Illustration by Kate Koenig
The apartment-ready 4-track tape recorder changed the game in the ’70s, then the next decade’s digital advancements blew the doors clean off the studio system. Suddenly, artists could handily create their own recordings from home, and they weren’t half bad. Check out Morphine’s 1993 radio hit “Cure for Pain,” for an example. The horns were recorded on a 4-track in frontman Mark Sandman’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, loft. (Listen closely and you can hear the effect the slightly stretched tape had on their sound.)
“They were really experimenting with unorthodox recording techniques to get previously unheard sounds onto records, and you can still incorporate that philosophy into digital recording.” - Rich Gilbert
As time went on, some went all-in. Venerated alt-rock outfit Deerhoof, who had used a 4-track to record their 1997 album, began making records with laptops and Pro Tools starting in 2000. “It seems like you can either go to a medium- or high-budget studio for one day, or you can use the equipment you have or can borrow from friends, and do it as long as you want,” drummer Greg Saunier said in a 2006 interview. “I realized there was no comparison—the time was so much more valuable than the fanciness of the equipment.”
Home recording equipment for guitarists has basically moved at the speed of light since 2006, and now many of the pros don’t even leave the comfort of their own nest to lay down award-winning tracks. There are plenty of reasons for that (besides the ability to do it in your pajamas). Recording your own guitars in your own space can be incredibly empowering: It’s an exercise in self-sufficiency and independence, both of which can be rare commodities in the world of recorded music. Perhaps most importantly, it doesn’t require a stack of cash to get recordings that you like.
“Sometimes, recording in a DAW, it can sound like you’re on top of the music if you’re recording in a collaboration.” - Ella Feingold
Of course, there’s a spectrum of approaches. Some rely on big-money gear to get the job done, but just as many will swear by cobbling together a home-brew sound setup that matches the project. And besides, it’s not all about the equipment. Recording guitar parts on your own in your dwelling is a unique process with its own complexities, not all of which can be captured and explained in instructional YouTube videos. That’s where battle-tested insights come in handy.
So, I asked three guitarists—a studio heavy-hitter to the stars; a “legendary” long-time independent punk; and an alt-rock up-and-comer—how they cut record-worthy 6-string tracks at home. Here’s what I learned.
Ella Feingold
Flanked by records from Tangerine Dream and Vangelis, Ella Feingold clutches her home studio’s secret weapon: a ’60s Maestro EP-2 Echoplex.
When Ella Feingold started recording at home in 2002, the Digidesign Digi 001 was the tech of the day. Feingold always wanted to figure out how guitar parts and overdubs worked together, be they on a Barry White record or a Motown guitar section, so she set to recreating those layers with the recording system. It wasn’t long before she was working on overdubs for other artists with her new rig, and the practice turned into a career. Now, she’s known for her work with Silk Sonic, Questlove, and Erykah Badu, and on Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
Feingold began her career when everyone still gathered in the studio and recorded to tape, so she’s familiar with the feeling and energy of creating something together rather than in isolation. The key to avoiding Lone Musician Syndrome, she says, is to find a way to get inside the music rather than playing on top of it. “Sometimes, recording in a DAW, it can sound like you’re on top of the music if you’re recording in a collaboration,” she says.
There are technical remedies for this, like plugins and impulse responses (IRs) that can help mimic atmosphere or certain room sounds. But there’s a philosophical angle to it, too. When Feingold gets a project, she first listens to it over and over with no instrument in her hand. The idea is to rein in your instincts. Sometimes, they’re helpful. But other times, they let you drift to familiar sounds, progressions, or timings. Feingold will jot notes based on what pops into her head on those first listens, but only later will she pick up a guitar to arrange a part, and see how those initial reactions actually fit with a patient, considered read on the music.
