Complete Guide to Recording Guitars at Home [Chernobyl Studios]

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Complete Guide to Recording
Guitars at Home
My goal with this PDF is to give you all the information you need so that you can start recording
your guitars for your songs with confidence. I also made a YouTube video companion for this PDF
that you can watch here.
All of the gear or plugin recommendations that I make are based on my personal experience with
that gear. Much of what I recommend - I still use myself to this day!
Please note that affiliate links are indicated with an asterisk (*) for full transparency. All that means
is I get a small commission if you purchase anything after clicking. It doesn’t have an effect on
what I recommend or not as most of what I recommend is totally free!
Have fun! \m/
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Bare Minimum Required
Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)
Audio Interface
Amp Simulator
Cabinet Impulse Responses (IRs)
How do I know if an IR is any good?
Cabinet Impulse Response Loader
What About An Overdrive Pedal?
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Audio Interface Settings For Recording
How to Change Your Buffer Settings
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Recording Your Guitars
How to Avoid Red Light Fever
Setting Up The Tracks
DAW Settings To Make It Easier
Double Track Or Quad Track?
Recording Tips
Should You Edit Guitars?
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Basic Processing Tips
Plugins That You Need
Tips for EQing Guitars
Tips for Multiband Compression
What is the Limiter For?
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Where Do I Go From Here?
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Thank You
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The Bare Minimum Required
In order to record guitars, you will need a minimal amount of gear to get the best results you can.
Thankfully since about 2019, it’s become significantly easier to do this and as of the time of
writing this in 2022, I see it becoming even easier and more streamlined as we move forward
with technology.
As such, I would no longer recommend trying to use the ASIO4ALL wrapper because the gear
needed is very affordable and will produce much better results without the headache-especially if
you have aspirations to continue recording and take this more seriously.
The basic elements you’ll need:
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Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)
Audio Interface
Amp Simulator
Cabinet Impulse Responses (IRs) (Maybe)
Cabinet Impulse Response Loader (Maybe)
The reason I say “maybe” about the IRs and the loader is that some amp simulator plugins are
entire suites that have their own IR loader and IRs included. (Neural DSP, Nembrini Audio,
Audiority, Aurora DSP, etc.)
There are many, many options, but I’ll point you in the right direction. Oh, and obviously you’ll
need a guitar and an instrument cable in order to plug it into the audio interface!
Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)
There is no getting around this: you need a DAW. A DAW allows you to create, record, and modify
audio files and then export them. There are no pre-installed audio applications on your computer
that can do this. (Unless you’re on a Mac, because then there is GarageBand, but it’s very
stripped down from its big brother, Logic, and nearly useless if you want to do anything more
complicated than record a few guitar parts or a simple podcast voice over.)
The DAWs I would recommend are:
1. Cakewalk by Bandlab (Free, Windows Only)
a. Cakewalk by Bandlab is the only true DAW that is capable of professional results
that’s actually totally, completely, free. Note also that Cakewalk is for Windows
only. I used Cakewalk pretty much exclusively from 2002 to 2017. The free version
of Cakewalk that Bandlab has put out is, in fact, the Platinum version, which was
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$500 when it was being sold under Gibson. You’ll get a large amount of bundled
plugins and instruments to help you get started as well.
2. Cubase Elements 12 (Sweetwater / Thomann)* - $100
a. Cubase is my main DAW now. (I use the Pro version.) For me Cubase is easy to
use, navigate, and looks awesome. There is enough flexibility and customization
without it being on the ridiculous level like REAPER, which means you won’t get
sidetracked changing the layout of your DAW when you could be, instead, working
within it to create music. The elements version I have linked is perfectly capable of
what you’d need starting out. Finally, early in 2022, Steinberg did away with their
dongle system, so you DON’T NEED the dongle anymore to run Cubase.
3. Studio One 5 Artist (Sweetwater / Thomann)* - $100
a. Studio One was born out of Cubase, as a few of the team members left Cubase to
create Studio One. It’s a very capable DAW and I used it for about 6 months. It’s a
new enough DAW where it has taken ideas and concepts from the older DAWs
and implemented what works along with their own ideas. I have no real complaints
about it… totally great DAW, I just liked Cubase better.
