Grabación guitarra pesada con single coil

Existe en Gearslutz la traslación de una entrevista a Dave Jerden de la forma en que grabaron las guitarras del "Dirt", en ella se especifica que utilizaron 3 amplificadores en pila: un Vox para los graves, un bogner o mesa boogie para los medios y un bogner o soldano para los agudos. Micros cercanos se usaron SM57 y 421, micros de sala C12, U47 y U49, mezcla de micros: cercano 80%, sala 20%, más un trillón de overdubs que usaron.

Aquí te la dejo:

What are some of the techniques that you use to record guitars?

On the first Alice in Chains record, Facelift. Jerry Cantrell and I had several amps, and were trying to find sounds on each one. I said, “Lets combine them.” Usually when you combine amps you end up with nothing but mud. But I came across the idea of using different amps for different frequency ranges. That could mean ,for example, using a Vox AC30 closed back for the low end, a Marshall or Bogner Ecstasy or a Mesa Boogie for the midrange, and then using something like a Bogner Fish preamp or Soldano preamp for the top end- something thast I could get a real hard bite from on top. I record those on separate tracks. They all go down at the same time, and then sometimes I double that.

So the first set of three is one performance……..

One performance. My Engineer Brian Carlstrom and I have been making our own active splitter boxes to help deal with hums, buzzes, and all that. The cable comes out of the guitar and the box splits the signal to the three amps. But I just did an album in the Bahamas last year at Terry Mannings studio (who is also a great engineer) and Terry invented an active splitter box with one in and six outs. It has ground lift switches to take care of grounding problems and it works like magic.

And the whole point of having the box is so the pickups aren’t loaded down making the guitar sound different.

Exactly. Even the length of the guitar cable can kill the tone. When we’re doing basic tracks, the guitar and bass players are in the control room with the amp heads, and this makes the leads shorter. Keeping the guitar leads short is important because long leads can really take down the high end.

Do you have particular mics that you use for the three amp set-up?

The mainstay for me has been the Shure SM57. We always keep relatively new ones around and we front and back mic open back cabinets with them. I also use AKG C12’s for pulling out the room sound a little bit, or Neumann U47’s or U49’s are great mics for the room. But I don’t tale a $10,000 mic and put it right on a Marshall cabinet. A 57 will get the sound for me.

How much of the mix is there between the close and distant mics?

Probably 20 percent room as opposed to the close mic, and those mics go down to the same track.

When using the multiple amp technique, do the amps go into separate areas or into one room?

There’s two set-ups that I use: one is for basic tracks and the other is for overdubs. When I am doing the basic track, I am not sire if it is going to be a keeper, so I will isolate the guitar and bass amps from the drum room. But, when I actually do guitar overdubs, we pull all of the guitar cabinets ( the heads always stay in the control room) out in the main room and then I have the option of using room mics on them too.

When you mic the front and back of an open back amp, are you generally using a 57 in front and a 57 in back?

It can be a 57 or sometimes I use 421’s. Sometimes it’s a 57 in front and a 421 in back. It varies.

More to come....................

Jerry Cantrell:

There's a lot of different stuff in both those tunes. For the guitar tones, I used my Bogners, a Mesa/Bogie Dual Rectifier and a Rockman; last time I used the Marshalls modified by Bogner, which is what I use live. And instead of eqing the guitar, I put down guitar tracks of different eq sounds. I put the low stuff with Dual Rectifier, the big whomping ****, and the real biting stuff that is my sound in the middle, and then a real ****ty, high Rockman on top of it. I did this on each side, so that even though there's three tracks on each side, they're not necessarily used every time. But whatever sound you want, instead of having to twist the knob, it's already there. That was due to Dave Jerden; he's really smart guy.

Para los que os quedáisteis pillados con el sonido de bajo de la intro de "Would?" aquí tenéis el secreto: bajo de 12 cuerdas, tres amplificadores y altavoces de 18", casi nada...

What about bass?

I also record bass with multiple amps and multiple DI's. I ususally start off with an SVT cabinet with a 57 on one of the cones. We go through the speakers to find the best speaker on the cabinet.

Do you find it varies a lot?

Sometimes there's a big difference, but sometimes there's no difference. I always listen to every speaker to make sure we're on the right one, and at the right part of the speaker too. I use an SVT, a Mesa Boogie, and an old Vox Westminster bass amp. It's a solid-state amp, and it has an 18-inch speaker with a sperate head and a thing called "Tone X", which is supposed to be an EQ, but it's got this punchy kind of squak.

If you listen to an oldies station on AM radio you can always hear the bass, and it sounds great. I listen to records today and i cannot hear what the bass player is playing. I spend great time mixing at low levels to make sure that the bass note are heard. Using this Vox amp with the 18-inch speaker has really helped that. Of course, I want the lows and highs, but what I am fighting for is the mids because when you record aggressive stuff like the Offspring or Biohazard with that 3 amp guitar set-up, you have a lot of sound there. The bass has to compete with that. So I use that Vox amp, an SVT, and then I'll use a SansAmp Bass DI and an Ibanez TS-8 Tube Screamer.

Do you record these elements onto separate tracks?

It always ends up on 2 tracks. All amps go onto one track and all the direct signals go onto the other. Usually they are used equally.

Do you tend to keep the recording path for bass similar with the Summit pres?

Yes. Everything is pretty much the same. As much tube as possible. If you're going for a Marshall sound, you are not going to get it with transistors. But, on the other hand, if you're looking for a real crazy sound....I have a Hamer 12 string bass that is really difficult to record because there is so many overtones from the different string gauges. I first ran into the Hamer 12 string basss when I worked with tom Peterson from Cheap Trick. He was using Marshalls and Hiwatts and said "My hero is John Entwistle and the sound I'm looking for is like the sound of a piano string being struck." Later on I bought a Hamer 12 string bass for myself and I always remember what he said about a piano being struck. So what I came up with was to use 2 Vox Super Beatle amps that were made in the 60's. They have four 12 inch speakers, 2 PA style horns in each cabinet and are louder than hell. They are really brittle sounding on guitar. But for Hamer 12 string bass, it's the sound- like a piano being struck. I use two of those so I have eight 12's and four horns. To split the signal between them I've been using an old Roland Chorus modified by Rivera. It kinda shifts back and forth slowly between the two amps and sounds like the end of the world. It's amazing. I used that on "Rooster" from Alice In Chains -Dirt. All of the choruses on "Rooster" are doubled- just the basic notes of the chord changes in the choruses.. It's not that the whole bass part is doubled. If his part was playing a run in between the changes, he didn't double that- only the root notes of the chord changes. It gives a great sound.

Whereas his original part was played on a 4 string.

Yes, and that's still there. up front. The Hamer is mixed in with the guitars to add power. On top of that I have a Dan Electro 6 string piccolo bass. I use that through a Zoom processor set to a Marshall sound. The reason I use a Zoom as opposed to a plugging the bass into a Marshall is that the sound is so huge that it will wash everything else out and kill the guitars. But the Zoom has a really limited bandwidth and it has the distortion.

¿Pero que...? Madre mía.