Thread Cool Method of recording ambient guitar plus a weird studio experience

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thesparrowband

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1 Posted on 06/27/2006 at 18:38:53

My friend approached me with a song that he invisioned with clean, heavily delayed, slightly reverbed guitar tracks. If you've ever head "Minus the Bear", thats the stuff. I recently was given a home-made amp that's very small and funky. I also was walking in downtown Annapolis (hometown) and found one of those plastic revolving tower sunglasses cases sitting out for the trash. I couldn't let all that plexiglass go to waste, so I loaded it into the back of my car.

So when we were recording, I decided to take the cabinet and set it sideways on the ground (it has doors on both sides). I took the small amp and put it right next to the open cabinet door, creating a cave like encousure. Then i opened the other side of the cabinet and propped the door at a 45 degree angle, creating a natural reverb. Then I moved the entire setup on to carpet to muffle any rattles. I took a Sure C03 condenser, set it to cardiod (i tried omni- too clanky, then figure 8-which was too spaced). Its a normal cardiod design, and i pointed it at about a 45 degree angle to the amp's speaker to encompass some of the outside noises. Oh yeah, the open end was close to a wall too.

After some more experimentation, we let it rip, using a musicman guitar, and a pod xt as a preamp.

The results were stunning. The sound is so full and round that i need to eq it to stop the speakers from rattling off of their stands. The frequency range that it captured was amazing. I have never heard guitar with that much bottom end. It also gave just the right amount of ambiance to the mix.

after a bit, some freaky stuff started happening. Something must have been acting up inside the homemade amp, because after a while of recording, it started to put out voices! We had the lights off in the room when suddenly a stern voice speaks up through the amp, proclaiming the works of Jesus!

we soon figured out that it was somehow using the guitar as an anntenna to pick up a christian revalation radio channel. So for the rest of the day, different scripture quotes popped into the recordings, in a scratcy AM radio kind of way.

it really ended up giving it a great feel/vibe.

so thats what i get for experimenting recording guitar. overall, a very rewarding experience.

here's some pics of the setup: http://wthager.photosite.com/Album1/

email if you want to hear the guitar w/ some of that preachin' mixed in @ thesparrowband@gmail.com