Recording and live playing question

[555]

Do musicians use the same settings on their amps and pedals when playing live and recording in the studio for an album? Or do they change a few things? add/take away a few things to their rig?

 

[Joe Nerve]

Interesting question. I don't think there's a difinitive answer though.

I think it's important to make sure the recorded sound is what you're looking for. If your live sound captures it in the studio, then great - but my experience has been that it usually needs tweaking. hmmmm.... let me add to that - for guitars. you know what, i don't know what the hell i'm talking about. I used the same sound I use live on the recording we're doing now.

Short answer to your question: Sometimes.

 

[555]

Ah i see, just asking because i can't seem to get the sound i want for recording and non-recording (ok so i dont play live gigs yet lol!) The thing is, i find a great tone and EQ setting on my amp for recording on cool edit pro and it sounds fine but i get alot of fret clicks and finger noise's when i fret, it's very annoying! So then i found a way to get rid of them or reduce them to a minimum via tweaking my amp settings and it sounds great when i am not recording and just jamming around but when i record, it's too distorted when i play back, maybe i need to cut the low end with the build in effects on the software? So that's why i asked if musicians have two seperate amp and pedal settings for playing live and in studio recording or practising.

 

[Benjamin Strange]

Very rarely can you use the same settings in the studio that you use live. What could be a really great sound live by yourself most times will suck when thrown in a mix. The trick with recording is to carve out a small range of frequencies for the individual instruments to sit in, so they aren't cluttering up the same sonic space. This kind of practice would really help in live situations too. Too many bands have wacky settings; the bass knob on the guitar amp is all the way up, the mid knob on the bass is all the way down, etc.

 

[Treena Foster]

Do musicians use the same settings on their amps and pedals when playing live and recording in the studio for an album? Or do they change a few things? add/take away a few things to their rig?

IMHO, Studio Recording and Live Playing/Recording are two completely different worlds and one should not be confused with the other. The one advantage to comparing the two, is the more you record, the more you forget tape, (hard drive) is running and you relax and just play your parts.

I do not use an amp 95% of the time in the studio. I go direct through some of the sweetest pre amps around. If I need the amp or cab tone I use what is called reamping before mix down and then I blend the two tracks together depending on what style of music and tone I'm after!

Once a guitar or bass is recorded on tape, there are several ways you can change the sound including EQ, compression and reverb/effects. However there is also a way to get a second chance at recording a guitar or bass through an amp. It's called reamping because you literally take the signal off tape and send it through a guitar or bass amplifier. To accomplish this you need a box that will change the impedance of the signal back to a way that is amp-friendly. After you do that you simply plug the signal into the amp just as if it were a live guitar or bass.

There are many ways to record in the studio and live, neither way is right or wrong, you just do what needs to be done to get the mix right.....experiment, that's half the fun!

Treena

 

[brianrost]

Do musicians use the same settings on their amps and pedals when playing live and recording in the studio for an album? Or do they change a few things? add/take away a few things to their rig?

In the recording studio, anything goes. You might be surprised to hear that some players use NO AMP, many use different basses and/or amps than they do live, etc.

I can at least tell you that I use totally different settings. Live, I actually use the volume knob on the bass and often have the tone knob rolled off. In the studio, I run both all the way up. I have NEVER used an amp while recording, I have always gone DI. I used an outboard preamp for one session, other that just my bass into a DI. Except for one session where my Steinberger L2 got the thumbs-up, every engineer has asked me to use a P-bass regardless of what other basses I brought (at this point I no longer bother bringing anything else to a session).

While I always start with the same EQ settings on my amp at a gig, from room to room I have to make small adjustments anyway.