PLAY IT LOUD

PLAY IT LOUD

Studio Techniques: Biggest Ain’t Necessarily Best.

Guitar Arnie

by

Hi there all you pluckers. This issue we’re going to go into the recording studio and take a look around. As you’re no doubt aware, rock recording begins when a microphone is placed in front of the speakers of an amplifier. The musician plays through the amp, the mike is connected to the mixing console and tape recorder and thus the sound from the amp goes into the mike and then on to the recording deck.

When you listen to records by the Who, Led Zep, and Grand Funk it isn’t hard to imagine them carting their huge triple speaker gear into the studio and setting it up to begin getting that lovely distorto-sound which the mike picks up. As Jimmy Page cranks up into high gear you can just picture an impressive stack of Marshall cabinets tottering behind him pumping out all that energy. The same kind of visions are created by Pete, and Mark, and your other faves. Well, I hate to do any illusion crumbling, but often you’d be surprised if you were in the studio and saw the size of the amp that wall of sound was coming from. More than likely your fave guitarist is using nothing more than a small, practice size amp turned up full blast to get that stupendous sound.

There are a number of reasons for this, the first of which is the most important: the bigger the amp being used in the studio, the more problems recording the sound coming from it. If the guitarist is driving two Hi-Watt cabinets at 100 watts or so to get his or her distortion, the mike must be placed far enough back so that the sound from the amps doesn’t overload the mike (you get the same overloading effect when you put your mouth right on top of a p.a. mike and talk, all you hear is blurr). The farther back you place the mike, the more likely that you’re going to get leakage — sounds from the other instruments playing in the studio. So unless you want to overdub the lead runs (and with a three man group this can destroy the effect of the sound totally), you’re going to have a very live album which will be very difficult to mix in that if you want to turn up the guitar track you’ll find that the leakage from the drum and bass and other tracks will also increase in volume and in addition you’ll find that you haVe guitar noise on all the other tracks.

To combat this, many guitarists, especially the British, use small amps. A full sound is achieved by these amps at much lower over-all volume levels. The trick is that when you hear the sound produced by these amps on your record at home, you can’t tell the difference in terms of how loud is loud. It’s an audio illusion of sorts and can be explained by the following example: if you listen to a hundred watt amp from two hundred yards or a twenty watt amp from three inches you’ll blow out your ear drums either way. Since the mike in the studio is ideally six to ten inches from the amp speakers, you can get out your slide rule and figure out the rest.

A second reason for using smaller amps is that most studio musicians are not interested in investing in a small van and a hernia to get their equipment from studio to studio — if they wanted that they’d go on the road.

The first amp used for recording purposes was probably the Fender practice amp. I remember Pete Townshend once telling me he used a small Fender practice amp for a couple of the big effects on his high energy singles. If memory serves, the original amp in this range from Fender was. their Princeton amp (10” speaker, 12 watts) and then their Princeton Reverb. There are a few other Fender amps of similar design such as their Champ and Vibro Champ (8” speaker, 6 watts), their Bronco, their Deluxe Reverb (one 12 ” speaker, 20 watts), and already getting a little too big, their Vibrolux Reverb (two 10” speakers) and their Pro Reverb (two 12” speakers).

All of these amps are open back units, meaning the speaker encloser is not sealed off at the back. Recently the Peavey Electronics Corp. (611 — 10th Avenue, P. O. Box 2898, Meridian, Miss. 39301) started making a small amp series with open back speaker cabinets that are reminiscent of the Fender amps. Called the Peavey Vintage series, these amps come in cream color finishes with various combinations of 10”/and 12” speakers. They’d be ideal for studio work, although they’re not really tiny, but more along the size of the Fender Pro and Twin Reverb amps.

Sunn has also created two amps which are designed especially for studio work. Known as the Studio Lead and the Studio Bass, they aren’t especially expensive, and will really do the job they’re designed for. The Studio Lead is 50 watts RMS, weighs only 60 pounds, has a full set of controls including reverb, and presence, and has two 10” Sunn speakers. Retail price is $399.00. The Studio Lead has an open back enclosure, by the way, but the Studio Bass does not. The Studio Bass retails for $379.00, has 50 watts RMS power, and a 15” Sunn speaker.

As you can see there are a variety of speakers available for studio work from the small Fender Princeton and Bronco amps through the larger and more expensive Peavey and Synn amps. If you’re planning to do a large amount of studio work, it would be advisable to get a larger size amp which is designed to be driven at high volume levels for extended periods of time. If you just want to get a little super distortion without any track leakage and you don’t mind blowing speaker in the process, use the smallest possible amp. In fact, you might not even want to get as classy as getting a Fender. You could just go out and buy the first twentythirty dollar junk amp you run into and blow it out during the recording. You’ll be amazed at the sounds you’ll get and even if you could realistically record with a huge stack of Marshalls you may find that the sound from a small cheap amp is even more spectacular.

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Guitar Notes ... A message to all you guitar and amp freaks, with the help of Richard Robinson I’m putting together a special guitar and amp supplement for an upcoming issue of CREEM . .. don’t miss it! ... Ovation guitars and amps people have come up with the handiest item we’ve seen in a long time. A combination key chain and pick holder. Holds your keys on one end of the ring and six guitar picks in a holder at the other end. Cost a buck and a quarter.... Kustom has just come out with five new lead guitar amps ... The June issue of Guitar Player reports that Les Paul doesn’t own a Les Paul Gibson!