Help Me Hatch A Machiavellian Plan.

So.... we moved on to tracking guitars this week. We set up a mini "fort" of amps (my DG30, a Fender Deville 4x10, and his Mustang III), lined up all of his guitars (a couple of Strats, the Ibanez, and my HB Spruce), put up some 57's, piped it through Logic, and tried to find the best combo for recording my boy.

We all know how it turned out.... but, there was a little part of me that expected to wind up with the Mustang and Ibanez. Only because I've recorded enough bands to know that sometimes people get so accustomed to their gear that it's like being in the gorilla cage at the zoo or living in a house with a baby, if you stay in there long enough you can't smell the sh!t anymore. There's also the thing where a player's gear is like a part of their identity. I mean, we're all that way, so it's kinda important to present options for the player and then ultimately let them decide what's "them" and then deal with it the best you can as an engineer.

The Deville sounded great with the HB, the reverb was sproingy and it had that killer clean tone Fender amps are known for (of course), I'm honestly not sure if it wasn't the "better" amp for the long run with me keeping the long game and mixing in mind, but it wasn't as full bodied as the DG30, and the reverb wasn't as subdued. If we were recording some The Clash type songs, it would've been perfect. I'll have to keep it in mind and borrow it in the future in case something like that ever comes up.

Anyway, back to the guitars. I'm not the biggest fan of looking at waveforms on DAW's, I'm just old enough, and have been recording for long enough that I was around for analog tape and then digital tape, basically stuff that all you had to look at was some VU meters and LED ladders. So as often as possible Inlike to avoid the screen and just use my ears. My co-engineer and self proclaimed "producer" buddy (the singers brother, our percussionist, and also a professional DJ) on the other hand lives by looking at waveforms. After a few takes, what became evident, and part of the reason for my wall of text was: It was clearly visible how much more dynamic the HB Spruce was.

The Ibanez and the Strats looked like they had been compressed already. The song in question has softer played verses and then harder, bigger sounding and "heavier" choruses but, this is all C-l-e-a-n guitar, not a hint of distortion, and you could see in the waveforms how dynamic the HB was compared to the other guitars. Sure, part of that is in the pickups and how hard they were hitting the front of the amps, and maybe if we f@cked with pickup height we could get 'me even closer but, it was pretty amazing to have my eyes confirm what my ears already knew, and to have all the other dudes be able to "see" how much better that guitar sounded.


Sh!t, I'm just realizing how long winded I'm being.. The moral of the story is: I didn't really need to talk about how great my guitar and amp are to my guy, I just needed to create an environment where he could do some critical listening and compare it to his "stuff" (see? I'm being polite to his rig).

If you listen to a HB Spruce next to an Ibanez through a nice amp.... Well, you wind up being a PRS fanboi and start shopping.
 
sergiodeblanc said:
So.... we moved on to tracking guitars this week. We set up a mini "fort" of amps (my DG30, a Fender Deville 4x10, and his Mustang III), lined up all of his guitars (a couple of Strats, the Ibanez, and my HB Spruce), put up some 57's, piped it through Logic, and tried to find the best combo for recording my boy.

We all know how it turned out.... but, there was a little part of me that expected to wind up with the Mustang and Ibanez. Only because I've recorded enough bands to know that sometimes people get so accustomed to their gear that it's like being in the gorilla cage at the zoo or living in a house with a baby, if you stay in there long enough you can't smell the sh!t anymore. There's also the thing where a player's gear is like a part of their identity. I mean, we're all that way, so it's kinda important to present options for the player and then ultimately let them decide what's "them" and then deal with it the best you can as an engineer.

The Deville sounded great with the HB, the reverb was sproingy and it had that killer clean tone Fender amps are known for (of course), I'm honestly not sure if it wasn't the "better" amp for the long run with me keeping the long game and mixing in mind, but it wasn't as full bodied as the DG30, and the reverb wasn't as subdued. If we were recording some The Clash type songs, it would've been perfect. I'll have to keep it in mind and borrow it in the future in case something like that ever comes up.

Anyway, back to the guitars. I'm not the biggest fan of looking at waveforms on DAW's, I'm just old enough, and have been recording for long enough that I was around for analog tape and then digital tape, basically stuff that all you had to look at was some VU meters and LED ladders. So as often as possible Inlike to avoid the screen and just use my ears. My co-engineer and self proclaimed "producer" buddy (the singers brother, our percussionist, and also a professional DJ) on the other hand lives by looking at waveforms. After a few takes, what became evident, and part of the reason for my wall of text was: It was clearly visible how much more dynamic the HB Spruce was.

The Ibanez and the Strats looked like they had been compressed already. The song in question has softer played verses and then harder, bigger sounding and "heavier" choruses but, this is all C-l-e-a-n guitar, not a hint of distortion, and you could see in the waveforms how dynamic the HB was compared to the other guitars. Sure, part of that is in the pickups and how hard they were hitting the front of the amps, and maybe if we f@cked with pickup height we could get 'me even closer but, it was pretty amazing to have my eyes confirm what my ears already knew, and to have all the other dudes be able to "see" how much better that guitar sounded.


Sh!t, I'm just realizing how long winded I'm being.. The moral of the story is: I didn't really need to talk about how great my guitar and amp are to my guy, I just needed to create an environment where he could do some critical listening and compare it to his "stuff" (see? I'm being polite to his rig).

If you listen to a HB Spruce next to an Ibanez through a nice amp.... Well, you wind up being a PRS fanboi and start shopping.
Click to expand...
So how many HB’s has he dug up online?
 
Awesome! I love my HB Spruce.

And I know you don't use/like it, but the piezo on mine lets me go pseudo-acoustic without dragging another guitar around all the time.
 
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