Recording with FX or not? That is the question!

[Geir]

Yea I try to record the sound I want. I did try years ago to figure out how to record dry on my 900 but it seemed like a huge pain in the ass. I dig less ass pain!

I also have tried dry recording, but have found that in 99.9% of the takes it's just a waste of time. I prefer less ass pain too

What I have learned tho is to not record with any delay. So I record dry in the sense "no spacious FX". There are exeptions, but generally your mixing job will be much easier with a dryer sound

[Speed Demon]

Geir, you are exactly right. I forgot to mention that I do use overdrive on my electric guitar tracks, but no echo, delay, or phasing. Its too easy to develop ear fatigue during a long editing session and end up synching to an echoed note rather than the primary note.

When you guys and gals finally stop laughing at me, think back to the very first time you discovered that you had made that mistake.

The Devil made you do it. I know.

[Super 8]

synching to an echoed note rather than the primary note

GOOD POINT!

[Speed Demon]

If you think editing/adding effects is a pain in your ass, there's an opening for this job.
This guy just quit.

[launched]

I just record with the amp model and effects I want and if I change my mind later, I just record another take with a different amp model and/or effects.

Yes, I've found it's so much easier to just record something I'm not happy with over again. I used to cut, paste, add effects, punch in, etc when I first got my MBR, but now I rarely do unless I intentionally want to loop something. But I guess I got a good education from it.

[Auroran]

   

Recording with FX or not? That is the question!

It's not a question, it's a personality quiz.

I record dry, or with a clean tone. I like to tinker, and recording wet would give me a stroke. As I said, it's a personality thang, I'm type A.

[AndyR]

I was reading this yesterday and thinking "I record dry, always".

But then how you guys are talking about guitars, I probably need to add that I very rarely use the Boss guitar effects. I'll either mic an amp (rare), or use one of my modellors.

The amp models I have set up for recording have a tiny touch of room reverb on them to imitate an amplifier mic'd up in a room - but I tend to regard this signal as "dry".

If a guitar part has delay as an integral musical part of it, I'll stick it on in the amp modellor (mainly because my modellor's delays support ducking easily). Similar with chorus.

While rehearsing, I'll monitor whether recording stereo or mono is best (this applies to keyboards too). It's usually a toss-up between "do I want this stereo vibe on this instrument" or "would the part fit better with the others, and produce nicer stereo, if it was mono and panned appropriately".

But all of the main Reverb, Delay, Chorus, Compression, EQ etc happens during mixing/bouncing for me. This applies to everything - electric guitars, acoustics, vocals, keyboards (I always turn a keyboard's reverbs off when tracking).

My reasoning is that if I print any of this stuff on the track itself, then I can't take it off when I find it doesn't really work with the rest of the song. And if that take was a really good one... then I'm stuffed!!

I also do it with EQ - I never EQ on the "desk" on the way in. I get the source sound to where I think it will work, record it, and then apply EQ on playback.

I did find this way of working was helped enormously when I moved from the MBR to a BR1600. It has a dedicated compressor, parametric EQ, reverb send, delay/mod send for each fader. In fact, I very rarely use any of the other effects (all those in the patch banks) - I tend to use just the mixer's comp, EQ, rev, and delay/mod.

The other thing about the BR1600 is the input channel has a similar dedicated reverb send, delay/mod send (and a pan control) on it. When you record, the settings on the input are transferred to the fader of the track you just recorded on. This means I can do what orh is describing - I hear the reverb and delay when I'm singing, and the same one on immediate playback, but the actual performance is recorded dry. I even use the pan on the input when doing backing vox - the vocal I'm singing might only be in my right or left ear, gives me some separation so that I can tune the voices together and get their timing right.

About the only effect I do use when tracking is one of the vocal patches (with EQ and any time effects turned off) for protective compression and expansion when recording vocals.

[Speed Demon]

I record all my tracks in stereo. After track synching is satisfactory I then position each track at a different point in the stereo field, so no two instruments/voices appear at the same plane.
I never place more than one instrument at the widest point in the stereo field. Usually a rhythm instrument, or special effect.

This technique worked out quite well when I mixed Trevor's vocal tracks for Fame.

[thetworegs]

I use the fx to record with because as Jim says you sing it differently then unless I'm collabing with Gene or others who ask for a clean track then I simply take the fx of the vocal track .this is using Logic pro as you can always go back to the clean track and add a different fx, it helps to hear the same track with different effects on which I then sometimes blend together depending on what I'm trying to achieve......but I know nothing of mastering ( ive got a dozen books on recording and no time to read them unless of course i stop making music for a while..but i dont think i can do that) I just record with fx and change the fx to what I like and play with the levels of the other tracks or is that mastering So I suppose I'm a Fx'er all the way!!!

[Speed Demon]

Trevor, to me, mastering is getting all tracks to blend well and sound good to your ear.
The devil is in the details.