaking reverb
and delay levels is something you're going to want to change
as the mix gets built.

Now, compare this to the analog
chain. Any FX placed before a device that causes distortion
falls into the "non linear" category of electronics which
basically means "Flaky Quirky Things That Are Very Tough To
Emulate." And for this reason, if you're really in love with
the sound of a particular analog chain (like a wah pedal into
a Tube Screamer into your Tonelab) then you're probably best
off keeping that.

The point of having things like EQ
and Compression running as plugins on a guitar track is, IMHO,
to help contour the sound in order to make it settle better in
the mix. But the actual -creation- of the tone is going to be
done much earlier, in the analog chain. Plugins are like
pepper and salt; they can make a steak taste better, but they
can't make it taste like chicken. Does that make sense? Your
Basic Dry Tone is your bread-and-butter, so make sure it's as
good as possible to begin with.

Now - with all that
said, it's possible to overthink this stuff and a lot of
people do record their signals wet because it's easy and
straightforward. Nothing wrong with that! I've gotten some
nicely produced lead tones (see example) using nothing more
than an Ibanez and a GuitarPort. Granted, this particular
Guitar Port patch was performing several effect-like functions
(Noise Gate->RAT overdrive->Soldano Head->Digital
Delay) but no compression or EQ was involved. And no external
plugins, either!

-djh

3 comment(s) | viewed 175
time(s) | |

Your Comments

Commented by sixtofive - Mar 15, 2006 @
07:51:59 PM

good thoughts there capn,  I
recently got a vamp pro which allows you to route the sound so
that the left output is wet and the right output is dry.
very nice to be able to capture both simultaneously and have
the option of using whichever suits your needs
later.

Commented by CapnZilog - Mar 16, 2006 @
01:09:02 AM

Ah, yes - the Bass POD has that
feature too which is a most excellent idea since it's very
common to record both a DI and amped bass to separate tracks.
If you do that trick with the VAmp Pro does that mean that the
stereo FX are summed to mono in the wet
channel?

Commented by radica - Mar 18, 2006 @ 09:15:00
AM

good article Capn..  I have
always used the effects to record, I'll try this to see what
diff I have THanks!

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