Episode 103 - Guitars Pt. 2 w/ Matt Beckley
Live with Matt Rad - Episode 103
Nov 15, 2022
w/ Matt Beckley - Week 4
Show notes by: Bradley Will
Show Notes:
Q: If you’re going to a session, what is the simplest rig that you can bring to deliver your sound?
Beckley:
First thing I do is I call up Rod Castro or Pete Thorn and have them come down the session and do the job for me.
For better or worse there is no distilled “me”. I can be a lot of different things based on the need of the session.
Most of the guitar players that I admire simply serve the song instead of trying to insert “themselves” into it in a way that’s not appropriate.
As a guitar player, if you want to work the best thing you can do is to be a producer yourself, because your job is to make the producer’s job easier.
The “how” is easy. The tough part is figured out the “why” and what the song needs.
That said, my bare minimum would include a Line 6 HX Stomp pedal
It’s not exceptional at any one thing, but it does a pretty good imitation of anything that you’d need.
It’s a swiss army knife and the thing I’d take if I could only bring one thing.
I like to capture the sound going right in. I don’t like to record the direct signal and tweak it later because your performance is very much influenced by what you’re hearing at the time of tracking.
Minimal latency is very important to me as well.
Rad:
It’s so much better to perform a guitar through an amp instead of a modeler because there is zero latency.
Beckley:
That immediacy is so crucial.
When I work with singers and eliminate all latency they instantly perform better.
Q: What are one or two must-have guitars as a producer? What are your go-to’s?
Beckley:
If you can only have one guitar you can’t go wrong with a strat with a humbucker in the bridge.
It gives you enough tonal range to cover most things.
I have 4 or 5 strats and I don’t own a single strat without a humbucker in a bridge. Even my Eric Johnson strat has an Air Norton S humbucker in the bridge.
Les Pauls get a bit thick for me and I rarely use them in the studio.
Most of the time the guitar sound that you want is the shitty one.
If you’re going to be a recording guitarist there’s not a lot of room for guitar.
It occupies a lot of the same space as the vocal. And the vocal is usually more important.
A lot of what people think of as meaty guitar sounds is often the bass.
The number one reason that the guitars on Brain Stew by Green Day sounds so huge is because there’s nothing else in the track, but as soon as the other instruments came in the guitar sound had to be narrowed up.
Rad:
Guitar is no longer the dominant instrument in lots of music is changing to a role of being used in many different styles of music that it didn’t always fit into.
Now guitar fits with 808s, giant EDM snares, and hi-hats
The rules of what works well are expanding.
Beckley:
I think that’s really exciting.
Even in big EDM shows, the moment where the guitarist steps forward and does something melodic is when the crowd goes most nuts.
There’s something human and exciting about that that isn’t being served by a lot of music at the moment.
Nowadays guitars are being performed as if they’re something to be sampled.
I want to make music more for the masses, and not just for musicians “in the know”.
I don’t think Tim Henson has ever used an amp.
Steve Vai speaks very highly of him and is impressed by the innovations that Tim has come up with that he would never have thought of.
Tim Henson: I do the hook, 1 bar flex, melodic bit, 1 bar flex, etc.
On the flexes he duplicates his guitar, pitches it up an octave and then drags the formant down an octave so that the voices all pop out of the mix in a cool way.
Q: What is your approach to re-amping?
Beckley:
It’s a tricky subject, because you have to know why you are doing it in the first place.
I re-amp vocals a lot to find sonic interest.
How you go in when re-amping guitars is very important.
You can’t just record dry and then expect it to sound right when you re-amp it through a Mesa Boogie. You have to be able to feel how the amp would respond.
It is incredibly important to check your latency when re-amping.
It can create phasing issues that will work against you and make your guitars sound smaller when you layer them.
I’ll use a square wave impulse to test for round-trip latency when I record back into my system. It’s the same principle as using a clapper board in filming.
I’ll figure out how much my signal is being delayed so that I can nudge it in Pro Tools and get the better phase-coherency.
I love the Pro Tools SansAmp plugin on bass in particular.
Matt Beckley’s $3,000 Mic Theory
Beckley:
If you’re chasing the sound of a $10k microphone, don’t sell yourself short by purchasing a $3k knockoff. Spend the extra effort to invest in the actual thing that you want up front so that you do not have to re-invest later on down the line. This will be a worthy investment over the course of your career.
That said, as long as you appreciate something for what it is, and not what it’s trying to be, that’s what matters. It can still be a worthy choice, as long as you don’t expect it to be something other than what it is.
The sound isn’t as important as a lot of people think it is. It’s more important in how it inspires people.
What most important is how it informs what you play.
9/10 times the track that’s making it onto the record is often recorded through a shitty 5” speaker because it fits into the mix best.
Acoustic Guitars
Rad:
My favorite thing is a large diaphragm tube condenser about 1 hr away from the guitar.
I also love the compression that iPhone voice messages imparts.
Beckley:
More than anything, the acoustic sound is song-dependent.
The process that Rad just described is more for a Phoebe Bridgers type song where it’s almost entirely about the acoustic.
But in a Taylor Swift/Nashville pop song you’d want to get rid of everything below 400-600 Hz so that it fits into the track
In these kinds of songs the guitar functions more as a melodic shaker.
Acoustic guitar takes up a lot of sonic room by design. It was made for acoustic performances in a room.
Rad:
In any mix with a lot of density, where acoustic is usually going to speak best is in the high-end.
Don’t be afraid to HPF or LPF aggressively to make it fit in the mix.
Beckley:
Lately I’ve become much more aggressive with my filtering in order to make room in the mix and get out of the way of a vocal.
I love the sound of a nylon-string acoustic.
Nylon guitars don’t have sustain. They’re more plunky and dead.
This lends itself to more articulate parts, which is cool because you can get a lot more rhythmic interest out of them.
I would probably record it with a LDC further back in the room.
String Gauge
Beckley:
I tend to play really heavy gauge strings.
Any time you switch string gauge or brands you should probably have your guitar set up to match the strings.
Thinner gauge strings (paradoxically) sound bigger, but you have to play them very lightly.
They’re very susceptible to going out of tune, while heavier gauge strings are easier to abuse without tuning issues.
I don’t like Elixir strings, but they’re good if you have hands that sweat a lot.
I find that they shed all over the guitar.
Matt Beckley Pimps His New Favorite Gear
The Suhr PT15
15 watt amp head
This thing is 3-channels: A Fender channel, and two Marshall channels.
It takes pedals incredibly well.
It has it’s own load box built into it that allows me to send it direct into the console.
You can plug headphones into it.
This thing solves a ton of problems for me.
Non-Standard Guitar Things That You Like to Use
Beckley:
I’m a huge fan of tchotchkes around the studio. Everything that you pick up inspires you to play differently.
I keep a variety of guitars around the studio so that there is a lot to be inspired by.
Alternate tunings are a great way to come up with new licks that you’d never think of.
Change the terrain under your fingers.
It will force you out of your comfort zone.