Ella Feingold's Home Studio Gear
Guitars
- 1981 Gibson ES-345 Stereo
- 1967 Vox Super Lynx
- 1967 Goya Rangemaster
- 1950’s Kay Thin Twin
- 1981 Ibanez GB10
- Fender Nile Rodgers Hitmaker Stratocaster
- 1972 Fender Telecaster
- Fender MIM Stratocaster (strung for inverted tuning)
Amps
- 1966 Fender Princeton Reverb
Effects
- Maestro EP-2 Echoplex
- Maestro Boomerang BG-2 Wah Pedal
- Maestro PS-1A Phase Shifter
- Maestro FZ-1A Fuzz-Tone
- Maestro FSH-1 Filter/Sample Hold
- Zoom 9030
Interface, Mics, and Monitors
- Acme Audio DI WB-3
- BAE 1073
- Ableton Live
- RCA 77-D
- Electro-Voice 635A
- Yamaha NS-10
- Dynaudio BM-15
Feingold’s biggest gripe with home recording is engineering for herself. When she records direct into her interface, it’s no issue, but miking, listening, and tweaking mic position ad infinitum is a major drag—especially if a client has revisions on your work. Say you recorded a lead part in 8th notes, and they tell you a week later that they want a portion of it redone in 16ths. If you recorded those parts on a miked amp, there’s a good chance it’s not set up the same way anymore, and you’ll spend a nice chunk of time replicating the exact sound you got the first go-around. “If I could, I would never engineer for myself,” she groans.
Feingold lives in the mountains, so background noise isn’t a concern these days, though she uses the Waves NS1 plugin for apartment dwellers looking to erase unwanted background from their recordings. But what’s her biggest piece of advice for guitarists recording from home for someone else’s projects? Communicate. “Ask them what their expectations are of you,” she says. “It’s always important to know who you’re working with. By asking, it allows you to help them and not waste your own time.”
Finally, if you’re miking your rig, Feingold suggests checking out good preamps for everything you record. They can add something to the signal that will make your life easier at every turn down the road. “Getting ‘the sound’ before it touches the computer is really where it’s at,” she says.
Rich Gilbert
Lifelong DIYer Rich Gilbert sold most of his home studio gear last year, but with just a couple key pieces, he can still cut album-ready tracks from his new casa in Italy.
Photo by Liz Linder
Home studio whiz Rich Gilbert sold off most of his recording toys when he moved from Maine to Italy in late 2023, but he’s cool with it. All he needs these days is a good laptop with Logic Pro, an interface, and some half-decent nearfield speakers to get comfy with. He records most of his guitars direct these days, and writes and programs his own drums in EZdrummer.
Gilbert has been playing in rock bands since the late ’70s, including Boston art-punks Human Sexual Response and the Zulus, Frank Black and the Catholics, and Eileen Rose (whom Gilbert married). He always loved recording, and soaked in everything he could learn when his bands were in the studio, even if it meant pestering the engineer a little. When Pro Tools became affordable in the early 2000s, he loaded it up with a rackmount interface and MacBook Pro. He devoured issues of Tape Op magazine and started building up his collection of microphones and plugins. He still doesn’t call himself a pro, but that’s part of the point. “This whole digital recording revolution is fantastic in that it enables people like me to make good-sounding records,” he says. “At the same time, it’s kind of a cheat because I don’t really have to know as much.” Over the past 20 years, Gilbert has home-recorded LPs for his solo project, Eileen Rose, and his old band, the Zulus. He also has a practice of cutting tracks for indie artists—for one example, St. Augustine, Florida’s Delta Haints—at $75 per song.
Rich Gilbert's Home Studio Gear
Guitars
- Peavey Omniac JD
- Amps
- Line 6 POD Farm
Effects
- Slate Digital plugins
Interface, Mics, and Monitors
- Pro Tools
- Mackie HR824
- Line 6 POD Studio UX2
- Shure SM7
- Shure SM57
- Shure SM58
- Audio-Technica AT2020
- Audio-Technica AT2035
- Blue Spark
- Monster Power PowerCenter PRO 3500
Gilbert says any aspiring at-home engineer ought to go right to the source for solid information. Study how other engineers have recorded things through history. If there’s a particular sound or feel you’re going for, look at the equipment used to capture it. These days, chances are good that basically any piece of gear you’d lust after has been turned into a plugin.
