No question about it: Amps are awesome, and guitarists will be plugging into them for a long time to come. But as threatened in this post from last week, I’ve been experimenting with direct- recorded guitar sounds. I’m not talking amp simulators, but the sound of electric guitar recorded straight into a mixing board with no attempt to replicate the tone of an amp. After all, some of the most iconic guitar riffs of all time — including Zep’s “Black Dog,” the Byrds “Mister Tambourine Man,” Chic’s “Le Freak,” and most ’60s Motown hits — were tracked not through amps, but through great old analog preamps, compressors, and mixing boards.
Not that I own any great old ’60s and ’70s analog recording gear. But I wanted to see how close I could get using modern preamps and compressors, plus plug-ins that simulate vintage gear.
And how close did I get? Um…kinda close, and I could have gotten closer if I had an attention span longer than five minutes dedicated sufficient time to the pursuit.
Wanna hear what I came up with?
