[Macworld]

Post your comments for Recording acoustic, electric guitar into your Mac here

[Flavum]

Very informative article, but may I offer one suggestion? To really capture the sound of your acoustic guitar have you considered using a microphone (or two)? Despite the advances in guitar transducers, there's nothing like an actual microphone to pick up the true sound of vibrating strings and wood.

[Damn_Its_Hot]

Could mike it up in the bathroom - ba da dum dum crash
Real comment - the play back audio sounded a bit noisey switching from the "live" recorded parts to the tracks already laid down - I know you are not in a studio so no engineer, isolation booth etc but possibly a simple mixer and some sort of switch would help the stream sound since you are playing directly into the console, so to say, anyway. I am assuming the noise is from the open mic and the smallish speakers - if I am talking thru my tailpipe excuse my suggestion.
By the way nice work.

[Jim Dalrymple2]

flavum, I will be doing some microphone recording of the acoustic too. I've got a mic coming from AKG specifically for that purpose, but it hasn't arrived yet.

[Jim Dalrymple2]

I know there was some noise in the video recording, but it's just because the camera was picking up the audio from the monitors. The actual sound is much better :-)

[obcbeatle]

Hello...just a comment about tone. You can tube a tube amp to taste, i.e. select from a variety of tubes to listen to in the preamp and power amp stages until you find the tone you like....and THEN...mic that tone! For instance, if you have a low wattage tube amp (say around 30 watts) and you tube it as such that the tubes clip naturally at lower volumes...you can end up with a very clean yet raunchy tone for great lead AND rhythm tracks. Just another way to vary your guitar tone, via tube amp mic'ing, in case you get frustrated with dialing in guitar effects that often sound rather sterile.

[maineguy]

Hey Jim!
Nice article! It's good to see the process laid out... I hope you include more videos in the future installments also.
I've been impressed how well acoustics record with built in pickups as opposed to mikes. The quality of many pickups these days is so good, and the control you have by not having to mic is nice!
I must admit though, I'm a little jealous over the wide selection of guitars to pick from!

[RamonMiFaSol]

Hi Jim,
I like the vibe of your music style and it seems very simple the way you record a guitar part. Assuming you're using a Mac computer, have you ever used Garageband for recording guitar or any other instrument or vocals? I'm a guitar player who just bought an iMac for home recording but I don't have the $$$ to buy Pro Tools or any other good software. Since Garageband is included I was wondering how good a recording can I get from it. Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Jim Dalrymple]

RamonMiFaSol,

Don't let GarageBand being free deter you from using it. GarageBand is a fantastic app and is very powerful. I often record guitars and vocals in GarageBand and then move it to Logic and Pro Tools.

Jim

[maineguy]

Hey RamonMiFaSol

I'm with Jim. Garageband is quite powerful, and the sound quality is excellent. I generally use Garageband as my first tool for recording and laying out a song or part. I like the simplicity and ease of use, its just not in the way. I also use ProTools 7.4, some of the production tools are terrific, but I really prefer Garageband because it's easy! I like easy...