How to Record
ELECTRIC AND BASS
GUITAR at home?
Recording electric guitar or bass guitar is a similar process as
far as recording in a home studio setup is concerned. Most audio
interfaces come with a built-in direct input interface or a direct
injection which allows us to use an unbalanced cable TS (Tip-
sleeve) cable in which the tip and sleeve connectors carry -10db
of the signal. Since the D.I is built internally into most interfaces,
we won’t have to invest in an external D.I. EQ Tips on your Electric guitar
Here are my few tips to get great recordings of your Electric Or
Bass guitar. (using D.I Connection) 3. Now shelf up the frequencies above 6Khz by around 3-4db
depending upon how it sounds in the context of your track. This
should help your guitar to sit well in your mix.
1. Connect the TS cable from your Electric Guitar or Bass Guitar
into the Audio Interface and set it to instrument input or HI-Z
level. This way you are feeding the impedance from the pickup of
your guitar to the audio interface so your guitar tone is captured
efficiently by the AD/DA converter. A common mistake is that a
lot of people switch the input to line level.
3. Set the gain or trim on your interface so that the signal peaks
around -10db to -15db in your audio meter on your DAW. This
leaves you with plenty headroom to mixing with.
4. Make sure that you record your input into a mono audio track
in your DAW, arm your track and begin recording.
Amping your Electric or Bass Guitar
This requires a little bit of acoustic panel treatment in the space
that you’re recording in as you’ll need to mic the Guitar cabinet
and record. The acoustic panels will reduce the sound reflections
and the bass build up in your room in order to get the best result
into your recordings.
1. First, we use a High Pass Filter to remove any low rumble in
your room noise, about 90-120Hz is usually the sweet spot
2. Next, we can cut out muddy frequencies around 250Hz to 800
KHz by setting the Q value like a notch filter and dipping it down
about -2db to -4db depending upon how much it requires.
EQ Tips on your Bass guitar
1. Removing the low rumble in your recording by using a high
pass filter and setting it to around 70-80Hz.
2. Next, find the muddy frequencies between 250-400 KHz by
setting the Q value like a notch filter and dipping it down about
-2 to -4db.
3. You can also use a Low Pass Filter to cut out some of the top
end frequencies were the Bass has too much of the string ringing
sound. This will help your Bass sit well in your mix.
Compression and mixing tip on your Electric or Bass guitar:
A compressor will reduce the dynamic range and make your
recording sounding equally loud throughout. Therefore, heavily
compressing your signal will make you lose the natural dynamics
of the instrument.
Here are few tips:
1. My go-to mic for recording an electric guitar is the Shure SM 57
as it captures the amp character accurately. 1. Set the Ratio around 2:1 or 4:1 so that we don't squash the
dynamics of your Electric or Bass Guitar.
2. Position the mic off-center and very close to the cone of your . 2. Now set the threshold so that the Gain Reduction meter reads
around -3db to -5db. Again the amount of compression that you
need in your guitars depends on the genre and the kind of sound
that you’re going for.
3. You can also place a condensor mic around 1-1.5 feet away from
the cabinet to capture the body of the Amp if your interface has
two mic pre inputs.
4.Now record with both mics onto two separate MONO tracks.
You can also choose to record one signal through D.I and the
other by miking an amp. You should also keep in mind that
the dry signal through the D.I Connection will reach the DAW
a milliseconds earlier than the Mic track. This latency between
the two tracks can also give you a great result in your recording.
3. If you want your guitars to be loud and powerful, then I would
suggest compressor plug-ins like the Waves CLA 1176 which is
very aggressive and heavy.
4. By recording two tracks (one by miking the amp and the other
D.I) you can blend both with different levels of compression and
pan each of them to either the left or right to give you a natural
stereo effect.
Author: Baba.L.Prasad. He is the owner and chief Sound/Mix and Mastering Engineer at Digi Sound Studio. He also teaches
Sound Engineering and Music Production courses. For more details, visit www.digisoundacademy.com
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