4. REAPER ($60)
a. REAPER is the most affordable option (other than free) but it’s JUST the DAW. You
don’t get any instruments or loops or anything like that bundled with Reaper - just
the barebones DAW to record audio. You’ll have to get looking on the Internet for
loops or anything like that if that’s what you’re into. Also, a lot of people game the
system with REAPER by clicking on the “Continue Evaluating” button without
actually ever paying for it. The other thing is Reaper is highly customizable and the
stock user interface is not very intuitive. However, if you start with it and stick with
it - you’ll probably be fine.
5. GarageBand (Free, Mac Only)
a. Essentially this is a glorified audio recorder. You will be able to record your guitar
parts and do extremely basic tasks, but you’ll find out real fast that you are
handcuffed in many of the more complex recording tasks. In the absolute
beginning, this will probably suit you, but you’ll quickly outgrow the functionality
offered here.
At the end of the day, pretty much all DAWs are the same insofar as they are a platform to record,
edit, and export audio. That said, some DAWs are better than others in functionality for the
specific purpose that you may have.
For example, if you want to record guitars for a metal project, it’ll be far easier to do that in
Cubase than it will be to do that in Ableton Live or FL Studio. This is because Ableton Live and FL
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Studio are geared for electronic and loop-based music. That means the entire workflow has been
created and designed for those types of musicians and their needs in mind.
It doesn’t mean you CAN’T record guitars in that DAW, it just means you’ll probably have to work
harder or do weird things to get the functionality you’re looking for.
Try a couple of the DAWs and see if they make sense to you, if you like how one DAW functions
over another for what you’re doing, and then stick with it. There is no such thing as a perfect
DAW without bugs or clownery. Every single one has weird things about it that make you scratch
your head, so don’t worry about that.
Find one that you work well with and feel comfortable in and go from there.
Audio Interface
The reason you need an audio interface is because on-board sound is not equipped to handle
passing and receiving loads of sound information at the same time at a low latency. Many moons
ago, there was a wrapper called ASIO4ALL that would wrap your MME audio driver in an ‘ASIO’
wrapper and allow you to do recording without an audio interface at tolerable latency levels… but
that was in the dark ages. I do not recommend doing this anymore at all as USB audio interfaces
are affordable and technically speaking, provide great results.
All you need to do is understand what you need to record, and then you can buy the right
interface.
For this example, let’s assume that you want to record your guitar or bass and also have an extra
input so you can record a voice over or something like that. This would mean you’d have a
dedicated “guitar/bass” input and a dedicated “microphone/voice” input. So we’ll look at
interfaces that have at least two inputs.
1. Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 3rd Gen (Sweetwater / Thomann)* - $180
a. To be honest, this is probably my top recommendation for you if you’re looking for
an interface to get started with. It’s USB, has two inputs, works well on both PC
and Mac, and has a great quality Softube amp simulator (Marshall Jubilee) and
Addictive Drums 2 bundled with the interface itself. Amazingly good deal for
absolute beginners.
2. Audient Sono (Sweetwater / Thomann)* - $300
a. I used this exact interface and had no plans to change it until I was forced to
relocate due to world events in March 2022. It’s a fantastic interface, low latency,
and also has an option to reamp right from the interface if that’s ever something
you’d like to try.
3. Universal Audio Apollo Twin X Duo Heritage (Sweetwater / Thomann)* - $1,200
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a. This is the interface I use now. It’s the best one I’ve ever used by a long shot, also
because it comes with a lot of the UAD plugins bundled. I wouldn’t recommend
this one if you’re just starting out, but if you’d like to upgrade your interface and
you know basically what you’re doing and are looking to get into production more,
this is a great choice.
4. PreSonus AudioBox iTwo (Sweetwater / Thomann)* - $130
a. This was the worst audio interface I used because it stopped working within 6
months. I didn’t notice anything spectacular about it when it did work… I’m just
including it on the list here because it’s pretty much the cheapest two-input
interface option that I know works. I can’t guarantee for how long, though…
Amp Simulator
Now we’re getting to the fun stuff. You’ll need an amp simulator. This is… the sound part. In the
past 3 years or so, amp simulator technology has improved exponentially. This is great news for
you! That said…
There are a LOT of them. Just… an absolute obscene amount of them. Very few of them are
absolutely amazing, a lot of them are good, and a lot are also not good. I’ll give you some
pointers below and you can go from there.
My following recommendations are amp simulators that I have personally used (or still use) and
have created great sounding tones with both for myself and my previous mixing clients. Any of
the following amp simulators WILL help you produce a great guitar tone.
