My four main studio electrics
The idea most people are underprepared may have sounded a little harsh but you have to remember that recording in a studio is like putting your music and playing under a microscope - every little detail will show up and be heard like never before, this is not like a gig or band practice! If what you are playing doesn't sound good when you practise it with just a metronome at home you will probably need to do more work until you'll be happy doing it in the studio, with your bandmates and engineer listening to you while the clock ticks by. Studio time isn't cheap and preparation will save you a lot of money or make the studio time you have more productive.
My advice for the best playing preparation would be:-
- Sit at home with a metronome, this gets you used to the click of a studio/lack of tempo fluctuation once the drummer has tracked.
- Make sure you are plugged into an amp - the amount of people who practice without an amp is disturbing! It's an electric guitar, you don't get any dynamic feedback or properly hear how you are playing and articulating without one.
- Make sure the amp has an appropriate tone. Back the gain off a bit as well so you can hear every detail of what you are doing.
- Practice until you are comfortable at 10 - 20bpm more than the actual tempo the band has decided, so you will be really comfortable at the agreed tempo in the studio or prepared incase you decide to notch the tempo up a bit.
- Figure out all of the parts! In a recording there will often be a number of parts played you don't even notice, just to thicken out the song, that will never be played live. Think about different voicings and playing techniques or maybe spend some time doing pre production with your producer to plan it out.
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| Running through and figuring out some extra guitar parts with Natalie Holman in the studio. |
It would surprise you the things an engineer will see from clients: people forgetting their guitars, guitars that buzz, rattle & hum or simply don't make a sound, people taking over 10 minutes to tune or even strings that are rusty & black. If you want to get the most out of the studio time you're paying for turn up as prepared as you can. I know engineers who think this is great, as they can just earn money from sitting and waiting for everything to fall into place, or some who just will carry on through it regardless. However, I want what I turn out at the end of the day to be the best it can be, so I don't want to lose half an hour on guitar maintenance or recording sub par guitar tracks.
So what do I mean by prep?
At a bare minimum people should be bringing a guitar into the studio with fresh but played/stretched in strings & working electrics. Preferably bring in two guitars with differing tones that you want to use and of course the rest of your rig - even if bits stay in the car, it is always better to be over prepared!
In my case as a studio engineer/owner and guitarist I have a number of guitars and gear in the studio ready to be used for recording. I usually get quite a few comments on how awesome the instruments are and regularly have people asking to buy my instruments off me. I have only ever sold one guitar to a regular client and dear friend who I could tell had truly fallen for the instrument, even more than myself, but why does this happen?
Mojo (my studio strat) being used by both Mark Hill AKA Artful (formerly Artful Dodger) and Calvin a regular client
I make sure all of my guitars are in the best state possible; they all will have their strings changed nearly every month and after they are played their strings will be cleaned off with fast fret to keep them fresh and hygienic. When strings are black that is a mixture of rust, sweat and dead skin. As well as it being unhygenic it sucks the top end and sustain out of those strings. String choice is a very subjective thing and can open a can of worms, but let me give you my ten pence worth... Personally I love 10 gauges on my guitars, and everyone seems to feel comfortable with them. I currently favour the D'Addario balanced tension sets as they feel a lot more consistent when you jump between guitars and when bending and doing vibrato. I am also using the new NYXL steel strings as they reduce string breaks, allow you to bend further and increase the tuning stability which is really important in the studio. D'Addario say that the NYXL strings help add some presence in the 2-3K area which I always tend to boost gently when mixing to get guitars to cut, so these strings can help get you heard in the mix! It is also useful and worth having a guitar in the studio with flatwound strings on it, as it can help with reducing string noise issues on takes.
I also make sure all the electrics are in perfect order, no crackling, buzzing or loose pots/sockets. I generally improve the electrics with CTS pots which are much more reliable, getting rid of those scratches/crackles and they also feel much nicer to use. I also replace the capacitors with orange drop caps - now I'm doubtful on the science behind different styles of capacitor but when you have it open, with a soldering iron, and it's a £1 extra, I will go for whatever slight mojo it may add!
If you feel uncomfortable with a soldering iron, electrics, tools or modifications in general you should find a great guitar tech that you trust!
