
Fire up that DAW for the first time!
Last time we covered the basic gear needed to record guitar on your computer or tablet. Now let’s talk technique!
Dial in your DAW. Install your DAW of choice according to the program’s instructions. Connect your interface and plug in your guitar. (If there’s a line/instrument switch, choose instrument.) The guitar-style jack (known to audio geeks as a phono jack or 1/4" jack) might be on the interface box, or it may be on an external “breakout cable” [see Image 1].
Connect headphones or ear buds to your interface’s headphone jack. If you get serious about recording, you’ll eventually acquire a set a special speakers to monitor your recordings. But until then, you’ll get better-sounding and more accurate results using headphones rather than your computer’s built-in speakers. Headphones also prevent feedback when you’re recording with a microphone.
You probably need to “tell” your DAW to use the new interface rather than the computer’s built-in mic and speakers. If you’re using an Apple computer, you usually don’t need to install any special “driver” software to use your interface, though you may need to on a PC. Just Google “download [your DAW name] driver.” Don’t bother installing extra software from any DVDs included in your DAW package. Chances are there are newer versions online.
Image 2
Can you hear me now? Launch your DAW program and create a new session. I’m using Apple’s GarageBand as my demo DAW, though the upcoming procedures will be similar for other recording programs. When you open GarageBand, you get a window asking what type of recording you want to make [Image 2]. For now, don’t pick Amp Collection (which offers a smorgasbord of modeled amps); select Empty Project, just so you can try setting up a new session from scratch. In GarageBand, you get another pop-up window [Image 3] inquiring about the sort of track you want to start with. Choose “Record guitar or bass.” Other programs may offer a choice between MIDI and audio tracks. Choose audio.
Image 3
To make sure your computer is using your interface rather than its built-in audio hardware, open the DAW’s preferences via one of the pull-down menus at the top of the screen, and look for an “audio” tab. You should see something like Image 4. (Here, the word ONE refers to my Apogee One interface.) Select your device as both the input and output.
Image 4
Alternately, you can tell your computer to always use your interface for audio in and out (or “I/O” in geek-speak). That’s handy if, say, you keep your computer connected to nice desktop speakers and want to enjoy the interface’s superior audio quality when listening to music. (On the other hand, it may be preferable to only use the interface when your DAW is running to avoid situations like receiving a Skype call and hearing no audio because it’s being routed to your interface and you’re not wearing headphones.) Either way, there’s no need to reset things when you disconnect your interface; the computer just goes back to using the internal mic and speakers. But you’ll probably need to reset the I/O next time you connect the interface.
Can you see me now? Next, create a track for your guitar. (Later you’ll be able to create more tracks to record additional parts while listening back to the first performance.)
Play a bit while watching the level indicator lights on your interface. Chances are your initial level will be fine. If your interface has an input level control, set it so the indicator falls just short of the “peak” warning (usually a red LED) when you play loudest. (A heavily strummed open E chord on your bridge pickup with the guitar’s volume and tone controls at maximum is a good level check.)
Image 5
Now, look at the DAW track you created. You should see its level indicator respond as you play. You might not hear anything yet—you must first “arm” the track so that it passes the sound of your recording in progress though your headphones. In GarageBand, click the little soundwave button on the track header to enable this “input monitoring” [Image 5]. (“Header” refers to the info panel attached to each track.)
You should now hear and see your guitar’s sound. The input level should be the same as displayed on your interface, so there’s usually no need to adjust it within the DAW. However, the DAW meter is probably more detailed than the one on your interface, and you may see more level-peaking than expected. If so, dial back the interface level. For digital recording, you never want the meter in the red zone.
Latent tendencies? Does the sound of your guitar appear in your headphones at the instant you play, or is there an audible delay? This unwanted delay is called latency—the time it takes for your computer to process the incoming audio and send it back to your interface and headphones. There’s always some latency, but it should be so brief that you don’t notice it. If you encounter latency on a recent-model computer, you may need to adjust the buffer size in your DAW’s audio preferences. (Image 6 shows the relevant panel in Logic.)
Image 6
The lower the number, the less latency. Most guitarists have no problem playing with a setting of 128, 256, or perhaps even 512, but 1,024 is too slow for most musicians. How low you can go depends on your computer’s speed. Try the lowest possible setting. If you hear clicks and pops as you play, step up to the next lowest option. Repeat as necessary till the noise vanishes.
Quiet, please … recording!
