GUITARISTS TALK A LOT ABOUT RECORDING KILLER DISTORTION TONES, but sometimes go kind of silent on the subject of achieving great clean sounds. Is the quest for clean so obvious that tips and suggestions are as welcome as a field mouse swimming in your Captain Crunch? I don’t think so. You see, crafting great clean tones can be just as difficult— and no less rewarding—than dialing in the holy grunge. Here are eight tips that point the way to cleaner, meaner, and more freshly scrubbed guitar sounds.

Honor Your Friend

Clean sounds don’t start at the amp, they start at your instrument. So if you’re one of those players who never clean their guitar or wipe down the neck, chances are there is enough mung and drool glued to the bottom of your strings and fretboard to make the back pickup of a Strat sound like a Tal Farlow album being played underwater. Cut those gruesome wires off, and clean the frets and fretboard with the appropriate cleaning products. Then, put on a nice shiny set of your favorite strings—my experience is that a .010 set or larger produces the best clean sound—at least two days prior to recording.

Go Direct

The path to a time-honored clean sound is to simply plug your guitar into a direct box and into your audio interface or mixer. Your sound should be round and full and innocent of any overdrive. Some cagey engineers add a bit of twinkle and snap to the direct sound by positioning a mic near the fretboard of the electric guitar to capture some unamplified string attack. Recordists desiring a bit of goop in their direct tones can switch out a conventional direct box for a tube direct box that adds a touch of preamp tube bluster.

Take the Low Road

If your amp has two inputs, the “low” input should operate at a a lower gain compared to the “high” input. Conventional wisdom dictates that less gain equals more clean, so let’s not argue with conventional wisdom. Plug into the lowest-gain channel so that your amp isn’t predisposed to producing growl, grit, and overdrive.

Exercise Balance

Everyone should know that, when using amps (or amp emulations) with master volumes, cranking the preamp gain and backing off the Master knob will only get you dirty. But how many players actually experiment with the levels of the preamp and master levels so that they work to bring out the hippest clean sound from your guitar? The lesson is simple: Spin those knobs until you’re bathed in the cleanest tone your amp and guitar can muster. If you want a chime-y tone with just a hint of grizzled sizzle, turn up the master volume to the point where the sound starts to distort, and then back off the volume until the tone is cooked to near-pristine perfection.

Think Subtractive

Depending on your amp or plug-in, boosting EQ can sometimes get you into trouble when creating clean sounds, because the frequency boosts may add just enough edginess to sully your shine. I like to cut midrange frequencies with extreme prejudice, and then back off the bass, as well. If boosting treble adds some harmonic shimmer without introducing spittle, then save your boosts for the high end.

Mic Selection

In most people’s opinion, you can always stick a dynamic Shure SM57 right up to the speaker grille, and never feel the need for anything better. There’s a lot of truth to that—the SM57 is inexpensive, and it sounds good on just about everything. The SM57 does “hear” midrange frequencies somewhat aggressively, however, so take that into account when you’re attempting to capture your dream tone. Clean freaks should also check out large-diaphragm condenser mics, as they typically deliver enhanced sensitivity and more transparent highs. An added little trick is to further diminish the volume of the signal chain by switching on the condenser’s 10dB pad (if the mic is so equipped). A lot of times, this won’t be necessary—and, in some instances an activated pad may lower your ideal recording levels too much—but if you’re paranoid about “hitting the red” and introducing some distortion to the signal path, a pad can be a fabulous friend. If you want a warm, smooth, organic, and detailed sound, try one of the many affordable ribbon mics on the market.

Mic Positions

You can obviously get a clean and detailed tone by shoving a microphone practically right against the speaker cone, but it may also sound somewhat jagged and dry. This is not the time to go with “whatever works,” and leave well enough alone. You could be missing a wonderful clean tone just because you’re too tired, lazy, or preoccupied to experiment with different mic positions. Try moving the mic back a few inches to allow a bit of room tone and “air” into the signal. Or you could position the mic off-axis to the speaker cone at an angle of about 45 degrees to capture some zing and chime. For less aggressive parts, you could even move the mic back a good yard or so away from the amp. You’ll get a fair amount of room reflections mixed in with the source sound—the amp—but the gentle wash of ambience should make for a seductive timbre. All of these mic positions will work whether you use a dynamic, a condenser, or a ribbon, and you shouldn’t stop with these three suggestions. Make that mic work for a living! Move it all over, listen critically to each position, and decide which clean tone gives you the most bliss.

Persevere

If you’re working with amp-emulation software, don’t be reluctant to go beyond the presets. Some presets are slathered with effects, compression, and other pieces of ear candy that may twist a tone from nicely clean to annoyingly overwrought (yes, even presets can take themselves too seriously). There’s no law against finding a basic “clean amp” preset you like, and then diving into the parameters to program a pristine tone that’s exactly what your song needs. No software engineers will leap out from under your bed and kick your ass. I guarantee it. And if you think this tip is useless and silly, then try to remember all the times you’ve gleefully accepted whatever an effects processor gave you verbatim. Yeah—not so innocent, huh? Happy tweaking!