Recording Guitar and Bass: Getting a Great Sound Every Time You Record [Paperback]

Huw Price (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2002

Guitarists and bassists are forever striving to capture their instrument's sound on recordings. This hands-on guide describes the techniques that accomplish this best. The book provides practical advice for creating a home studio space, choosing and using amps and microphones, processing and enhancing sound with effects, and special approaches for recording acoustic and electric bass and guitar, as well as double bass. It also includes interviews with top technicians, producers and musicians in which they teach their tricks of the trade. A 63-track companion CD demonstrates every important technique and sound, including: variation created by different amplifiers, microphones, positioning within the studio, EQ applications, and more. Features a full glossary that explains all the tech terms you'll need to know.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Huw Price is a freelance record producer and sound engineer, with many years' experience recording guitars in the studio and in live situations. He lectures at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and is a contributor to The Guitar Magazine. He has worked with David Bowie, Primal Scream, Ian Dury, Nick Cave, and many others.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Backbeat Books (December 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879307307
• ISBN-13: 978-0879307301
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,099,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Im a recording newb, learned a lot from this book., April 4, 2009

By 

odog502 (San Antonio, TX USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Recording Guitar and Bass: Getting a Great Sound Every Time You Record (Paperback)

This is a great book. Ive been playing guitar just for fun for a few years but dont know anything about recording. This book along with 2 others: Sound Advice on Equalizers, Reverbs & Delays (Instantpro Series) and The Mixing Engineer's Handbook, Second Edition have given me a pretty good solid base of knowledge to get started.

A good thing about this book as that he doesn't just tell you what you are supposed to do and leaves it at that. He tells you a lot of "why" too, often times going into technical details. I imagine that some people may think the technical explanations of impedence and the difference between tube types are excessive. But for me, going into the technical aspect helped me better grasp the higher concepts.

I like the plentiful supply of pictures and illustrations in the book. Written content is still plentiful. A good balance.

This book gets bonus points for including a CD. Many books out there on this subject are suspiciously missing this obvious inclusion. Its one thing to be explained how something sounds, its another to also be able to hear it. The CD helps connect the sound with description.

There is a section in the back with interviews with different engineers so you get opinions from multiple professionals, not just the authors. Thats a good thing.

Topics that are not covered in this book are equipment and materials on guitars and basses themselves. So you will not find an explanation about pickup types or the knobs on the guitars. Although there is an interview in the back with a pickup engineer. It is also light on the effects section, such as equalizers, delay, reverb etc. But there are other books that go into detail about that, like the ones I mentioned above.

I was also considering getting The Recording Engineer's Handbook. My friend got it. I borrowed it and skimmed through it real quick. I am happy with the Recording Guitar and Bass book though. The Recording Engineers book is also fine(even though it doesnt come with a CD), but it is much broader. So if you are going to be working with MANY different instruments you may like that book better. But if you are going to focus on bass and guitar, this book is better than the Recording Engineer Handbook one. This book goes much more in depth in topics specific for guitar such as: amplifiers and speakers.

Overall Im happy with it, especially for the price( I got it for less than $10 I believe). However, keep in mind this is just about recording. For complete end to end knowledge of the music making process you will also want books on mixing and mastering.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good basic info, April 26, 2010

By 

S. Paist "Spivonious" (Lancaster, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Recording Guitar and Bass: Getting a Great Sound Every Time You Record (Paperback)

I got this book to learn about recording guitar in an effort to improve the capture of the sounds I was hearing in my basement studio.

I did learn a bit about microphone technology, got some placement tips, and a nice insight into matching input impedances. But at the end I came out wanting more detail. This book just doesn't have the detail I was looking for.

5.0 out of 5 stars Handy, usable, readable..., April 11, 2011

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jumpingjimmy - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Recording Guitar and Bass: Getting a Great Sound Every Time You Record (Paperback)

I like this book a lot. It is a pleasure to read and the advice is sensible, practical, and useful. And it is a fun read too.