At Arms Length
Cable length—I also try to keep cable runs as short as possible. Long cables change your tone as well as cable brand. I wouldn’t get so obsessed with the cable brand. Length is an issue though (ask any woman…rim shot!!).
My preference is to use 10-foot cables. A 15-footer may appear in my live setup, but not for studio. A 50-foot cable may be long enough to allow you to walk to the coffee machine between takes, but will weigh down your sound.
It’s possible you may like this tone alteration (Gov’t Mule guitarist Warren Haynes does). I’m not telling you what to like, just stating the facts.
Disruptive Coloration
In live situations, you don’t have much flexibility with routing. You’re not going to disconnect anything between songs. You have to live with the signal loss. This is why we go to great lengths to limit the coloration.
There is no reason to settle in the studio. Because of the nuance recordings can capture, we can hear the little things we wouldn’t notice live.
Dismantle The Machine
Let’s say someone has a pedal board with a wah, volume, tuner, overdrive, chorus, delay and reverb on it. On the song you’re tracking the guitarist or bassist is only using a delay. Unhook the delay from the pedalboard and make a direct connection from the guitar -> pedal -> amp.
Notice you don’t see a tuner there? I never put a tuner in the chain while recording. I use a tuner called Stayintune (or the TC Electronics Polytune app) on my iPhone. One of those Snark type clip on tuners work well too.
Tuners have a way of messing up your chain in the tone department. Only the essentials please!! This doesn’t mean the guitarist or bassist shouldn’t be checking their tuning after every take. It just means it’s not at their feet.
Tip: It’s a great idea for everyone to use the same tuner. That way everyone’s tuning is using the same calibration.
Protesto
It’s likely you’ll get moans and protests from the guitarist or bassist, but stick to your guns. You’re making a record, it’s better to get the best sound at the source.
I’ve been on sessions as an engineer where a guitarists rolls up, unpacks a huge pedalboard, plugs in to a really nice amp and the tone sounds dull. Often they don’t even check the amp tone before plugging in.
Back To The Start
Which leads me to mention, ask the guitarist or bassist to plug directly into the amp before adding any effects. Get a really good sound happening before you plug in any effects. Guitar to amp should sound killin’. The effects are the icing, not the cake.
This should be the case for every effects change. Always stay in touch with your inner self (in this case that’s the amp).
Precious Things
The little things add up. Mind you, none of it will compensate for a poorly written or executed part.
In theory, you could have the world’s largest pedalboard in bypass with 100 feet of cabling, but if you have a great player you can get an amazing sound. Gear doesn’t make great music, great artists make great music.
Now you can troubleshoot wimpy tone in your next session. And always remember, the part dictates the sound.
Mark Marshall is a producer, songwriter, session musician and instructor based in NYC.
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