1. Le Pou LE456 (Free)
a. This is an old school amp simulator that was released in October 2009, however it
brings the tones in spades. I did a YouTube video about this amp simulator a while
back, kind of like a retrospective, and I was surprised how well it still holds up. This
is based on the ENGL Powerball.
2. Ignite Amps Emissary 2.0 (Free)
a. This is pretty much the ‘standard’ when it comes to free amp simulators, especially
with version 2.0 as the link I gave you is on the STL Tones website which bundles
the NadIR 2.0 cabinet impulse loader. Truth be told, you could download this
bundle and be totally set. This is based on the Emissary amp, a design of Ignite
Amps.
3. Aurora DSP Gobyln (Free)
a. A recent release, the Goblyn is based on the EVH Red Channel which was
boosted by a Plumes pedal. It has an included IR and is rather fantastic. I did a
YouTube video recently about this plugin if you’d like to learn more.
4. Nembrini Audio Crunk V2 (Free)
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a. Nembrini Audio have a lot of great amp simulators and if you know the name
brainworkx, Igor Nembrini is the same guy that developed those amp simulators
as well. Crunk V1 is what started it, and V2 is an update. This is a great little
monster. I made a video for this a few years ago when I had a little baby beard.
You can check it out here.
5. Neural DSP Fortin Nameless ($100)
a. The flagship amp simulator from Neural DSP. Neural DSP has released a bunch of
amp simulator suites since Nameless, but I always come back to this one. The
great thing about this is that it is an entire package. Inside, you have a gate pedal,
overdrive pedals, the Fortin amp, and an entire cabinet IR loader section which
means you don’t have to load anything else. I have used this exact amp simulator
on so many of my own productions and client productions that I couldn’t even tell
you. I always reach for this when I want that Marshall sound with balls.
6. Plugin Alliance ENGL Savage 120 ($150)
a. This one is an absolute personal favorite because I love ENGL amps. However, the
Savage 120 is a beast and everybody knows it. This plugin also comes with its
own selection of IRs so you don’t technically need to load an IR loader after using
this plugin. (I would recommend a boost plugin pedal in front, however.) Don’t let
the $150 price scare you away, Plugin Alliance is pretty famous for their sales, and
I have no doubt that if you sign up to their email list that you could see it go on
sale for half the price, or even be able to use one of Plugin Alliance’s crazy
coupon deals where you could get it for $49 or even $29 depending on the time
of year.
7. Audiority Solidus 8100 ($65)
a. This is the Marshall Valvestate 8100. If you know the band Death, then you know
how badass this thing sounds. It’s a suite-style plugin, so everything you need to
make badass guitar tones is included.
8. Aurora DSP Rhino ($90)*
a. Aurora DSP makes this list again because I can’t leave out their Rhino plugin. It’s
one of their own designs, covering different sounds and needs for various guitar
players. However, if you are into really low tunings, extended range guitars, or
have an 8-string guitar, you really need to check this one out. It’s also got
everything you need in a single suite-style plugin.
9. Bogren Digital Ampknob Rev-C ($50)
a. This is probably the most ‘plug and play’ amp simulator on this list in that it literally
sounds amazing and all you have to do is turn up the gain knob. Recent updates
have added more functionality, but if you’re looking for a solid Mesa sound
(engineered by Jens Bogren), there really isn’t a faster way to achieve that sound
than the Ampknob.
10. Nembrini Audio MRH810 ($140)
a. Let’s round out the list with Nembrini Audio who created, probably, my favorite
JCM-style amp simulator. Anytime I’m doing black metal or want to add some
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mid-range madness to my guitars, I typically reach for this. Oh, and keep an eye
on the website and join the email list, because Nembrini does sales. You could
probably end up grabbing this for like 50% off during a sale.
Cabinet Impulse Responses (IRs)
If you use an amp simulator without an IR, then you’ll experience a guitar tone that sounds like
white noise, nasty nonsense. There are such a stupid amount of IRs that it’s comical. To this day I
still get emails of people sending me their IR packs to try out and, to be honest, I don’t have the
time. I found what works for me and that’s kind of what I stick with.
With IRs, I’d pretty much recommend buying a good set of IRs from the beginning. Why? Because
good quality IRs have been properly edited, spliced, are in phase with each other, and were
created with a high-end signal chain so that you don't have to worry about weird honks or other
sound issues.
