Welcome to Guitar Player magazine - The complete acoustic and electric guitar package

A 2.1 speaker system—which comprises two “satellite” stereo speakers and a subwoofer—can be hellacious good fun when recording and mixing. The main thrill factor is the subwoofer, which can be adjusted to deliver an expansive frequency ...

Direct guitar tones rule! Whether you’re tracking a spankin’ clean part to drive a groove, or a steely snap to add some sparkle to a roar of distorted guitar layers, a good direct box is your key to a robust and pristine tone. The boxes ...

Problem : You place more than one microphone on an instrument, a guitar amp, or some drums, and when you listen to them mixed together, some frequencies sound thin or are attenuated almost entirely. Cause : The signals from the ...

I have always been fascinated by George Harrison’s guitar work—his precision, his taste, and his ability to play exactly the right part to complement a song. But I’ve had a nagging suspicion that Harrison’s precision performance on ...

The brainchild of luthier Rick Turner and pickup guru Seymour Duncan, the D-TAR Mama Bear ($499 retail/ $350 street) attempts to solve a quagmire that has vexed guitarists for years: How to make a plugged-in, piezo-equipped acoustic ...

The TranzPort ($249 retail/$199 street) is a two-way wireless device that uses high-frequency radio waves to remotely control transport and other DAW functions—something that can come in handy for, say, recording yourself playing acoustic ...

The PDI-03 ($565 retail/street N/A) is a combination signal splitter, DI, and load box designed specifically for guitar and bass. According to designer Martin Schmitz, this reissue is nearly identical to the original, which won raves ...

These five ultra-portable, USB-powered recording interfaces enable you to get audio—and in some cases MIDI—into and out of your USB-equipped Mac or PC for less than $300. Some offer special features such as USB 2.0 compatibility, digital ...

It seems like every time you turn around someone has introduced a new direct-recording interface for guitar, and nearly all of them are digital devices sporting copious quantities of amplifier, speaker cabinet, and effects models. Damage ...

Isn’t it weird that the next AC/DC or Kiss will likely run near-invisible guitar rigs from the tops of tiny café tables? Will future generations ever thrill to the sight of colossal amp stacks dwarfing the band? Well, stacks of tube ...

One of Røde’s recent ads claims there are 150,000 of its original NT2 mics in use around the world. Now, give or take a few thousand, and you’re still talking about lots of microphones. So when the company decided to update this recent-vintage ...

Although there’s no shortage of low-cost condenser microphones being manufactured in China, build quality and tone sometimes fall short for demanding users. SE Electronics’ Chinese-made line has been completely redesigned, however, ...

Layer. Double your modeled track with a clean, unprocessed direct tone. Pan the two tracks hard right and left, and you’ll notice a nice spectral sweep between the speakers. For added impact, process the clean track with a hint of reverb ...

The Audix i5 ($179 retail/$99 street) is a brilliant addition to any home studio tool kit, because it’s tough, it’s affordable, and it carves out its own sonic personality. The i5 careens off the flat-response curve like a showboating ...

Imported condenser microphones have been declining so precipitously in cost that soon manufacturers will be giving them away, but a ribbon microphone with a street price of less than $250 is big news. Even relatively economical ribbon ...

Monaural mixes may be old school and one dimensional, but they meet expectations, and they sure ain’t wimpy. They’ve got all the sonic elements rocking heavily on a single spectral plane, smacking air particles with punch, vibe, and ...

If we were all fearless individualists, any guitar tone we conceived would be designated as “good,” and any critics would be dispatched with total disregard. However, a fair percentage of recording guitarists seeks to craft fabulous ...

When you’re a transgender rock band, your guitar tones had better kick enough ass to totally obliterate the preconceptions of, shall we say, “less-than-enlightened” audiences. Not surprisingly, capturing huge guitar sounds was continuously ...

Like some character out of an Oscar Wilde fantasy, Mick Ronson was damned to be beautiful, and the fact that he gained fame as David Bowie’s foil during the loud glittery pan-sexual mess that was ’70s glam rock in no way diminishes ...

Being a target for Bob Kulick’s impassioned, machine-gun enthusiasm is like having your brain fire-bombed by a verbal blitzkrieg. You will surrender. Such assaults—dipped in equal parts confidence, vision, and “let’s-have-a-blast” bliss—have ...

