Use A Cloudlifter With A Sure 57 Mic For A Better Guitar Sound

A good guitar player should always be chasing tone. One of the best ways to immediately give your recorded guitar a tone boost is with a Cloudlifter, which is a solid state device that boosts output to a dynamic or ribbon microphone such as a Sure 57. Because the 57 is such a standard for micing amps, and has traditionally done such a great job at it, rarely do people very from its use, and rightly so.

However there comes a time when you might want to expand that narrow audio range a little. You might be searching for a little more clarity or ambiance than your usual Sure 57 can deliver. For those instances a Cloudlifter really is effective.  I use it all the time on my recordings in order to give my midrange guitar punch a little extra dynamic texture. The only thing to be aware of is that you need phantom power to operate a Cloudlifter. This presents a small problem if you want to use a line level device such as a dbx 160a compressor when you are recording your part. And I should say that you should almost always use at least a little compression going into your DAW especially if you are using a clean sound or playing individual note runs. (For a power overdriven guitar chord sound using a compressor is not necessary). I use a random device, in my case an Aphex Project Channel for its phantom power in order to drive the Cloudlifter through the dbx and into the daw. This will give you a very smooth guitar sound with a sparkling shimmer that jumps out of the mix while not being crispy or crackly, which is what generally happens if you simply try to get more high end out of your 57 by using some kind of EQ after you have recorded the part. Remember; always record the sound that you want, or gets you absolutely as close to what you want in the first place. There is little chance that you will be able to get the sound you want after you have laid down the part.