“Read as much as you can,” says Gilbert. “Read interviews with other engineers as much as you can, ’cause you’ll learn.” In Gilbert’s decades of reading and research, he says he’s seen one sentiment crop up again and again: There is no right or wrong way to do it. “All these things we do are just techniques that someone else did, and then passed it on to someone else,” says Gilbert.
That ethos, he explains, actually comes right from the 1960s and ’70s golden recording era that most of us are trying to ape. “They were really experimenting with unorthodox recording techniques to get previously unheard sounds onto records, and you can still incorporate that philosophy into digital recording,” says Gilbert. “Don’t be afraid to experiment. If it sounds good, it is good.”
That said, another important piece is to know when to walk away from a session. If every frequency seems to be just out of whack with your ears, there’s a good chance you need a break. Remember: At home, you’re juggling the jobs of guitarist, engineer, and producer, and sometimes, the producer has to tell the guitarist to take a walk and come back with a fresh perspective.
James Goodson
James Goodson launched his home-recording project Dazy as an outlet for his “demoitis,” and his song “Pressure Cooker” exploded into an alt-classic.
Photo by Chris Carreon
James Goodson never meant for his band Dazy to be a home-recording project, but after years of tinkering in GarageBand, he’d gotten attached to the rawness of the demos he made with drum machines. During the great shutdown of 2020, he decided to release them into the wild. Now, his single “Pressure Cooker,” a collab with the punks in Militarie Gun, has racked up more than 500,000 streams.
Goodson says he’s not a technical person, so he tries to keep it simple and trust his ears. “If something sounds cool, then that’s that,” he says. “I’m not worried about ‘the right way’ to arrive there.” After almost 20 years on GarageBand, he recently switched to Logic, into which he runs his 4-channel Behringer interface. He uses two mics—a Shure SM57 for his vocals, and a Sennheiser e 609 for recording guitars. He prefers the 609 for its simplicity: Slap it right flush with the grille and start playing. It’s usually on a Vox AC15C1, but Goodson’s secret weapon is a lineup of battery-powered pocket amps that sound “truly wild” when cranked. This combo is how he achieves most of the lush, varied guitar sounds on Dazy’s recordings, with the odd “weird DI tone” in the mix as well. “There’s something cool about the tones from a real amp colliding with some wack digital tone,” he says.
James Goodson's Home Studio Gear
Guitars
- Fender Vintera ’60s Jazzmaster Modified
- Fender MIJ Telecaster
- Fender Marauder
- Fender Highway One Jazz Bass
- Fender Villager 12-String Acoustic
Amps
- Vox AC15C1
- Fender MD20 Mini Deluxe
- Fender Mini ’57 Twin-Amp
Effects
- Electro-Harmonix Big Muff
- Electro-Harmonix Op Amp Big Muff
- Behringer SF300 Super Fuzz
- Big Knob Pedals I.C.B.M. 1977 Op Amp Muff
- Permanent Electronics Silver Cord Fuzz
- Electro-Harmonix Soul Food
- Boss SD-1
- Seymour Duncan Shape Shifter
- MXR Phase 90
- MXR Micro Chorus
Interface, Mics, and Monitors
- Behringer U-Phoria UMC404HD
- Sennheiser e 609
- Shure SM57
Goodson says his biggest challenge is managing volume levels. Feedback, for example, is difficult to capture unless you push an amp to its limits, which generally involves a lot of noise. Space is limited at Goodson’s house, so he’s generally in close quarters with that squall for extended periods of time. “Thankfully, my wife is incredibly patient about the racket,” he says, “but I’m not sure if my ears are as flexible.”