If you try to mix and match various free IRs, there is a high chance they are not the same length
and aren’t in phase - this means your guitar tone will sound weak, flat, and washy. Without
knowing what this sounds like or having the tools to fix this, you’ll be stuck with guitar tones that
just don’t have the bottom end and girth you’re looking for.
After some time when you know what you’re doing, feel free to experiment and check out
whatever IRs you want!
How do I know if an IR is any good?
My advice for evaluating IRs is simple: do you like how they sound? Just because the pack says
“Marshall” doesn’t mean much. What kind of speakers are in it? How many different
microphones? What about microphone positions? From there, you need to understand if you like
the sound of the cabinet itself or not.
You might throw away $10 here or there testing out different IRs, which is fine. Just imagine if you
had spent $600 on a Marshall cabinet, just to find out you don’t like the way it sounds with your
guitar.
The point here is that your IR will dictate 95% of your finished sound, so spend time
experimenting and figuring out which cabinet/speaker combination you like.
Here are my absolute personal go-to IRs. Please keep in mind that these IRs represent the
sounds that I like to hear right from the start - your taste may be totally different. That said, I
would have no issues recommending other IRs from the same companies listed below:
1. Celestion Back Line ENGL E412XXLB Closed-Back V30
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a. The 57+121 mix is my go-to that I always use first if I’m not using a real amp
through my Captor-X.
2. Redwirez ENGL Pro V30 (Legacy)
a. I’m actually not sure if you can get these anymore. I think they are only available
through their BigBox offering now. I used these in my original Guitar Tone Mastery
training course.
3. DynIR Two Notes ENGL 4x12XXL (With Captor-X)
a. This is my first choice when I’m using my Captor-X either when I’m tracking guitars
myself or if I’m reamping for a client.
Cabinet Impulse Response Loader
An IR is an awesome thing, but totally useless without the loader. The loader basically passes the
guitar signal through the IR curve and that’s how you get the sound. Back in the day, you would
have used keFIR or LeCab… both are ancient plugins in today’s amp simulator world.
There’s basically only two loaders I’d recommend, because I use them to this day and they work
and have all the functionality you’d need.
1. Ignite Amps NadIR 2 (Free)
a. Hey, look at that, another Ignite Amps plugin! This is totally free and allows you to
mix two different IRs together. A great plugin. No reason not to have it.
Additionally, if you downloaded Emissary 2.0, then you already have this because
the NadIR 2 comes bundled with the Emissary 2.0.
2. STL Tones Libra ($50)
a. Well holy crap, how many times can we get Ignite Amps in this list? Well, at least
once more. Libra is basically the IR loader I use and I haven’t looked back. This
loader lets you do tons of blending, and you can even create a blend and then
export a WAV snapshot of it so that it becomes a single file instead of needing to
load however many you did before each and every time. It’s also the same IR
loader I recommend those that are in my Guitar Tone Mastery training.
What About An Overdrive Pedal?
One of the most common things to do is put an overdrive/screamer in front of the amp to tighten
the low end and add some more balls into the tone. I’m a pretty bare-bones kind of guy when it
comes to this, and my recommendation here would be to use the Mercuriall TSC 1.1. It’s
completely free and works perfectly.
Alternatively, you could check out TS-999 SubScreamer from Ignite Amps - also free and also
awesome for boosting your signal.
Additionally, the Nembrini Audio 808 Overdrive Pro is another free pedal you can try.
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Audio Interface Settings For Recording
When recording guitars, it’s all about latency. The lowest setting you can go without any artifacts
is what you are looking for. This ensures there isn’t a huge delay from the round-trip the audio
needs to make from you hitting the guitar string, it going through the interface, to the DAW,
through the amp simulator and IR, and then back out through your headphones or monitors.
With the interface you’re using, open up your DAW and find the audio device settings. What you
are looking to change is your buffer setting - not your sample rate. (Note: sometimes a DAW may
call this block size instead of buffer setting.)
In general, you need to experiment with how low you can go. The best setting is whichever the
lowest setting is where you can record without getting any drop-outs or audio artifacts.
(Drop-outs are when your DAW automatically stops playback and audio artifacts are anything that
sounds like a glitch.)
I personally record at a buffer size of 128. Your audio interface may only go down to 192, or even
256 but this should be totally fine. Above 256 isn’t super ideal, but it’s significantly better than
512.
If you ever open up your DAW and start trying to record guitars and notice there is a huge delay,
this is most likely because your buffer setting is at 512 or even higher.
