“OVER THE YEARS,” SAYS JOHNS,
“I’ve learned simple ways of recording guitars
and complicated ways. My normal
setup for years and years was two Shure
SM57s on, say, the top right speaker—
one straight on and one at 45 degrees, so
it’s in phase. The straight one gives you
the top end, the one at 45 degrees gives
you the bottom end, and you need to balance
those evenly. And then I would put
an AKG C 414 on the bottom left speaker
to get more bottom end and mix that
in. But you have to mess with it
until the capsules are equidistant,
otherwise you get phase
problems, which destroy the
whole thing. It’s a big hassle.
“Lately I’ve fallen into this
thing that is very beneficial. I’ve
got this great Shure condenser
mic, a KSM44, and it’s the most
ubiquitous mic I’ve ever come
across. I use it on
vocals, drums, percussion,
guitars—
bloody everything.
It’s better than a [Neumann]
U67 or a U87.
All I’ve got to do is put
it in the vicinity, near
the speaker, and
it works every
time. Just one
mic, man. I put it
three to six inches from
the cab and it’s really
rather delicious.
“I very rarely
record guitars
direct. I did that
way back in the day
with Pagey, on ‘Black
Dog’ and ‘No Quarter.’
I used two Universal Audio 1176s. You
crank the first one like mad and then run
the second one in series to compress. Then
you fiddle with the EQ. It’s very tricky and
as soon as the cat stops playing there’s this
tremendous rush of noise. The only other
time I record guitars direct is with Rickenbacker
12-strings. That’s what we did on
‘Stairway to Heaven.’ Jimmy liked to play
his Ricky 12 into a Vox AC30, but I told
him I had success running them direct.
We did and that’s why it chimes so well.
I’ve read that he played a Fender 12-string
on ‘Stairway’ but I remember it being a
Ricky, because I locked onto that sound.
I used that sound with Van Halen too.
Shure KSM44
“The thing with guitar sounds
is, you can get the greatest tone
in the world for a song. Then
you move on to another song
that’s in a different key and a
different tempo and it won’t
work. That’s why you’ve got
to have a few tricks. What I’ve
always struggled to do is to
make it sound—even if you’re
using four or six guitars
in the rhythm
section—as if you’re
at a rehearsal, standing
about 12 feet back
from the stage, and
it’s the best rehearsal
they ever did. I think
I’ve managed that
over the years.”