“There’s something cool about the tones from a real amp colliding with some wack digital tone.” - James Goodson
Those downsides do have proportionate offsets, though. Goodson says the creative process that one can chase at home is incomparable to its studio counterpart. This ultimately comes down to time and money. “I love being able to just sit around for hours rearranging pedals in search of the ugliest fuzz or playing a part over and over trying to make the screechiest noise—the kind of thing that no one is gonna want to put up with when you have two days in a studio to record ten songs,” he says.
Pushing the boundaries of good taste is one of the sweet joys of life, but Goodson says it's important to know your limits, too. When recording at home, it’s critical to know when to tag in help, he says, and he always sends off his tracks to be mixed by a professional engineer.
The Wrap-UP
There’s a lot of technical overlap between how Feingold, Gilbert, and Goodson work, but the crucial thing they all have in common is reverence and excitement for whatever they’re playing on. Recording guitar from home works best if you really, deeply care about the sounds that you’re creating—even if they’re not for your own projects. Getting the best possible result out of your stay-at-home studio is a matter of experimentation, patience, and genuine respect for the music. You don’t have to drop big money to get those things, but you do have to practice at them. If you ever get frustrated with the process, just remember: Being a work-from-home guitarist is a pretty sweet gig.
The venerable Fender Telecaster has spawned a zillion clones, some good and some bad. The Tele has been adopted by players in a variety of styles, but arguably it has been best known for its use in country music. I have loved Teles for a long time, and I own five of them. I was inspired to play Teles by some of my favorite pickers, guys like Roy Buchanan, Ed Bickert, Albert Collins, Jimmy Bryant, Danny Gatton and Jerry Reed. Many guitarists joke that a Tele is a “real man’s” guitar because it is generally somewhat harder to play than say, a Gibson, and its tone is quite naked and doesn’t cover for sloppy technique. Interestingly, you could say it was one of the first guitars to be modified as Fender introduced a semi-hollow and versions with different pickup combinations. So now here comes Tradition Guitars with their take on the Tele, and it has some interesting features.
Who is Jerry Reid?
I first saw one of these in a local store and was a bit bamboozled that there was a Jerry Reed model guitar coming out after the great man had passed away. But we do live in a time of dead-guy endorsements, so I just tried the guitar and I thought it was pretty impressive. Flash-forward to my getting this guitar for a review, and I come to find out it isn’t Jerry Reed, but Jerry Reid. My first thought was, “Hmmm, what’s all this then?” What I found out is that Mr. Reid played for Mel Tillis, George Jones and bought his first Tradition guitar in a music store. He loved it, and so he hooked up with the company to consult on the development of this guitar. He has since passed away.
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
But we are pickers and can just take a guitar for what it is, so let’s have a look-see. The JR Pro has an ash body with a nice looking quilted maple top. This particular JR Pro seems slightly on the heavy side, but not too bad… about 7–8 lbs. Our example has a pretty-looking amber transparent color. It also has a maple neck and fingerboard with a tilted-back peghead (8 degree tilt). It has Grover locking tuners and Tradition’s TK-1 Fixed Bridge Vibrato, which is quite unusual. The pickups are also made by Tradition: in this guitar we have a Tele-style bridge pickup, a dual-rail, Strat-style center pickup, and a full-on humbucker in the neck spot. Both the middle and neck pickups have push/pull coil taps, so you get quite a pile of available tones here.
The pickups are damn good, and Tradition and Mr. Reid seem to have given much thought as to what would be a versatile pickup set. The neck pickup in full-on humbucking is very fat and hot without being too dark. With the coil tap the volume drops and it does a convincing single-coil sound. The bridge is a fairly hot Tele-style lead pup, and it has good snap and twang. It is my personal voodoo belief that for the “just right” Tele tone you need brass saddles, but this does okay. The most interesting pickup here is actually the center one, a rails-style pickup with very large rails. It’s a humbucker in Strat size and is hot enough to work well with the coil tap. So this setup will deliver a fat Gibson-style neck tone, a Tele lead tone as well as assorted Strat-like sounds.