Take a deep breath and press the red record button. The DAW’s cursor scrolls from left to right, and a visual representation of your performance —a “waveform”—appears onscreen as you play [Image 7]. When you’re done, press stop.
Image 7
When you create a guitar-type track in GarageBand, the program automatically adds an amp modeler to mimic the sound of a physical amp, but in other DAWs you may have to add the effect manually. (If your DAW doesn’t come with modelers, see last month’s column for links to free modeling plug-ins.) If you’ve never heard your guitar plugged in without an amp, the bright, dry sound may shock you. Clip 1 is a brief recording through a GarageBand amp model.
Clip 2 is the same performance with no modeling. Some classic recordings were made with dry sounds like these, but usually players prefer something closer to the sound of a real amp.
One cool thing about modelers is the fact that you can change amp tones after you record. Clip 3 features the same short performance, but heard through four different combinations of modeled amps and effects.
We’ll look at working with modelers in more depth in an upcoming column. For now, just try auditioning virtual amps and stompboxes. The amps probably have control panels much like a physical amp’s (Image 8 shows a GarageBand amp interface) and perhaps some sort of virtual pedalboard (Image 9). If you’re on GarageBand band, try creating a session using the aforementioned Amp Collection option.
Image 8 (top) and Image 9 (bottom)
But wait, there’s more. We’ve only scratched the surface, but hopefully it’s a deep and lasting scratch. If you encounter problems (and who doesn’t?) please post them to comments. I can’t troubleshoot every interface and DAW out there, but chances are there’s a reader who can.
Have fun, and maintain a good sense of humor. These procedures can be perplexing at first, but they’ll soon be second nature.We know Horsegirl as a band of musicians, but their friendships will always come before the music. From left to right: Nora Cheng, drummer Gigi Reece, and Penelope Lowenstein.
The Chicago-via-New York trio of best friends reinterpret the best bits of college-rock and ’90s indie on their new record, Phonetics On and On.
Horsegirl guitarists Nora Cheng and Penelope Lowenstein are back in their hometown of Chicago during winter break from New York University, where they share an apartment with drummer Gigi Reece. They’re both in the middle of writing papers. Cheng is working on one about Buckminster Fuller for a city planning class, and Lowenstein is untangling Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann’s short story, “Three Paths to the Lake.”
“It was kind of life-changing, honestly. It changed how I thought about womanhood,” Lowenstein says over the call, laughing a bit at the gravitas of the statement.
But the moment of levity illuminates the fact that big things are happening in their lives. When they released their debut album, 2022’s Versions of Modern Performance, the three members of Horsegirl were still teenagers in high school. Their new, sophomore record, Phonetics On and On, arrives right in the middle of numerous first experiences—their first time living away from home, first loves, first years of their 20s, in university. Horsegirl is going through changes. Lowenstein notes how, through moving to a new city, their friendship has grown, too, into something more familial. They rely on each other more.
“If the friendship was ever taking a toll because of the band, the friendship would come before the band, without any doubt.”–Penelope Lowenstein
“Everyone's cooking together, you take each other to the doctor,” Lowenstein says. “You rely on each other for weird things. I think transitioning from being teenage friends to suddenly working together, touring together, writing together in this really intimate creative relationship, going through sort of an unusual experience together at a young age, and then also starting school together—I just feel like it brings this insane intimacy that we work really hard to maintain. And if the friendship was ever taking a toll because of the band, the friendship would come before the band without any doubt.”
Horsegirl recorded their sophomore LP, Phonetics On and On, at Wilco’s The Loft studio in their hometown, Chicago.
These changes also include subtle and not-so-subtle shifts in their sophisticated and artful guitar-pop. Versions of Modern Performance created a notion of the band as ’90s college-rock torchbearers, with reverb-and-distortion-drenched numbers that recalled Yo La Tengo and the Breeders. Phonetics On and On doesn’t extinguish the flame, but it’s markedly more contemporary, sacrificing none of the catchiness but opting for more space, hypnotic guitar lines, and meditative, repeated phrases. Cheng and Lowenstein credit Welsh art-pop wiz Cate Le Bon’s presence as producer in the studio as essential to the sonic direction.
“On the record, I think we were really interested in Young Marble Giants—super minimal, the percussiveness of the guitar, and how you can do so much with so little.”–Nora Cheng
“We had never really let a fourth person into our writing process,” Cheng says. “I feel like Cate really changed the way we think about how you can compose a song, and built off ideas we were already thinking about, and just created this very comfortable space for experimentation and pushed us. There are so many weird instruments and things that aren't even instruments at [Wilco’s Chicago studio] The Loft. I feel like, definitely on our first record, we were super hesitant to go into territory that wasn't just distorted guitar, bass, and drums.”