Any good one should be able to sort out the electrics for you and should be able to advise you, a lot of shops have an in house guy but it is definitely worth shopping around and finding someone who sets up guitars really well and knows their stuff. I can not stress how important having a good setup is on a guitar. By this I mean adjusting the truss rod, setting the bridge height, checking the frets are even, level and smooth and checking the nut is made of a good material (it does make a difference) and cut to the correct height. The result of all this is it plays better, it stays in tune across the fretboard better, it doesn't rattle or buzz when you play it, notes won't choke out when you bend or play on certain frets, it generally sounds better and most importantly your guitar will become a lot easier to play. In the past I used to set up all of my own guitars as I couldn't find anyone locally who could setup a guitar well and not make me think I was just being robbed of my money. I have had some guitars come back to me feeling worse than when they went in! Now I have found a really great guy in Southsea, Portsmouth, who sets up all the studio guitars and has never done a bad job, in fact he put together one of my favourite studio guitars and is no doubt the number one reason most people love playing my guitars and want them for themselves. Trust me, a well setup guitar feels a million dollars to play and I see so many guitars on a daily basis with poor setups. I bought my dream guitar last year (a brand new Gibson Limited Run Trini Lopez) and even that benefited from having a setup. I can not recommend Steve enough. If you want to get in touch with him he works out of PJs Guitars in Southsea (a town definitely worth a day trip) and his contact details are- https://www.facebook.com/stevewrightrepairs/ or give him a call 02392 826466
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| The dream guitar - Gibson Trini Lopez |
Modifications
As a child I used to experiment rewiring my guitars and trying out different setups to see how they sounded. This may sound like pointless fiddling but adding the versatility of a coil tap costs you all of £1.50 for a push pull pot but tonally gives you a completely different guitar. You can suddenly get tele/strat sounds from a proper rock machine and save yourself having to carry two guitars. Wiring in a phase switch opens up a world of sounds many guitarists would struggle to find without one. Brian May used one extensively, Peter Green, Garry Moore and Jimmy page all used Les Pauls with this option and used it on a lot of notable songs - the Bohemian Rhapsody solo is a good example. This is not to be confused with any kind of phase pedal, this is all about the phase relationship between the pickups in the guitar which creates a completely different sound. In my opinion it creates a very vocal (slightly quacky) sounding lead tone and adds a lot of personality and feel people struggle to recreate from a lot of guitarists legendary lead tones. Again all that can be yours for the price of a £1.50 push pull pot or reversing the magnet inside your pickup for free. I am also a big fan of TBX tone knobs, they allow you to make your guitar sound brighter and cutting, as well as the usual duller and warmer sound you get from a standard tone knob, with no batteries needed all passive.
Steve took these pics when he replaced the pickups & upgraded the electrics in my starcaster.
All this aside, the main improvement you can make is by putting really high quality pickups in your guitar. This is an issue some people may think is absolute bull but believe me it is not, especially under the microscope a studio puts your sound under. In fact you can turn most mediocre guitars into great studio instruments with a good setup and a great set of pickups. This is the mechanism by which the whole sound of the electric guitar is captured, of course it makes a difference! It is obvious to hear some differences in pickup types and styles but some of the really high end pickups really become apparent in the studio where they provide that extra bit of clarity and note definition that really differentiates a poor guitar recording from a great one. Most stock guitar pickups are made very cheaply and tend to sound pretty muddy/brittle and generally terrible. Personally I use a wide range of manufacturers. My studio Strat uses a combination of Bare Knuckle and Seymour Duncan Antiquity pickups, the Trini Lopez has Gibsons Burstbucker pros which have been slightly underwound giving them a lower output, which suits the semi hollow guitar, my super Strat is loaded with DiMarzios, my Fender Starcaster has a pair of great wide range pickups handmade by Ash at Oil City pickups in London (www.oilcitypickups.co.uk) and my SG has one Oil City P90 and a Bare Knuckle humbucker. They are all picked to suit the guitars, give me different recording options and give me a lot more clarity, and boy do they make a difference whether DI'ing into Amplitube/Podfarm or playing into an amp. They also react to the dynamics in your playing a lot more, especially with tube amps, giving you more feedback on your playing.