The neck is a bit unusual for a Tele-style guitar in that it’s more of the wide-thin, shredder type of neck. I’m not a shredder and this neck is not my cup of tea, but it is well done with nicely finished jumbo frets and small inlays that from a distance look a bit like a Texas longhorn. I’m sure many will find this neck to be great. Tradition has a seasoned tech who goes over every instrument that arrives from the factory before it ships out, and the setup on this one is good with a low action that’s ready to roll. The neck is lightly finished for that bare wood feel which you either like or you don’t, but it is smooth and it does play well. The tilted-back head is also unusual on a Tele-style guitar, but many prefer it and it does eliminate the need for a string tree.
Wham!
I’ve got to talk a little about the whammy bar. At first glance what you see is a flat Tele-style bridge, nothing unusual. But the TK-1 vibrato is mighty fine indeed. With a bridge that is solidly mounted, you can actually dive bomb with it—and yep, it stays in tune. The arm has a rubber piece on it, which helps you stick to it and it’s comfy. It will also go up and stay in tune. It seems to have a center detent, so you can bend notes on the fretboard and there’s no pitch slip, just like a non-vibrato guitar. The locking Grovers and graphite nut help it stay in tune. The downward travel is not quite like a Floyd, but it will go pretty close to floppy and still come back in tune quite well. For Chet Atkins-style wiggle, it would be very hard to beat this. The TK-1 is actually one of the most useable whammy bars I have tried. Very nicely done, Tradition!
The Final Mojo
The Tradition JR Pro could be the go-to guitar for many. With its combination of three pickups and the coil taps, you have eleven available (and easy-to-get) tones. The whammy bar actually stays in tune very well without the need of a locking nut. Personally, I like this whammy because of its solid mount and the fact that if you pull the bar off nobody would even know it’s a whammy bridge. So you get to maintain the clean look that many Tele pickers love while still having that whammy option. Playability, fit and finish are all very good. The tweed hard case is also very good and is included. This is not a boutique guitar, just a mass-produced guitar made for working musicians, much like the original Teles were. I wish it were a bit lighter, and I would prefer a different neck shape, but that’s about all I can find fault with here. If you’re searching for a fancy-looking, versatile Tele-style guitar at much less than a custom shop price, this is worth a look.
Buy if...
you want mid-priced, “Swiss-army-knife” versatility with a happening whammy.
Skip if...
you’re much more interested in the standard issue.
Rating...
MSRP $1455 (with HSC) - Tradition Guitars - traditionguitars.com |
It’s difficult to gauge completely just how pivotal the past several years have been for the guitar gear community, but it’s certain that a lot of rules and notions have changed during that time. When I first started playing, foreign-made guitars were not nearly as consistent in quality as they are now. While it was easy to find playable models, not every piece was as masterfully constructed as a late-seventies Tokai. Korean-made guitars, long the fodder for disdain among discriminating players, have proven themselves to have attained great playability and tone, as well as quality control. Some players even agree that their consistency rivals American quality standards—even though a lot of the brands being held up as examples are offshore brethren owned by those very stateside companies. So, with skyrocketing demand for less expensive instruments with high attention to detail, it was only a matter of time before some got into the game of crafting higher quality guitars overseas than we had come to expect. Of course, credit must go to Tradition Guitars and other companies like it for designing good instruments and working closely with their overseas manufacturers to ensure adherence to specs and quality workmanship, rather than simply buying guitars that are offered by the factory.
This preface is simply my way of pointing out that while I’ve played some great mass-produced guitars from overseas, I wasn’t expecting too much more than what I was already used to. I guess that you could say that while I had an optimistic outlook for the Tradition, the stigma of a Korean-made guitar with a price tag of over 1K really had me questioning its potential. Being up front and honest about my expectations, I’m hoping, will illustrate just how taken I was with the S2000 Deluxe. Feature-wise, the guitar is no slouch. A solid mahogany slab joined with a 5/8" thick maple top makes up the body, which is adorned with 5-ply binding along the edges, all the way around the fretboard and headstock. The neck consists of three pieces of mahogany set into the body, with the headstock topped off with gold Grover Roto-Grip locking tuners. The off-white metallic pearl paint job is vibrant, yet professional looking, staying away from that awful sheetrock shade of white that makes so many foreign guitars look cheesy and cheap.