How to Change Your Buffer Settings
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Cubase:
○ PC & Mac: Studio > Studio Setup > Audio System > [Audio Interface] > Control
Panel
REAPER:
○ PC: Options > Preferences > Audio > Device > Audio System: ASIO > ASIO Driver:
[Audio Interface] > ASIO Configuration
○ Mac: REAPER > Preferences > Audio > Device > Audio Device: [Audio Interface]
■ From there, tick the box that says “Request block size” and change it to
128 or 512, etc.
Cakewalk:
○ Preferences > Audio > Driver Settings > ASIO Panel
Studio One:
○ PC & Mac: Song > Song Setup > Preferences > Audio Setup > Device Block Size
As far as I’m aware, it’s not possible to change the buffer size in GarageBand.
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If your DAW isn’t in the above list, in Google, type “how to change buffer settings in [DAW]” where
[DAW] should be the DAW you’re using. Alternatively you can do this in YouTube as well in order
to get a visual walkthrough.
Important Note About Latency in Your DAW
Keep in mind that any plugin you load into your session will introduce round-trip latency.
What this means is that the audio will be processed by the plugin before output. Depending on
the strength of your machine, you may be able to get away with a lot of plugins or no plugins
while trying to record. I always record with the least amount of plugins and instruments loaded as
possible so I can maximize my computer power just for tracking guitars.
If you have set your buffer setting down but you still get massive latency, you might need to
remove plugins from the session. Start first with removing any mastering plugins (such as Ozone)
because those introduce tons of latency into the session. You will literally need to remove them
from the chain, disabling them won’t do it because the session is just holding them on standby.
Once you remove the plugins completely, you should have solved the latency issue.
I would honestly recommend that, when recording guitars, only have what you need to make a
proper recording. In my case, this is going to be EZ Drummer 3 and that’s it.
In the beforetimes when computers were slow as hell… well, to be more truthful, when I had a
terrible computer, haha, I used to write everything into MIDI, and export a stereo stem of the
drums, make a new session, import that drum track, and then record my guitars. After that I would
export the DIs, and import them into the original session with all of my MIDI.
Yes, it was a lot of fun to do this in the middle 2000s…
However, I don’t think you’ll run into this issue as you’ll have the audio interface doing work, and
any computer within the last 5-7 years should be able to handle this without a problem.
Recording Your Guitars
So, now it’s time to get started. Before we get the tracks inserted and ready to record, let’s go
ahead and discuss some issues that you will undoubtedly experience… starting with what’s
known as Red Light Fever.
How to Avoid Red Light Fever
Red Light Fever is a term from the old-school tape days where, once you hit record, that “red
light” comes on and musicians freeze, make stupid mistakes, or play their parts like absolute
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crap. This issue has not gone away in the digital age, but in my opinion can be more quickly
resolved.
Overcoming this issue is simple: record. Record a lot. Record everyday. Get used to recording.
Practice recording. Get used to the process and do it as much as possible. Become one with the
recording process.
This is essentially a digital form of ‘exposure therapy’ and what you are going to do over time is
desensitize yourself to the idea of, “OMG I’M RECORDING RIGHT NOW I’M SO NERVOUS I
DON’T WANT TO MAKE A MISTAKE.”
Understand that not every take will be “THE TAKE”, and understand that there will be times when
you can’t nail the part. Just hit “UNDO” and try again. Stay calm, take a break, and approach it like
you’re just walking in the park and chewing gum at the same time.
You will make mistakes. DUMB mistakes. Absolutely hilarious mistakes. Mistakes that you
wouldn’t be able to replicate again even if there was a gun against your head. That’s just how it
goes, so roll with it.
The more pressure you put on yourself, the harder it will be for you. Recording really is a mental
task and you can psych yourself out. I mean, you were literally JUST playing the part on guitar
before recording without an issue, right? What changed?
Record yourself everyday or as much as possible and accept the process. You’ll eventually get to
the point where the ‘red light’ won’t mean anything other than you’re recording some guitars and
it’s no biggie.
Setting Up The Tracks
Insert two audio tracks and pan one of them all the way to the left, and the other all the way to
the right. We are setting up two tracks to do what is called ‘double tracking’. Be sure to watch my
YouTube companion video if you’d like a visual walkthrough.