Especially with single coil pickup guitars I make sure all the cavities are lined with copper adhesive foil and earthed, this reduces any chance of interference being picked up by the guitar. Also when I'm doing this I cut foam to sit behind the pickups and apply a bit of pressure to them, this really improves the tone and sustain. I can't give you a proper scientific reason why, I just know Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert and Vinnie Moore all apparently do it and I decided to try it one day. It is apparently closer to the sound of having the pickups mounted to the body.
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| Shielding the control cavity for the SG with copper adhesive tape. |
This is another point to "studio guitars" they are also useful conversation tools. Anyone who's been in a session with me knows all my guitars have a story; from how mojo was found and that Steve built her from parts, the 'engagement guitar', or the 35 year old Canadian acoustic guitar I bought from Hobgoblin music in Southampton. Even as a session guitarist or being in a band in the studio with your guitar it's always great for your guitar to be a conversation starter, in what can be a very weird setting. It can help break the ice and can also make you more memorable. I can remember a lot of my clients and session players guitars and after the usual how are you? hows life? questions you can geek out again asking about their guitars.
Accessories
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| Some common studio accessories. |
Picks picks picks! Every guitarist has their favourite pick, which they are most comfortable with, and yes this should probably be your most used studio pick. You will be most comfortable with it and play better but the difference between a flappy thin pick and a huge thick one tonally in the studio would really surprise you. A flappy pick will give you less string pull because the pick is the thing giving, making the initial part of the note more in tune and less sharp, it also usually sounds a bit brighter, this is useful when rhythm playing to keep things tight and in tune. However people playing with thick picks that don't give way tend to be able to be more accurate and have a fuller thicker tone, presumably from the force they hit the string with, this really suits lead playing.
Another consideration is the material. Wood picks really shine on acoustic guitars (I have a couple of Clayton coconut plectrums that I love) I think Dunlop's Ultex picks sound great, material wise, and are much harder wearing, so you don't grind them down within a few minutes of playing. I'm not a fan of standard plastic and nylon picks as they wear too quick and never sound as nice under the microscope of the studio. Brian May famously plays with a reshaped British sixpence which went out of circulation around 1970 but you can still pick them up on eBay (which is no doubt a part of his very difficult to emulate tone). Timber Tones is a fun company to go look at, they make plectrums out of recycled and waste timber, metals, stones, shells and bones/hooves/horns from animals used for food. My personal favourite plectrums are made of thermoplastic (plexi glass type material) with rough edges that help pull the string. These are made by a company called Gravity picks, the exact model is a Razer 2mm master finish which are now available in the UK, with great service, by John at http://www.gravitypicks.co.uk I tend to rarely use the thin flexible picks apart from when I need to, but when I do, I usually use the ones made by John Pearse.
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| Two Gravity picks on my amp they come in bright colours making them hard to lose. |
I also use an Ebow, it's an amazing tool in the studio to create soundscapes and interesting sounds as well as infinitely sustaining notes in and out of a solo.
Slides are a great tool in the studio for interesting overdubs and riser/fall type sounds even if it's something you aren't comfortable with on an every day basis. Because I like doing these 'riser/fall effect' type things in my songs in the studio now I have started using a Jetslide http://www.jetslide.com so my usual playing with all fingers is not affected by my occasional need to add the interest of a slide into a section. I picked this up from Scott Holiday (guitarist of Rival Sons) when I saw him live. Its definitely worth checking a video of one in action out - although these do need to be ordered from the US in your individual ring size.
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| Excitedly taken when my Jetslide turned up from the states. |
I use G7 capos as they don't have springs that wear out, are a lot less harmful to the guitar than some capo designs and they do the job really well. I use capos a lot when it comes to layering guitar parts and thickening up the sound so I tend to use them nearly every day.
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| Custom G7 gift from a friend. |
To the casual player this may seem excessive/extreme/crazy etc etc but this is just some advice to improve the tones and results you get in the studio. I do this every day and obsess about getting amazing tones for the clients I work with under the microscope of the studio. I do this for a living and want to be proud of the results I get for people and have people comment on the quality.
I know plenty of studios (even some big fancy looking ones) who are content with unmaintained cheap budget guitars on the walls but I am striving to give the service, quality and sound that sets me apart in a cut throat industry, isn't that what you want from your next record too?
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| My super strat loaded with dimarzios, a floyd, EVH drop tuner and phase parallel/series push pull knobs and an oiled neck. |
