Recording the Electric Guitar: It’s All About Tone

This quirky CD/book combination is written by an author who "can't imagine what it must have been like to live in an earlier time, without electric guitars." This attitude is appropriate for an in-depth exploration of every factor contributing to the final electric guitar sound you can get in your recordings. Jon Bare follows the signal path from the fingers to the amp, through the room and the mics, and eventually, to the studio monitors. He is not shy about heavy use of EQ, and also has a few phase- bending mic tricks up his sleeve. While the book goes into greater depth than the CD, the CD is clearly the focus of this package. Most useful to me were Bare's demonstrations of various amp/guitar combinations. The microphone comparisons seem useful as well, but after listening to so many amplifier examples, including a lengthy onslaught from Line 6's AX2, listening fatigue sets in. Also included were the effects of various stompboxes, EQs, compressors, and gates. Some of the musical examples are culled from albums released by Bare's band, the Killer Whales, and show that the sounds he goes for are in the vein of Steve Vai. If you're looking for that "killer" tone, and you spend a lot of time at Guitar Center, this might be the book for you. One drawback was what sounded like digital clipping on many of the CD examples, which might suggest taking engineering cues from its creator with a grain of salt. However, Bare's suggestions, tricks, and techniques are never dogmatic, and he is always careful to remind the listener that they are merely the fruits of his experience, and not the only way to record guitar. The book could be useful to someone who has not had much experience recording guitars or trying out different tone-shaping options, such as pickup selector switches. If you're already comfortable recording guitars, you will probably find the book a bit basic. Perhaps the inclusion of some more technical information, such as the theory behind ground loops and impedance mismatches, would make Recording the Electric Guitar more useful to experienced engineers. ($29.95, musicmakerpub.com)