Photo of the Day
Shoutbox

midwestsurfguy: Merry Christmas!
317 days ago

sysmalakian: HAPPY NEW YEAR!
310 days ago

SabedLeepski: Surfin‘ Europe, for surf (related) gigs and events in Europe Big Razz https://sunb...
271 days ago

SHADOWNIGHT5150: I like big reverb and i cannot lie
204 days ago

SHADOWNIGHT5150: Bank accounts are a scam created by a shadow government
204 days ago

sysmalakian: TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!
190 days ago

dp: dude
172 days ago

Bango_Rilla: Shout Bananas!!
127 days ago

BillyBlastOff: See you kiddies at the Convention!
111 days ago

GDW: showman
62 days ago

Please login or register to shout.

Current Polls

No polls at this time. Check out our past polls.

Current Contests

No contests at this time. Check out our past contests.

Donations

Help us meet our monthly goal:

28%

28%

Donate Now

SG101 Banner

SurfGuitar101 Forums » Recording Corner »

Permalink General techniques for recording surf...?

New Topic
Page 1 of 1

Ok, I'll be the first to admit that I'm a novice at the whole recording process, but I have done a bit of net scouring, and I have a very general idea of very basic techniques when it comes to recording, in general. That said...how much of that goes out the proverbial window when talking about recording surf instros?

For example - Is close-mic'ing more/less effective than room-mic'ing when you're talking about adding a ton of reverb to the guitar tone? Bass - direct-to-board or mic'ed cabinet? How many tracks do you guys record on to get "that" sound? (There are more questions than this - just not sure how to word them).

I realize that alot of this is going to be subjective to ones tastes and ears, and may seem like a pretty open-ended question. I'd just be really interested to hear how y'all pull it off.

Thanks.

The Disasternauts

hiya butch. I am also a newbie at recording. I've been tinkering around with my pro tools for a few months now. (Still kinda over my head) I think that the mic placement is just something you have to play around with. You have to figure in how big/soundproof the room is. Tinker with the volume on the amp and the mic. channel. I JUST got my fender deluxe reverb amp and haven't even had a chance to play around with it and pro tools(I believe you saw my problem child,yeah, she's the reason)But I did use my marshall and i really didn't have to move the mic too much because I've got a 4X12 cabinet on it and my "studio"(modified spare bedroom)isn't very big.Needless to say it really fills the room with sound.It takes a few tries at getting the right sound, but it comes. But with my deluxe verb(r.i. unfortunately) being that it only has 1 speaker it may make a difference in mic placement(overhead, in front, in a beer mug,etc.)
Even though he's not surf, I read a little about Jimmie Page. When he would record and he'd just spend days moving the mic around. He'd have it close to his amp, then across the room, and sometimes down the hall.(of course they rented palatial mansions in the English countryside) I guess , like you said, it's a matter of preferance, but just tinker with it and see what you like. that of course is my way, I'm no pro. What you Do have to do , is just have fun with it.

close miking:
I think that is personal preference. The directness of close miking can be an advantage. I prefer the “size” of a guitar miked with at least a foot of air between the speaker and the mike.

direct to board or amped bass:
I use both. To get it sit well at the bottom of the track you almost always have to tweak the sound with eq anyway. You hardly want room on the bass, and the purity of a direct recorded bass is always better then a mediocre miked one.

how many tracks:
Honestly, to get a real surf sound, give each instrument one track. If you know what you are doing printing the band to 4 tr, 2 tr or mono would be very sixties.

my 2 cents

KK

The Exotic Guitar of Kahuna Kawentzmann

You can get the boy out of the Keynes era, but you can’t get the Keynes era out of the boy.

Recertly I recorded my Prosonic in isolation both. The amp was placed ontop a Auralex isolation board and the mic was a condenser mic about 6 inches off the right speaker. Anyways like mentioned before, mic'ing is about doing the takes and moving the mic until the sound is where you want it.

