Guitar Recording In grunge/ALT
How were guitars recording during the peak of Grunge/Alt music?
Embedded Files
Introduction
In this research project I will be talking about how guitars were recorded in the 90s grunge/alternative scene. I will be focusing on Butch Vig's work with Nirvana on the Nevermind album, due to there being so many documented interviews of him talking about the process of the recording.
Mic Placement
Mic placement is detrimental when recording guitars, for example, the two main ways you can record with a microphone are 'On-Axis', or 'Off Axis' (Stoddart, T. The Home Studio Archive 05.06.25) The diagram below shows this:
On-axis refers to the microphone being directly in line with the speaker, while off-axis refers to any mic placement that isn't directly in front of the speaker cone.
Furthermore, some producers prefer their mics to be setup off-axis, yet pointed directly at the centre of the speaker cone, as seen in the diagram below. As you can see, the microphone is placed off-axis, yet is rotated straight at the centre of the speaker.
How much of a difference can this make?
The distance of the microphone can make a large difference in tone. The closer the mic to the speaker, the more focused and bass dirven the amp can sound, while the further away it is, the more high end and clarity can be heard (Wampler, P. 2015, 1:21). The closer the mic is to the centre, the more focused the sound is, but as you take it more off-axis, the more muffled and dry the sound gets (Wampler, P. 2015, 1:05).
Amount Of Microphones
Taking into account all of the variety in tone that microphone placement can achieve, some producers use multiple mics to capture these different tones, and blend them together. However, this can create phase issues. Famous grunge/alt producer Butch Vig has stated that he believes multiple mics are pointless, and that if you can achieve a great sound with one mic, adding more is pointless, and if you do need more than one to sound good, there are more than likely problems elsewhere.
"I really found that if you get one mic, put it right in front of the amp, and get the right sound, you simply don’t need six microphones placed, y’know, behind the cabinet, around the cabinet, across the room, and all that."
- Butch Vig (Atkin, S. Audio Project 2 Blog, 06.06.25)
This is a quote from Butch Vig (The producer for Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, etc) which shows that, for Nirvana specifically, one microphone was all that was needed to get that raw grunge sound.
This is a good source because..
What is 'Phase' in audio?
In terms of music production and mixing, “Phase describes a position, measured in degrees, within a single cycle of a sine wave."
- Messitte, N. iZOTOPE (06.06.25)
In the image to the right, you can see different waves with different degrees of 'Phase Shift', simply meaning how out of phase the two waves are.
When recording a single source of audio (such as a guitar amp) with more than one microphone, the audio they pick up may be out of phase with each other. This is due to sound having a speed, and the sound hitting the microphone at different times.
"Stereo acoustic guitar or any instrument recorded with more than one mic is susceptible to phase problems, too. The timing differences between the mics can create phase problems when summed to mono."
- Levine, M. Audio Project 2 Blog, 06.06.25
Why is this an issue?
"Phase issues can have a big effect on the sound of your recordings. They come into play every time you record a source with more than one microphone at a time. The reason why has to do with a problem called destructive interference. Imagine two identical signals. They are completely in phase if their waveforms begin at exactly the same time. If one of those signals were phase shifted by 180 degrees, the two signals would be fully out of phase. Their two waveforms would be at the exact opposite point in the cycle. Identical waveforms that are 180 degrees out of phase will cancel each other out completely when summed due to destructive interference. This means that the result of the two signals mixed together is silence! In the real world, you’ll never record two completely identical signals with two different mics on the same source, but there can still be problems if the signals are related. One example is the common practice of recording a bass guitar with a DI box as well as a mic’d up amp."
- Hahn, M. LANDR Blog, 06.06.25
Looking at the previous quote shows how detrimental phase can be in recording a song, and you always need to setup your mics very carefully to minimize these issues, or fix them in the mix.
Amp Heads
"Aside from a Marshall on just a few things, the amps that we primarily used were a Mesa Boogie, a Fender Bassman — which is one of my favourites — and a Vox AC30 for the cleaner overdriven sounds," Vig recalls. "However, there's not a lot of processing going on. Kurt had a Rat distortion pedal that he used on a couple of songs, and on a track like 'Breed' we just DI'd the Rat, we didn't go to an amp. We split the signal and we ran it to an amp, and we also took the DI and ran it right into the board so that it had much more of a fuzzy white‑noise kind of sound to it. Then we blended the two together to get something that sounded cool."
- Butch Vig (Buskin, R. Sound On Sound, 06.06.25)
With Nirvana specifically, here is the gear that Vig used on the 'Nevermind' record:
A Mesa Boogie
Fender Bassman
Vox AC30
These amps all would have needed different microphone setups, and would have sounded very different in the recording.
How were albums tracked - Live or Multitracked?
A live recording consists of everyone in the same room (most commonly) all being recorded through mics at the same time, and Multitracking consists of each instrument and part being recorded separately to each other and not at the same time. Some producers prefer Live for the raw energy you can pick up from them all being in the same room, but it can cause bleed problems. For example, the drum microphones could pick up the guitars, or vice versa. And some producers prefer Multitracking due to the clean recordings and ability to do multiple takes without stopping everyone else.
add two conflicting sources to show pros and cons of multitracking and live recording
"Nirvana: tracked all in the same room, guitar and bass cabs isolated...kept the bass, some of the basic guitars.
Sonic Youth: tracked all in the same room, lots of bleed, kept all the basics, overdubbed more guitars on Dirty than Experimental Jet Set.
Smashing Pumpkins: on Gish, just Billy and Jimmy tracked, with Billy standing 2 feet away from Jimmy, only kept the drums, Billy overdubbed all the guitars and bass. On Siamese Dream, they were all set up in the live room, with cabs isolated...on some songs all 4 played, some just Billy and Jimmy.
Green Day: all 3 setup in the live room with cabs isolated, but usually I was just going for the drums. Both Billie and Mike like to overdub in the control room. There were a few songs where we kept Billie’s OG track."
- Butch Vig (N/A, Gearspace, 06.06.25)
Double Tracking
Butch Vig decided to overdub a lot of guitar takes together, combining many different tones and amps together to create a wall of sound. (MixMyMusic, R. 2009 0:04). The wall of sound was needed for the specific song he is discussing (Drain You) as the guitars play a very prominent role in the songs sound. the mix of tones and microphone positions will have created a very full and warm sound.
Double tracking is the process of recording the same part multiple times to add more tonal depth to the track.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the recording of grunge guitars takes a lot of thought and skill, you can't just stick a microphone in front of a guitar amp and press record. In the grunge scene, live recording was most popular to get the rawness of the grunge bands of the time, with multiple overdubbed guitar tracks as to create a more thick texture.
How will this help me?
This will help me in my recording of the guitars in the original, as I am going to apply everything I have learnt into the recording.
Page updated
Report abuse