Double tracking is how that “big” sound is created. You cannot create this sound by recording the
guitar once, copying it, and then panning it. That won’t work. You physically must record two
separate tracks and the small differences in the audio information, when combined, make for that
big, stereo sound. Copying and pasting a single track onto two separate tracks and panning them
will result in the guitar being played right down the middle - because it’s the same exact audio
information.
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For the input, it needs to be whichever input you’ve plugged your guitar into on your audio
interface. Typically this is the first input. From there you want to make sure you have enough
signal going into your DAW.
I recommend an input signal of about -6dB going into your DAW. So hit your strings really hard
and adjust the input gain knob on your audio interface until you’re hanging around -6dB. Don’t
move the fader in the DAW. That’s just the volume fader and it’s only changing what you hear
after your signal has already come into the DAW and has no bearing on the signal your DAW is
receiving from your audio interface.
Once you have done this, create a bus (or group) track and route both of these tracks into that
bus track. On the bus track, insert your amp simulator, IR loader, etc. Make sure that your amp
simulator and IR loader is set to “Stereo Mode”. This means it’ll accept your two tracks that you’ve
panned. Also note that if you put an overdrive pedal VST in the chain, that this also must be a
stereo compatible plugin when placed on a bus.
At this point, you are ready to record-enable your tracks and start recording.
DAW Settings To Make It Easier
Unfortunately, I can’t give advice for every DAW about how to record guitars. I’ve used Cubase
for years at this point as my main DAW and over time I’ve simply forgotten how I used to do
things in Cakewalk, Reaper, Studio One, etc. However, I’ll do my best to explain the settings and
why I use them in hopes your DAW has a similar setting that you can use.
In Cubase, I have a couple of settings that minimize mouse clicking and general clownery so that
I can focus on just recording the guitars.
One setting I have is that when I hit the spacebar, the playhead goes back to where it started
instead of stopping at the location of where I hit stop. This saves me from having to constantly
scroll back to the starting position. In Cubase, this preference is called “Return To Start Position
On Stop.”
The next setting I have in Cubase is how my tracks are armed and monitored. The selection I use
is “Tape Machine Style Monitoring.” In essence, this means that when a track is armed, I can
already hear it via monitoring and obviously when I’m recording. However, this style automatically
turns off input monitoring during playback. This stops me from having to arm the track for
recording, clicking on input monitoring, recording, and then turning off input monitoring and
recording so that I can hear back what I just played. This was a lifesaver when I found this option.
I have a 10ms autofade setup anywhere I make a cut/splice in my track, or if two tracks were
recorded separately. This helps remove audio clicks.
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That’s really kind of it, actually. You build speed overtime as you do it, but having a decent
workflow that removes excess scrolling and mouse clicks will save you hours of time.
Double Track Or Quad Track?
Above, I detailed how to set up and record for double tracking. There is nothing wrong with
double tracking and it’s a guaranteed way to create a big sounding wall of guitars.
However, you can also do what is called quad-tracking. Instead of playing the guitar twice, you’d
play the guitar four times. If you should double-track or quad-track is an artistic decision based on
what you’re trying to do.
I will quad-track if I know that I want to use two different amps and cabs and then blend them
together. However, technically speaking, four guitar tracks will mean your guitars sound beefier…
but…
The caveat here is that quad-tracking will easily make the guitar recording process twice to three
times longer, depending on the difficulty of the guitar parts you’re trying to record. The reason is
that any mistakes made are magnified and if you don’t play tight enough, the guitars turn into a
washy mess without any articulation or note definition.
This also brings in the issue of tuning. If your guitar goes out of tune even slightly, your
quad-tracked guitars will go from beefy goodness to soupy nonsense.
Recording Tips
Here are some miscellaneous tips that may be useful for you:
● Always try to record with drums and a metronome. If you record with only the metronome,
the guitars will feel out of sync with the drums when you add them in later. This is because
you’ll have started to “groove” with the metronome instead of the drums.
● Spend some time understanding how your metronome functions. Sometimes if you have
a slow BPM, a 4/4 metronome at 120BPM might feel weird. You most likely can set up the
metronome to count at double-time, which can help you line up notes between the beats.
● It’s perfectly okay to record riffs in chunks and pieces, especially while quad-tracking. Get
it out of your mind right now that recording in chunks is somehow “cheating”. There is no
such thing as being “less authentic” or not “tr00 kvlt” if you do it this way. You’re making
music, not measuring how much ‘better’ or ‘cooler’ you are than somebody else. In fact,
who cares about anybody else? Make your vision come true. The main thing is you want
to play your riffs as cleanly and tightly as possible.
