How I record my Steel Guitar ? Answered..

[David Hartley]

I get many enquiries about this, so I thought I would post this thread.

This is how I record my steel to one of my completed backing tracks, or indeed, sessions I receive, online. The Rains guitar is played straight through the TELONICS pedal into the sound card of the Apple Mac. Lets start with the first thing I said there! The Rains guitar? It is the ONLY guitar I have owned that will give a good recorded sound, or indeed, played back sound, by going straight into a mixer, or PC soundcard input. I know you are all saying, yes, here's a PLUG for Rains here, but its true, and I think its the pick-up mounting on the alloy neck thats the secret. There is NO screws into the body of the guitar, the PU is suspended from a metal plate from the alloy neck.. In fact, this is where all the sustain comes from too. Now, moving on from that, I use the TELONICS electronic volume pedal for recording. It is without doubt, the finest available, but at a cost, as you will all know. Worth every dollar though. Next, your sound card. Its got to be good. A dedicated studio quality PC/MAC interface is a must otherwise you will be 'tweeking' a lot afterwards to get your sound. I am not saying it can't be done direct to PC with their line inputs, but you only get waht you pay for and you only need to but it once. I use FOCUSRITE SAFFIRE. When they first come out a few years ago, you would be lucky to get change out of £1000, but they are affordable now at around £300 or less. Thats it. STEEL/TELONICS/RECORDER. I forgot to mention the PU's on my Rains are George L 10-1. Gary Carpenter has twice put different PU's on guitars for me to try but within 2 days, I cut them and replace them for these PUP's. E66 are my second favorite.

Final Mix for Steel?

I add MONO compression on the steel channel after recording, Then Designer reverb (stereo) which is pre-set by Logic. I only adjust how much or little I need for a paricular song. Any online session I do, I always return the steel back dry, with NO FX, but in 24bit 44.1khz with just compression to level it out a bit. Never over-do compression as more can always be added later.. Get the tone right and let the person the other end add what they want after that.

Please feel free to share this information as you wish, and I will also direct enquiries to my recorded steel to this thread.

David Hartley