Ready to Go
Tradition’s own PAF humbuckers are set in place snugly, ready to pick up the string vibrations suspended by the Tone Pros locking bridge and tail piece, both of which are finished in a highly reflective gold sheen. The guitar also uses Luxe Bumblebee capacitors, which are supplied to the factory by Tradition. Obviously, the instrument is very much influenced by the Gibson Les Paul Custom, with some slight visual changes here and there. Those players looking for a lighter Les Paul-type instrument might want to consider other options, as the S2000 Deluxe is a rather weighty piece, almost as much as my own 1978 Gibson Les Paul Custom. I myself prefer a heavier guitar, so I felt perfectly comfortable slinging the Tradition over my shoulder.
Most players familiar with well-built guitars will tell you that a great electric, even unplugged, should have pronounced resonance and sustain. After playing some open chords on the S2000 Deluxe, I felt that there was too little to be inspired by. The notes rang out well, but the vibrations you can feel from a great single-cut instrument didn’t manifest themselves in my hand or against my gut. It just felt rather static, which was somewhat disappointing, especially considering how amazingly comfortable the neck felt. No sharp fret ends rubbed up against my palm when fretting, and the neck profile is to die for—very similar to Gibson’s own ‘60s slim taper. The only real qualm that I have with the neck was the feel of the Indian rosewood fretboard. It may be a small detail, but whether it’s the smooth, chalkboard-like quality of ebony or the lightly porous, natural feel of a good piece of rosewood, I’m one of those players who fusses over how the fretboard wood feels. I prefer a fingerboard completely bare of any sort of finish—though I know many players like the added durability that provides. Tradition assured us the S2000’s fingerboard had no finish applied, but I couldn’t quite escape the sense that it felt similar to having a lacquer sealant over the wood.
Plugging In
When I plugged it in, however, my concerns were soon eclipsed by the sound. Running through a Quidley 22 with matching 1x12 cabinet, the Tradition not only sang, it roared. The bridge pickup had all of the intent and authority that a good vintage reproduction PAF pickup should have, with a little extra sizzle on the top end for good measure. The amount of attack was even more stunning, though that quality was possibly overshadowed by just how balanced the tone was. Honestly, I don’t know what impressed me more—I was dazed by how great this guitar sounded. I love it when gear takes me by surprise, and the S2000 Deluxe sure took me by surprise. Flipping to the neck position and rolling down the tone knob yielded those great, warm jazz tones that a great single-cut can deliver, too. While the midrange had that superb, sagging PAF quality to it, the low end sounded a little too immediate, as if those frequencies didn’t really have room to breathe. Guitarists who enjoy the slow, soft tone of Duane Allman might look elsewhere, but aggressive, classic riff rockers should find this right up their alley.
The Final Mojo
The Tradition S2000 Deluxe is a tangible symbol of just how impressive and varied foreign-built guitars have become. Once the poster child for questionable quality and mean tone, the market has proven itself in recent years because of companies like Tradition working closely with factories to craft instruments in quantity with higher consistency and playability than ever before, even well beyond expectation in some cases. This guitar even comes with an homage to the classic Lifton case, a CaliGirl, complete with brown leather covering, pink plush interior and Tradition logo—and it’s quite solid, as well. The tone is definitely there, but some players might think the feel is not quite as outstanding. Regardless, the Tradition S2000 Deluxe is a fine instrument, and should be on the radar of any player looking for a well-made, less expensive single-cut tone machine.
Buy if...
you’re looking for a highly playable single-cut with killer tone and attack.
Skip if...
you need a lighter guitar.
Rating...
MSRP $1499 - Tradition Guitars - traditionguitars.com |