Nora Cheng's Gear
Nora Cheng says that letting a fourth person—Welsh artist Cate Le Bon—into the trio’s songwriting changed how they thought about composition.
Photo by Braden Long
Effects
- EarthQuaker Devices Plumes
- Ibanez Tube Screamer
- TC Electronic Polytune
Picks
- Dunlop Tortex .73 mm
Phonetics On and On introduces warm synths (“Julie”), raw-sounding violin (“In Twos”), and gamelan tiles—common in traditional Indonesian music—to Horsegirl’s repertoire, and expands on their already deep quiver of guitar sounds as Cheng and Lowenstein branch into frenetic squonks, warped jangles, and jagged, bare-bones riffs. The result is a collection of songs simultaneously densely textured and spacious.
“I listen to these songs and I feel like it captures the raw, creative energy of being in the studio and being like, ‘Fuck! We just exploded the song. What is about to happen?’” Lowenstein says. “That feeling is something we didn’t have on the first record because we knew exactly what we wanted to capture and it was the songs we had written in my parents’ basement.”
Cheng was first introduced to classical guitar as a kid by her dad, who tried to teach her, and then she was subsequently drawn back to rock by bands like Cage The Elephant and Arcade Fire. Lowenstein started playing at age 6, which covers most of her life memories and comprises a large part of her identity. “It made me feel really powerful as a young girl to know that I was a very proficient guitarist,” she says. The shreddy playing of Television, Pink Floyd’s spacey guitar solos, and Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan were all integral to her as Horsegirl began.
Penelope Lowenstein's Gear
Penelope Lowenstein likes looking back at the versions of herself that made older records.
Photo by Braden Long
Effects
- EarthQuaker Westwood
- EarthQuaker Bellows
- TC Electronic PolyTune
Picks
- Dunlop Tortex 1.0 mm
Recently, the two of them have found themselves influenced by guitarists both related and unrelated to the type of tunes they’re trading in on their new album. Lowenstein got into Brazilian guitar during the pandemic and has recently been “in a Jim O’Rourke, John Fahey zone.”
“There’s something about listening to that music where you realize, about the guitar, that you can just compose an entire orchestra on one instrument,” Lowenstein says. “And hearing what the bass in those guitar parts is doing—as in, the E string—is kind of mind blowing.”
“On the record, I think we were really interested in Young Marble Giants—super minimal, the percussiveness of the guitar, and how you can do so much with so little,” Cheng adds. “And also Lizzy Mercier [Descloux], mostly on the Rosa Yemen records. That guitar playing I feel was very inspiring for the anti-solo,[a technique] which appears on [Phonetics On and On].”This flurry of focused discovery gives the impression that Cheng and Lowenstein’s sensibilities are shifting day-to-day, buoyed by the incredible expansion of creative possibilities that setting one’s life to revolve around music can afford. And, of course, the energy and exponential growth of youth. Horsegirl has already clocked major stylistic shifts in their brief lifespan, and it’s exciting to have such a clear glimpse of evolution in artists who are, likely and hopefully, just beginning a long journey together.
“There’s something about listening to that music where you realize, about the guitar, that you can just compose an entire orchestra on one instrument.”–Penelope Lowenstein
“In your 20s, life moves so fast,” Lowenstein says. “So much changes from the time of recording something to releasing something that even that process is so strange. You recognize yourself, and you also kind of sympathize with yourself. It's a really rewarding way of life, I think, for musicians, and it's cool that we have our teenage years captured like that, too—on and on until we're old women.”
YouTube It
Last summer, Horsegirl gathered at a Chicago studio space to record a sun-soaked set of new and old tunes.
Featuring torrefied solid Sitka Spruce tops, mahogany neck, back, and sides, and Fishman Presys VT EQ System, these guitars are designed to deliver quality tone and playability at an affordable price point.
Cort Guitars, acclaimed for creating instruments that exceed in value and quality, introduces the Essence Series. This stunning set of acoustic guitars is designed for musicians looking for the quintessential classic acoustic guitar with fabulous tone all at an exceptional price point. The Essence Series features two distinct body shapes: The Grand Auditorium and the OM Cutaway. Whatever the flavor, the Essence Series has the style to suit.