Joe Satriani typically approaches his recorded works like an electrified, 18th-century composer—painstakingly crafting melodies and countermelodies, formulating and revising arrangements, continuously tweaking guitar tones, and moving ...

Scores of indie bands forge uneasy sonic and thematic alliances with the music of the ’60s and ’70s. The discomfort appears when an artist strives to be “of their time” and moving forward while simultaneously digging and emulating the ...

The Cars sold gazillions of records in their ’80s heyday, and it shouldn’t have happened. The band was quirky, anti-charismatic (before it was fashionable), distant, and influenced by a commercially deadly mixture of punk, garage rock, ...

“I’ve never had any desire to be a ‘solo artist’ and I still don’t. But I enjoyed this process so much that I’ll probably do more records like this.”

The alluring acoustic and vocal textures that swirl around David Pajo’s Pajo [Drag City] recall the eyes-closed-and-whirling-in-the-sun rapture of the ’60s folk-rock explosion. To construct his vibey and sensual songs, Pajo ...

Loops and drum machines are all very fine, but nothing compares to the real thing—a slammin’ drum track laid down by a monster skin basher. Unfortunately, if you have a small home studio, tracking live drums is often just plain impossible. ...

Whether you’re a novice at computer-based audio production, or need powerful, inexpensive recording software without all of the expensive bells and whistles, you might find just what you need in Steinberg’s Cubase SE3 ( $149 ). If ...

Originally introduced in 1981, the Lexicon PCM 42 digital delay quickly became a staple in professional recording studios and guitarists’ rigs, and secondhand units still fetch big bucks on the vintage market. Why? Because the comparatively ...

My friend’s studio occupies a space in his Manhattan apartment that is barely larger than a walk-in closet. A complex audio interface with 24 simultaneous inputs is overkill in a situation like that—a high-quality stereo pair will do ...

The new buzz in loop libraries is control. Static loops aren’t good enough anymore—you need to be able to get “inside” the loop and customize it. This facility is particularly important with percussion, which usually provides the ear-candy ...

The Wave Arts Power Suite of plug-ins ($499 retail) is aimed at digital recordists on a budget, and you can even download a fully functional version and use it for 30 days to see if it delivers the goods. For me—well, let’s just say ...

Sometimes, it’s the smaller software companies that produce the real gems, and this is one of them. The GCO-1 “Golden Compressor” ($118 direct) VST plug-in for Windows 2000/XP gives you more than just a kickin’ compressor/expander. ...

Tired of the same old guitar sounds? Well, new discoveries are but a few mic positions away. Here are some tricks I’ve used on recent sessions to get myself out of the conventional guitar-tone doldrums.

The use of compression by guitar players has become a sort of snake oil tonic. It can pump up sonic impact and clarify note attack, but, all too often, the application of compression sucks the life out of the guitar sound instead of ...

Recording guitars that blast out of speakers or headphones like the Hulk smashing through a mountain range is all a matter of managing technical and arrangement perspectives. On the tech side, you want to lay down guitar tones that ...

Guitarists are suckers for flash. We aren’t even the slightest bit comfortable unless our tone is kissed by reverb, delay, or some glitzy modulation effect. But if you slaughter your home-studio mixes with effects—tons of goop on the ...

Throughout a career filled with mob dives, movies, concert stages, and the Rat Pack, Dean Martin never broke a sweat. He did whatever he wanted, and he never messed with his aura of cool by caring what anybody thought about anything ...

Modeling processors and plug-ins are fabulous devices for tracking mammoth guitar tones without subjecting your ears—or your neighbors—to the fearsome volume of a raging amplifier. You simply monitor your tracks and the modeling goodie ...

It’s about listening . Why are you in this business? Audio! A home studio should be a listening space, not a gear showcase. It doesn’t matter if you have the coolest gear, if your CD doesn’t translate outside of your studio. Many ...

Are your mixes pristine, transparent, and utterly boring? Is there no funk in your sonic fromage? No attitude? No atmosphere? No life? Well, you’re probably obsessed with doing things right. Unfortunately, while striving for perfection ...

“I’ve never been happy with the guitar tones on my other records,” Curran reports. “Usually, the engineer puts a mic right on the amp, but I don’t like how brittle that sounds. Back in the ’40s and ’50s, there often wouldn’t even ...