Recording guitar and vocals

When recording the guitar track, I connected the guitar through the amp and miked up the amp with an Shure SM57 and placed in on-axis to the speaker. An on-axis placement at the centre of the speaker tends to produce the most “bite”. I used an SM57 due to the fact that it has a frequency response for clean, instrumental reproduction and rich vocal pickup and it also produces professional-quality reproduction. It’s cardioid pickup pattern isolates the main sound source while reducing background noise. It’s frequency response is between 40 to 15,000Hz. The frequency response shows that between 100Hz and about 2,000Hz, what we hear is just the frequencies from the guitar, nothing has been boosted or reduced.

I used the Shure SM58 to record vocals. It is tuned to make the warmth and clarity of lead and backing vocals more prominent. Even in extreme conditions, the SM58 is made to target the main sound source while minimising background noise. It’s frequency response is made for vocals with brightening midrange and bass rolloff. It’s cardioid pickup pattern isolates the main sound source and keeps background noise to a minimum. It’s frequency response is 50 to 15,000Hz.