The Essence-GA-4 is the perfect Grand Auditorium acoustic. Wider than a dreadnought, the Essence-GA-4 features a deep body with a narrower waist and a width of 1 ¾” (45mm) at the nut. The result is an instrument that is ideal for any number of playing styles: Picking… strumming… the Essence GA-4 is completely up for the task.
The Essence-OM-4 features a shallower body creating a closer connection to the player allowing for ease of use on stage. With its 1 11/16’th (43mm) nut width, this Orchestra Model is great for fingerpickers or singer/guitarists looking for better body contact for an overall better playing experience.
Both acoustics are topped with a torrefied solid Sitka Spruce top using Cort’s ATV process. The ATV process or “Aged to Vintage”, “ages” the Spruce top to give it the big and open tone of older, highly-sought-after acoustics. To further enhance those vintage tones, the tops bracing is also made of torrefied spruce. The mahogany neck, back, and sides create a warm, robust midrange and bright highs. A rosewood fingerboard and bridge add for a more balanced sound and sustain. The result is amazing tone at first strum. 18:1 Vintage Open Gear Tuners on the mahogany headstock offer precise tuning with vintage styling. The herringbone rosette & purfling accentuates the aesthetics of these instruments adding to their appeal. Both acoustics come in two choices of finish. Natural Semi-Gloss allows the Sitka spruce’s natural beauty to shine through and classic Black Top Semi-Gloss.
A Fishman® Presys VT EQ System is installed inside the body versus other systems that cut into the body to be installed. This means the instrument keeps its natural resonance and acoustic flair. The Presys VT EQ System keeps it simple with only Volume and Tone controls resulting in a true, crisp acoustic sound. Lastly, Elixir® Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze Light .012-.053 Acoustic Strings round out these acoustics. This Number 1 acoustic guitar string delivers consistent performance and extended tone life with phosphor bronze sparkle and warmth. The Essence Series takes all these elements, combines them, and exceeds in playability, looks, and affordability.
Street Price: $449.00
For more information, please visit cortguitars.com.
Cort Essence-GA4 Demo - YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.Moth Electric's C. regalis overdrive pedal offers massive boost, natural overdrive, and searing distortion for guitar and bass. With active treble and bass controls, clean blend, Smooth/Crunch modes, and true-bypass switching, this USA-made pedal is a versatile addition to any pedalboard.
Adding a new model to their line of overdrives, Moth Electric has released the C. regalis. Equally suited for guitar and bass, the meticulously designed C.regalis is capable of massive boost, natural, singing overdrive, and searing mid-gain distortion. Its six op-amps power a dynamic, crunchy overdrive circuit with a suite of features including:
- Active treble and bass controls that allow for +/- 15db boost and cut. Perfect for tailoring the C. regalis to your instrument and amp.
- A powerful clean blend for introducing either your amp’s natural character or another effect into the equation. Allows the C. regalis to become a more transparent overdrive.
- Smooth/Crunch modes, provide a subtle change in feel with ‘Smooth’ increasing sustain and ‘Crunch’ introducing high-order harmonics for additional texture.
The C. regalis offers the following features:
- Bass, Treble, Blend, Volume, Drive controls
- Smooth/Crunch modes● More volume than you’ll ever need
- True-bypass switching, top-mounted jacks for easy placement on crowded pedalboards
- 9-volt DC operation with external power supply – no battery compartment
- Designed and hand-built in the USA using through-hole components
The C. regalis carries a $179.99 price and is available for purchase at mothelectric.com.
For more information, please visit mothelectric.com.
OK WOW. Moth Electric C.REGALIS - Pedals and Tea EP 57 - YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.The rising guitar star talks gear, labels, genre troubles, and how to network.
Grace Bowers just released her debut record, 2024’s Wine on Venus, with her band the Hodge Podge, but she’s already one the most well-known young guitarists in America. On this episode of Wong Notes, Bowers talks through the ups, downs, and detours of her whirlwind career.
Bowers started out livestreaming performances on Reddit at age 13, and came into the public eye as a performer on social media, so she’s well acquainted with the limits and benefits of being an “Instagram guitarist.” She and Cory talk about session work in Nashville (Bowers loathes it), her live performance rig, and Eddie Hazel’s influence.
Bowers plugs the importance of networking as a young musician: If you want gigs, you gotta go to gigs, and make acquaintances. But none of that elbow-rubbing will matter unless you’re solid on you’re instrument. “No one’s gonna hire you if you’re ass,” says Bowers. “Practice is important.
”Tune in to learn why Bowers is ready to move on from Wine on Venus, her takes on Nashville versus California, and why she hates “the blues-rock label.”