Hi everybody, hope you’re doing marvellously well. Welcome back to another FAQ Friday, this time from our satellite studio here in London at Spitfire Studio London, SSL as it were. Pale blue grey jumper, not big, bad, or dressed in black, however we press on regardless.
We had a great set of questions this week, covering everything from real guitar amps versus plug ins, to using pedals in a mix, to vocal psychology and knowing when a mix is finished. Let’s dive in.
Real Guitar Amps vs Plug In Simulations
The short answer is, I love real amps. I always have. Ninety nine percent of my life has been spent recording real guitar amplifiers. However amp modelling and emulation have been around for a very long time, long before impulse responses became a common talking point.
Back in the late nineties, my good friend Dave Jordan worked on Americana by The Offspring, which featured massive guitar sounds that people still love today. Those tones were created using a blend of real amps alongside Amp Farm, printing a DI and mixing the two together. This was well before the industry fully understood just how much of the sound lives in the speaker and the cabinet.
If I have the time and the budget, I will always choose real amps for anything that requires personality. Every combination of guitarist, guitar, amp, mic, mic pre, and performance gives you something unique. In a world where AI and over standardisation are very real concerns, uniqueness matters more than ever.
That said, don’t let dogma get in the way of creativity. If you’re writing and inspiration strikes, plug straight into a DI, pull up an amp sim, and get the idea down. The performance and the idea are far more important than the purity of the signal chain.
When we interviewed Steven Wilson, he talked about using a small pedal for rough ideas and often keeping those sounds because the performance was right. If the emotion is there, why redo it?
Real amps are unique and individual. Plug ins are fast, practical, and creative. Use both. Blend away. Have fun with it.
Mixing with Guitar Pedals and Pedal Compressors
This is one of my favourite topics. Many years ago, in the early 2000s, I worked with Dave Sardy and Greg Gordon. Greg would record onto four track cassette and use guitar pedals for compression, including classic Boss compressor pedals like the CS series.
Those pedals created aggressive, explosive tones that were completely different from an 1176, an LA 2A, or a dbx 160. Because they were designed for guitar, you could dial in attack and response in a way that felt immediate and musical.
Today, companies like Radial make re amp and pedal interface solutions, including 500 series modules, that let you run audio out of your DAW and through pedals during a mix. Bob Horn uses this approach as well.
Are pedal compressors technically different from outboard equivalents? Possibly. However the bigger difference is psychological. Hardware, especially unfamiliar hardware, forces you to think differently. It pulls you out of muscle memory and away from compressors you have used a thousand times.
It’s like putting a guitar into an alternate tuning. You do not try to play the same shapes. You explore. You discover new voicings, new melodies, and new ideas. That is the real value of using pedals in a mix. They are creative tools first, not just processors.
Making Separately Recorded Tracks Feel Like a Live Performance
When everything is recorded separately, the key is shared space and movement.
One approach is to use a single room impulse response and send multiple instruments to it very lightly. Another is to bus groups, such as drums, into a room reverb via a short delay. By varying the pre delay by a few milliseconds, you create the illusion that instruments are sitting at different depths in the room.
Pan instruments within that shared space, keep the room subtle, and let everything bleed just enough to feel cohesive. Add bus compression to help elements move together, and suddenly the mix feels alive rather than assembled.
It does not need to be complicated. One room, used intelligently, goes a very long way.
How Long Is Too Long to Spend on a Mix?
I strongly believe in moving quickly. When you move fast, you make creative decisions instead of getting lost in technical ones. That does not mean being careless. It means staying focused.
The foundation of a mix can often be done in 45 minutes to a couple of hours, sometimes up to four hours depending on complexity. Editing, automation, delay throws, reverse effects, and fine detail can take much longer, and that is perfectly fine.
I mixed a track recently where the core mix was about 45 minutes. The polish took much longer. That balance is important. Get the emotional and musical picture right first, then spend time enhancing interest and detail.
Getting the Best from a Vocalist on an Off Day
This might be the most important question of all.
Often, a vocalist is not struggling technically. They are struggling emotionally. Anxiety, pressure, and overthinking can cripple even the most experienced singers.
The first step is distraction. Make a cup of tea. Tell a joke. Talk about something unrelated. Take them out of their head.
When recording, do not get overly detailed too quickly. Run full takes. Find moments you love, even if they are imperfect. Play those moments back and say, “That thing you did there, that breath, that phrasing, that emotion, that was amazing. Give me more of that.”
This is the single most important piece of vocal production advice I can give you. Build confidence by highlighting what works. Do not tear singers down by listing what is wrong.
I learned this by watching great producers like Jack Douglas and David Foster. David Foster once told me he has never done more than ten takes of a song with any singer. He knows when something is good, and he knows how to encourage more of it.
Great production is saying, “I love this, let’s build on it.” Bad production is saying, “That sucked, do it again.”
Encourage your singer. Find what you love. Get more of that. Confidence unlocks performances in a way no plug in ever will.
Thanks ever so much for reading and for watching. Please leave more questions below, I love doing these. I hope you’re enjoying our new satellite studio here in London. We still haven’t chosen the monitors.
Have a marvellous time recording and mixing.
