How much does quality of gear play into quality of recording?

[Brender500]

I have a mix that i am working on that i am having trouble getting everything glued together and sound good,the main reason being the guitars which is the only part i recorded(drums are addictive with samples and bass is Manybass).
The gear I used to record is:

Schecter Damien special(stock EMG hz)
Line 6 ux1
reaper
Lecto

I have downloaded and started mixing Goddamn Guitar's feared song 3 he put up for us to mix and with in no time i got a guitar tone I like and everything just fits so good together.

Now i am sure he is using far better gear to record than I do but my question is how much does quality of gear effect recording.Like the strings on your guitar being old,using a some what poor quality cable and even the interface like a UX1 and so on?Do all of these mentioned effect DI quality?

Just to be clear I now it is a good idea to have new(ish) strings when recording or even have a good quality Cable but do they really effect quality enough to were the average listener would notice or even make the tracks harder to mix?

Hopefully I don't Sound Like a complete Noob

 

[NSGUITAR]

Really depends.. Strings? Yes, that matters a lot.. Get some new ones.. I personally don't buy into the whole 'quality is the most important thing', thing.. Sure it matters to an extent, but knowing how to use what you've got is the most important thing.

 

[Harry Hughes]

This dude http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/member.php?u=57118 uses amp sims for all his most recent work, and quite frankly IMHO the guitar and bass tones he gets are better than 99 per cent of the real mic'd up tube amp and cab tones I hear in the "Rate my Mix/Tones" section. Hell, he even uses the old Gearbox for a lot of stuff.

Why is this the case? Because the guy has the ears, the feel and the knowledge to be able to do it. 90 per cent of comes from those abilities, the other 10 per cent is gear.
As far as I'm concerned, any audio engineer worth their salt would be able to get a great mix out of headphones, amp sims, Superior drummer and just generally a minimalistic setup.

Of course, they will get even better results if provided with the better gear, but with what you have, just learn to make the most out of it and learn how to use it optimally.
Optimum may mean new strings. It may mean spending another 6 months learning how to use a piece of gear, rather than blaming it for poor results, just whatever really.

 

[BLUElightCory]

VERY generally speaking, the earlier a component comes in the recording chain, the more effect it has on recording quality.

So, in order of importance - guitarist > guitar/amp/room > mic > preamp > converter

If you've got a great guitar and amp/tone and a great performance, you can achieve good quality with cheap recording gear.
If you've got a crappy guitar, a bad performance, etc. and great gear it'll still sound bad.

 

[Joel4662]

Wow bro you pretty much gave the exact same setup as me haha
Damien>pod ux interface>reaper
Unfortunately, my mixes are shit so I can't help you out much on this :\

 

[Trevoire520]

Using fresh strings is VERY important. The general consensus on here is that you should use a fresh set for each day of guitar tracking. Possibly using 2 sets a day if they start to lose their brightness.

 

[Zozobra]

As a rule I think the most important things are:

Skill of the player
Knowledge and 'ears' (attentiveness to what hes hearing, really; same ears as everyone else) of the engineer

Then gear wise, with the standard of modern midrange pres, dacs and plugs its

Guitars SETUP - I'm not convinced the guitars *all that* important, but damned if a poorly set up, unintonated, rattly guitar wont fuck a track over, while a well setup midrange guitar can sound pretty damned good
Similar story for drums; new heads, tuned well etc

Amp/s

Room

Mic placement (comes under 'engineer knowledge and hearing really)

Mic

Look at the number of people turning out great recordings on a pro40 or 2626 or firepod or similar, and stock plugs or not much better, and you'll see that once you hit the level of quality they have, the gears not nearly as important.

My general rule: the biggest improvements to a sound can normally be made before the sound gets to a mic pre.

 

[Brender500]

This is great info for me,thank you all for it.

 

[Charlie E.]

My general rule: the biggest improvements to a sound can normally be made before the sound gets to a mic pre.

Amen.