Recording guitars?

[NeoSound]

I'm very much a novice when it comes to recording . When I get an inspiring sound coming out of the axe-fx most of the time after recording, you can immediately hear that the bass should be cut, highs cut boosted etc... but when you set up a patch that sounds better for recording it's usually less than inspiring to play.
So do you pro studio guys just record what sounds good to you and fix it in the daw later or do you work harder to do that before recording? Seems that all the great guitar recordings of the past were probably sculpted by the engineers (post recording) more than the artist?

Any tips? TIA

 

[Jiffzillla]

I usually try to get as close as I can to what I think will be the final guitar tone before recording. You’re right about tones that work in the mix not always being an absolute joy to play through though. What I sometimes do is record with a tone that’s fun to play through and gets the juices flowing, but simultaneously record a DI track as well. That way I can go back and reamp with the better for the mix/but not as fun to play through tone. It can sometimes help with getting a good performance (through the fun tone) and not have to process the recording to Hell and back in order to get it to fit in the mix.

 

[NeoSound]

I usually try to get as close as I can to what I think will be the final guitar tone before recording. You’re right about tones that work in the mix not always being an absolute joy to play through though. What I sometimes do is record with a tone that’s fun to play through and gets the juices flowing, but simultaneously record a DI track as well. That way I can go back and reamp with the better for the mix/but not as fun to play through tone. It can sometimes help with getting a good performance (through the fun tone) and not have to process the recording to Hell and back in order to get it to fit in the mix.

I haven't experimented with re-amping but that's definitely what I need to try.

 

[Geezerjohn]

I record my guitar tracks dry, but do put effects into the headphone mix so what I am listening to is more inspiring. I take careful notes especially for delay settings and stuff like that. Then at mix down, I add the effects. You get a much cleaner mix. I also give some thought to the overall composition so I know how to eq the track (fat, crisp, etc).

 

[NeoSound]

Listening to Andy Timmons, Eric Johnson, Richie Kotzen and some of my other favorite guitar oriented music, there's only bass drums and one busy guitar track bouncing back and forth from chords to single lines. I can see why they do it because if you only have a single root/target note from the bass you have many more scale/mode flavors to experiment with. Also you can have that fat full tone guitar players love that don't work so well in a mix with other wider range instruments.

 

[Ben Randolph]

Usually I record without delay or Reverb. I add those as plugins. It mandates that I like my amp/cab tone before time based effects.