Originally Posted by
MikeA
You're gettin' it Austin with the 335! Wonderful instruments! They show best with a clean slightly overdriven tube amp and some reverb. Don't need much else except a mic to pick up that warm tone. Just think about that tone that Stu/Felder cranked out on "ICTYW". It just sort of drips blues.
But they also can crank out with overdrive too. The "image" isn't right for those tones, but the humbuckers can really scream. They might lack a little in sustain when compared to a Paul or Strat, but not much because of that solid block of wood that runs through the body....and a pedal that will resonate the notes will artificially produce that missing sustain if you really have to have it.
The tone is almost everything with the 335. But I love the feel of the neck and fretboard too. I do not own another guitar nor have I ever played one that has a better feel. I've equated it before to a smooth almost buttery feel. It is a pretty heavy guitar and it is big. It does take some getting used to especially if you have it strapped on for long periods. I used to come home from Praise Services with a shoulder that was sore!
On the amps....I had a little Marshall for a while and it was good for what I bought it for, but I have my AD30VT VOX now that has an atentuation control on the back that lets the full out tilt settings sound good at low volumes....you don't have to peel paint with it to get the full saturation though you do need high volumes to get the full effect of the speaker characteristics. I'm happy for the Marshall now though as it is in the hands of someone who needed it more than I and it is getting the love I never gave it.
What kind of camera are you using? I have some video capability with a little Cannon 12mp point and shoot job. I've never tried any audio capture with it using the video.
Audio capture is sort of funny. The further away from the amp the mic is, the more of the lower frequencies you pick up. I usually have my condenser mics maybe 16" from the speakers when I am capturing a track. That seems to get about the most rounded sound to my ears. Moving the mic further away causes you to have to record at higher levels and that picks up too much ambient noise for my tastes. My setup is in my basement and the central heating and air "blower" is in a closet right off my office. If I'm running through a quiet passage and that furnace kicks on, well, it's start over time! But with the mic close to the amp, my ears aren't good enough to pick up that roar from the furnace on a recording if I'm hanging on the wires pretty heavy.
I'm disconnecting my USB interface today and taking it up to my Father-in-law's. He's having a lot of trouble with double tracking. He'll use a mic to pickup his violin on a track and then use the mic to record his guitar. When he strums or picks his rhythm on the guitar the mic is recording it but also picks up the sounds coming from the speakers that are giving him a monitor on the violin track. Really gets muddied up when that happens.
That's where the Direct Interface function of the USB adapters come in to their own! Since you are recording directly from the instrument, you can play your accompanyment as low as you wish and not pick up any frequency! No microphone involved. But to do that, you will have to have found an artificial combination of digital amps and effects that give you the plugged sound you were after. If that doesn't work for you, then you'll have to go to headphones and those produce a lot of problems of their own.
I detest wired headphones but for audio, they are probably the best. Dang chord is always in the way and usually not long enough! Cordless headphones in theory would be the solution, but they have a tendency to pick up all sorts of interference around a computer. Distracting even if that static isn't being captured in your recording.