Sound Engineering the Guitar

The goal of this inquiry seminar is to explore the world of guitar recording and achieve a better sound presentation.

Background

Previous Background with Music

I started playing in 6th grade and developed a taste for heavy metal and guitar focused songs. This includes Canon Rock by Jerry C, Cliffs of Dover by Eric Johnson, Jordan by Buckethead, and Scarified by Paul Gilbert. Unfortunately, by the time 9th grade came along I would have stopped playing guitar.

I would re-find the spark in my 3rd year at WPI. I finally got myself a decent digital analog to digital converter. I found myself interested in 90’s and 00’s alternative rock, as well as a lot of Japanese rock music. From then on, I have been making song covers occasionally and uploading to YouTube. As such, I took the opportunity to explore Music through WPI's music catalog.

In D-term of 2020, when COVID-19 terrorized the world, I found myself taking two WPI music classes: MU2300 (Foundations of Music Technology) and MU3615 (Topics In Digital Sound). I was introduced to Ableton, and I finally found a replacement for Audacity for sound engineering. This perhaps was a huge turning point in my career, as I was about to level up the sound quality of my guitar covers.

Motivation

Having gotten into creating song covers and learning the new tool that is Ableton, this inquiry seminar became a way to push my knowledge and ability of both of these skills to the next level. I find myself struggling with EQ and Compression Manipulation, and found it difficult to differentiate between good EQ engineering and poor EQ engineering.

Equipment

• Ibanez Prestige Electric Guitar
• Behringer U-Phoria UMC2-2HD Audio Interface
• DT770 Beyerdynamic Headphones

equipment