● Do not - under any circumstance - stop recording guitars until you’re done recording the
guitars. What I mean is don’t record a few parts and then suddenly start tweaking the tone
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knobs or start the mixing process. You have all the time in the world to tweak your tone
and mix your song after you have completed recording your guitars. Stay focused.
Checking your tuning regularly. If the guitars you are recording are for the “final product”,
then take the time to ensure they are in tune often. Professionals do this before each
take. If you neglect to do this and you have a guitar that slowly shifts out of tune, you’ll
find out that your guitars procedurally go out of tune as the song goes on, which will
sound awful and turn into a washy mess… and then you’ll have to re-record! Fun times.
Take breaks. If you’re getting frustrated, take a 5 minute breather and do something else.
Get up. Get a glass of water. You want to achieve a flow state when you’re recording. If
you’re tight and frustrated, it actually comes through in the recording.
Ideally, it’s great to have fresh strings on your guitar, but it’s not the end of the world if you
don’t change them. But if you have the means and are capable, consider changing your
strings if you’re recording ‘final product’ guitar tracks for your single. If you are recording
multiple songs, I’d recommend changing your strings after each song.
HAVE FUN. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it!?
Should You Edit Guitars?
Short answer? Nope.
But why?
Editing guitars is not like editing drums. Drums have very fast transients and almost no decay
when the full mix is playing. (Well, at least the shells do.) You can get away with a lot of studio
magic editing drums, but editing guitar parts is much harder because they have the transient and
then the decay of the actual note. It’s very easy to completely screw up guitar DIs and create
audio artifacts that, in simple terms, make your guitars sound like crap.
I realize there are styles of music (djent, etc) that sort of rely on this kind of studio magic, and
Joey Sturgis is probably the best around when it comes to editing guitars - but if we’re being
honest, how much life do you want to suck out of your music?
Basically, if you playback a section of guitar that you’ve recorded and it’s very much not-in-time re-record the guitars because that will be the best possible way to fix that issue. You’ll also be a
better guitar player for doing so. Also, imagine if you played that song live, how many bands have
you heard live that don’t live up to their studio records? Maybe it was because studio magic made
it sound better than it should? Who knows.
The only parts of guitar tracks that you should consider editing are any tightly palm muted
sections or dead noise parts where nothing is happening. Editing these parts out will help keep
your song sounding clean, especially if you’re using heaps of gain and don’t have a gate in your
chain.
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Basic Processing Tips
The basic rule of processing guitars is this: you can only shape what you’ve already recorded.
Your tonal signature is in the cabinet impulse response and you can’t do anything about that.
If you have an IR that has a lot of harsh white noise at the top - then that’s what you have. You
could spend an hour doing tons of surgical EQ trying to get rid of it and soften it, or you could just
pick a different IR that doesn’t have that harsh sound at the top. Which way do you think is the
path to a better guitar tone?
EQing guitars is really about getting them to sit in the mix in order to work with the bass guitar
and taking care of the super annoying things. Remember: you can’t ‘create’ a different guitar tone
with post-processing, you can only alter what you already have.
If what you have recorded isn’t what you like, no amount of EQ will change that.
Plugins That You Need
So, what plugins will you need to accomplish this? You’ll need, at the very least:
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A parametric eq
A multiband compressor
A limiter
Forget all that other fancy stuff for now. If you struggle getting a great guitar tone with these basic
tools, no amount of ‘one-knob’ wonder plugins are going to help you. These are the absolute
basic tools you need to shape your guitar and they absolutely work.
Now I know you’ll still ask me which plugins I personally use… so, here are the plugins I use on
99.8% of my mixes for guitar:
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Fabfilter Pro-Q 3
Fabfilter Pro-MB 2
API 550/560
Soothe 2
L1 Limiter
The only two extra plugins you see there are an API, which I use for color, and that is a personal
choice for boosting up presence frequencies, and the oeksound Soothe 2, which is a type of
deesing plugin… it’s not a deeser technically… but… well, let’s just call it that. It has a sophisticated
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algorithm that helps soften harshness in the guitar in a way that you simply can’t do with surgical
EQ.
The point is that you do not require anything other than the EQ, multiband, and limiter in the
beginning.
