This is certainly the case with Rilo Kiley’s More Adventurous [Brute/Beaute/Warner Bros.], which flits from country criers to full-out rockers to ginchy ’70s AOR exclusions. Holding it all together are the sometimes subtle, sometimes bombastic and wacky guitars of Blake Sennett (a former child actor and alleged relation to bandleader Glenn Miller). Sennett covers a lot of stylistic ground on the album, but roots his excursions in warm and rootsy tones that drift in and out of the band mix.

“I feel like guitars should punctuate the lyrics,” he says. “So having a sense of concept—like a Pink Floyd album—is something I always strive for. But, having said that, I tend to play what I hear right off the bat and go with my instincts. If you over-think things, it gets dangerous, and you can be your own worst enemy.”

Recorded at Mike Mogis Studios on a vintage API console (and later bounced to Pro Tools for mixing), Sennett and producer Mogis kept the guitar sounds seated in the vibe of Sennett influences such as Neil Young’s Harvest and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon—as well as various releases by The Band and the Beatles.

“I think all the studio stuff that existed in 1975 and before had a certain sound to it,” says Sennett. “Today’s technology—like some SSL and Avalon gear—is so transparent, and it has too much sparkle. It all sounds too perfect, whereas the older stuff is more mysterious and punchy.”

To capture his guitar tones, Sennett used small amps—specifically, a Fender Pro Junior and a Silvertone amp with an 8" speaker—and predominantly employed large-diaphragm condenser mics.

“I think small amps are the best for recording,” he says. “I like to put a Neumann U87 a couple of inches from the speaker cone, because the mic diaphragm covers almost 60 percent of an 8" speaker, which, to me, delivers a more natural sound. If, say, you put a [small-diaphragm, dynamic] Shure SM57 right on the speaker—which a lot of people do—you’re married to the tone produced by putting the mic in a very specific region. I tend to have a lot of low end in my guitar tone, and the small speaker/large-diaphragm mic combination usually gives me the muscle-y punch I want.”

Sennett and company also experimented with a Royer R-122 ribbon mic to capture old-school, naturalistic timbres, and a limited-bandwidth Copperphone dynamic mic made by Polyphonic Spree bassist Mark Pirro. Looking more like a pipe bomb than a microphone, the handcrafted Copperphone ($250 direct from placidaudio.com) utilizes components from vintage communications gear.

“It’s a really weird mic—very telephonic and lo-fi and full of midrange,” says Sennett. “We used it to record the opening acoustic guitar chords of ‘It’s A Hit.’ We plugged the acoustic into an amp, miked the amp with the Copperphone, and got this sound that’s not really electric or acoustic. It’s just sort of ratty and weird.”