The thing that amazed me was how the amps own reverb became huge on full when it was placed on the iso-board. I recorded with a MIJ Jaguar with both pick-ups selected. It was almost a drippy as using a tank. I ended up using most of my scratch tracks as the final takes on the clean side.

Might of got lucky this day, but not complainning at all.

Redd Tyde

What I have found in my recent recording is that close mic'ing gives a good sound... but you need to consider the size of the speaker that you are mic'ing when you set everything up...
The general rule that I use now is the larger the speaker the farther back you would want to get...
I've found that if you mic too close on a large speaker (15") you lose a good bit of your reverb... back the mic up, and it's all good!!!

If you are recording a live performance you might want to cheat the mic back towards the amp to get more seperation between the instruments... It's just something that you have to tinker with...

All of this is assuming that you are recording with decent mic's too... They really make a difference...

Fez

One thing I've found in recording surf guitar, especially if you are the only guitar player, is close micing an amp as your only guitar track never sounds 'big'. I close mic the amp, and use a room mike at least 5 feet away from the amp into 2 seperate tracks, and mess with the panning when I go to mix. Don't add fake reverb to the mix, because it will diminish the tone of your amp's reverb. A little fast stereo delay sometimes sounds cool at mixdown.

I like things live sounding, so I mic the bass if possible, but you can get a decent sound straight in. I like to use overhead mics on the drums, too, to pick up the room sound.

If you are going for that old school sound, then mic everything in an acousticly 'live' room. If you are going for that modern big studio sound, close micing EVERYTHING and lots of effects (compression, verb etc.) at mixdown is the way to go.

In an ideal world my micing would go:

-Lead guitar- 2 mics into 2 tracks, as stated above.
-rythym guitar- 1 close mic
-bass-close mic, with a large condenser mic
-drums- close mic the snare (so I have control of the eq curve at mixdown), close mic bass drum, w/a touch of compression, and two small condensers as stereo overheads.

So, that is 8 tracks total. I can't see why a surf band would need much more....

image

MPoppitt
In an ideal world my micing would go:

-Lead guitar- 2 mics into 2 tracks, as stated above.
-rythym guitar- 1 close mic
-bass-close mic, with a large condenser mic
-drums- close mic the snare (so I have control of the eq curve at mixdown), close mic bass drum, w/a touch of compression, and two small condensers as stereo overheads.

So, that is 8 tracks total. I can't see why a surf band would need much more....

I would agree with your "ideal world" setup, but I'd add a bass DI...
so there would be two bass tracks to work with: a mic'd cab and a direct input. Then I would twidle around with mixing together the two bass tracks into one nice, fat, dynamic bass sound. The mic'd cab provides fullness and "liveness"...the DI adds brighter finger/pick attacks and high-end harmonics and transients.

HAs anyone tried this: We took 2 good sounding tube amps, arranged them somewhat diagonally towards each other in an obtuse angle. We split the guitar signal into two and one amp had extra heavy reverb, the other was completely dry. The bleed-through gave the clean some background reverb. We recorded the guitar on two tracks, clean and wet and blended on the board for final mixdown. That way when I did some really fast picking, we punched-up the clean a little to get better articulation but that was only for the fastest passages.

I tried this on stage once and thought it sounded good but was a lot of stuff to lug around.

  • Cliff Woodbeach.

What day is Surf Rock's birthday? Looks like Surf Rock and I was born the same year. Maybe we are both Libras?

FinDicator1
.

I tried this on stage once and thought it sounded good but was a lot of stuff to lug around.

  • Cliff Woodbeach.

Cliff, why don't you try A/B'ing 2 reverb units into 1 amp?

You also have the option then to put them in series and get the ultimate 'Astronauts' level reverb.
Twisted Evil Twisted Evil Twisted Evil Twisted Evil Twisted Evil Twisted Evil Twisted Evil

Danny Snyder

"With great reverb comes great responsibility" - Uncle Leo

Playing keys and guitar with Combo Tezeta

Formerly a guitarist in The TomorrowMen and Meshugga Beach Party

Latest surf project - Now That's What I Call SURF

Page 1 of 1
Top