Tips for EQing Guitars
For this section, I highly recommend watching my companion YouTube video to see these moves
in action.
Guitars are a broadband instrument, meaning they have frequencies that cover the entire
spectrum. This is a problem in a metal mix because we have things like drums, bass, cymbals,
vocals, and blast beats. All of these elements want to be heard in the mix. So mixing guitars is
about shaping them to fit in the mix, and here are my recommendations:
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Consider getting rid of anything below 100Hz. Yes, I’m aware you might be playing in
Drop A, but you have a bass guitar, remember? You need that space in the spectrum for
the bass to do bass stuff. I tend to do a hi-pass filter around 92-100Hz.
Keep the low mids in check. This area is basically from 200 to 800. I actually have a
YouTube video about a ‘secret’ EQ cut that I like to make in the low mids. You can check it
out here.
Don’t automatically cut 3.2kHz, 3.8kHz, 4kHz, or any frequency for that matter just
because you saw Joey Sturgis do it. Every cabinet impulse response is different and
newer IRs have been recorded with better equipment and spaces. Not to mention, amp
simulator technology has vastly improved from the stone ages of the early 2000s. The
point is that your guitar, tuning, and what you’re playing completely changes what needs
to be done with your guitars.
Generally, you’ll need to be aggressive with a low-pass filter at the top. Digital IRs and
amp simulators still have a lot of white noise and mostly unusable information in the upper
frequency ranges. You’ll see lots of tutorials say that you shouldn’t cut below 10kHz. Well,
I’ve got news for you, I start my cuts at 7kHz and depending how harsh everything is, I
might even bring it down to 6.5kHz. Why? Because that’s what needs to be done
sometimes. The point here is to start at about 7kHz and move the cut back and forth to
where you keep enough top end information without it turning into a white noise tornado.
Tips for Multiband Compression
Generally, we’re going to use multiband compression to mostly control the low-mids of guitars
during palm mutes. Essentially, we are going to tell the plugin to decrease the volume of a certain
range of frequencies when it reaches a certain threshold. This is a great way to maintain a solid
guitar tone without running into woofy or chunky low-mids that muddy up our guitar tone.
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What we’ll do here is employ the Andy Sneap C4 trick. I actually made a video about it and you
can check it out by clicking here.
I typically only use multiband compression for this reason, however there have been times I’ve
used it to softly tame the upper frequencies in the same manner as the Andy Sneap C4 trick
works.
What is the Limiter For?
The limiter is the last plugin in the chain and its purpose is to ensure we don’t have any errant
transients poking through that might cause spiking or clipping. Additionally, it’s also a great way
to control the volume of the guitars later on in the mixing process if you have done a bunch of
volume automation. What I mean by that is, instead of copying all the automation points and
moving them, you can open up the limiter and just pull down the output and boom, the volume is
decreased!
What you want to do is pull down the threshold until you do about -0.1dB to -0.3dB of reduction.
Honestly, this won’t be constant reduction, it’ll basically only happen here or there as parts of the
guitar sound spikes - so the limiter will catch these and ensure you don’t have any problems.
Where Do I Go From Here?
Honestly, now you just need to practice, practice, practice.
There is no shortcut to creating great tones or getting better at recording them because now it’s
about ear training and understanding how a great tone sounds and works in the context of a mix.
Every mixer (myself included) has spent years figuring this out and honing their skills in order to
do this consistently and quickly. There is no shortcut, it just takes time.
However, this guide should help shave off months (or even years) of the initial learning curve
because you won’t have to worry about the technical side of it anymore - only the artistic side.
However, if you’d like some more guidance on crafting guitar tones, I have a training course
called Guitar Tone Mastery that goes over everything presented here in even more detail, to
include hours of video presentations where I go through my exact tone creation process,
step-by-step, giving you all the tools you need to go off and experiment on your own.
There is also a dedicated Discord community and hundreds of us share tones, talk about different
techniques, and overall just have a cool time. This community is ONLY for members, so there are
no trolls or nonsense that are unfortunately rampant with public Discord servers.
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You can join Guitar Tone Mastery by clicking here and I’ll see you inside!
Thank You
If you found the guide helpful, then I’m glad! I really wanted to create a resource for you (and
other beginners) that was actually helpful and pointed you in the right direction so you could start
getting results right away.
Anyway, I’m out.
Have a good one!
Scott Elliott
Chernobyl Studios
www.chernobylstudios.com
www.chernobylstudios.com