I started playing my old recorings today and can’t believe just how terrible the playing sound to me.
In a way i’m pleased that I have noticed this about the videos and how I play. It almost comes across as timmid and hence does sound weak and lifeless, a complete lack of ambience.
I don’t this this is overly harsh just surprised how terrible they alll sound lol…
It’s a good idea to listen to your old songs and see how you feel about some of your early/earlier work.
R
And to follow up listening to more recent recordings to hear the progress made.
Theres a difference but I feel It’s more about being a different guitar than what I hear. I wonder if starting to add some small effect to guitars will help. Something to try in practice possibly.
R
Are you recording an acoustic or electric, Rachel?
If an acoustic and recording via built-in electronics and direct through the interface then some post-processing would help. The tone with the typical piezo pickups is typically quite different to what you hear in the room, in a not so good way. That is unless you have really good quality pickups, perhaps blended with an in-body mic.
Both electric, my old recordings. 1st recording was with a digi can mic but, later was stand mic into DAW.
R
I think this is good. I can surely see a difference in my 1st recording vs my last also. It shows, generally, that I’ve improved. Good. That was the idea.
Also, perhaps as we record, we get better at recording. What sounds good, and what don’t. This is good too.
I think it’s that we get more confident in what we’re doing too, as we get better at playing, and recording.
All good imho.
Thanks Rachel, so to confirm. You play through an amp and record by mic’ing up the amp and going through an Audio Interface.
It is also worth exploring the use of digital amps and pedals. There are many options, many either totally free or free versions with limited functionality of products to purchase. You may find there is convenience to this approach and the opportunity to tinker with the sound after recording your guitar. The guitar in this scenatio is plugged straight in the audio interface.
This is the approach I follow for recording electric guitar and enjoy the flexibility it offers.
Since you asked…
Yeah, revisiting old recordings can be a mixed bag. Clammy playing is a chance to improve, but recording a snowflake that is really good (to your ears) can be a phantom to try and recreate as well.
Strumming open chords with all six strings all at once will get you out of the early stages of the program, but it is not that pleasing to the ear. When you get to the place where you can work on adding some variation and nuance to your playing, such as muting and changing up hitting bass and treble notes (not all strings at once), I think you will be a happier player. It just takes time.
Your sense of time and rhythm are good, no nits there. How well do you know your gear? Do you have a sense of how to use your volume, tone controls and pickup selector on your guitar? Have you taken the time to experiment with your pick attack and how that influences tone? Do you have a good sense of strengths and weaknesses of your amp? These things are all about time on task. Take a few minutes in your practice routine on getting to know your gear and dialing in a good tone. Playing with your volume and tone controls dime’d will not sound that great.
Consider fattening up your tone with a little slapback delay and some reverb. I almost never turn off my analog delay pedal when playing clean electric guitar.
Thanks David, I’ll start looking into this, I’m pretty sure I have something like this but don’t really understand the sequence of using such things.
Thank you
R
Hi CT, I haven’t started using muting yet but, changing strumming patterns ,volume of strum, bass and treble usage I am. My AVoYP of “Little Pink Houses” show that but, the piece of music sounds tinny to me now lol.
Only to a small degree, living in a flat with people all around you can be problematic (noise)
I can do this but, only with headphones, again neighbours and people below.
I have the Boss Katana MkII modeling Amp which is ok, you can do lots with this , and I can have those sounds in the Waza-Air. I rarely use the AMP but the headphone I use daily but, I never model sounds into it.
I do have quite a few I can try though, all the one’s that Justin made or had made from past vids of that Amp. I Also have some from Danish Pete off Andertons but I’ve never used them lol…
I think I was a little preoccupied with learning what i have so far 
R
Thanks for reading and commenting. I wish you well in your journey. Play on playa!
Rachel, your guitar is plugged into your interface. Then in your DAW you create a track that has the interface channel the guitar is plugged into as its input source. In the DAW you can add effects plug-ins onto a track. The how of that depends on the DAW. The plugin is then applied to the dry sound that has been recorded as it is played back.
Perhaps share what DAW you are using and somebody familiar can provide more details. I’m a Reaper user so can get more specific on Reaper.
Ok, good place to start, Thank you. !
R