Recording guitars with effects pedals

[Rydizzle]

Here is my question. Lets say I'm recording a guitar playing through a miked up cab with a single mic. I have a certain effect pedal in the chain so my my effect is playing out of the amp. Is that a common way to record effects coming directly out of the amp? Also that kind of limits me to a mono signal instead of using a stereo effect after tracking right? So I was curious about how you guys went about using real effects pedals during tracking and especially how you take advantage of pedals with stereo effects (ex do you use two mics on cab? etc...). I have always appreciated recordings from the 60's that have a lot of cool effects and wondering how they did it since I now have so many boutique pedals. Thanks guys

[David Nahmani]

2 easy steps:

 

1) Get your best possible sound without even thinking about recording it.

 

2) Get your mic in front of whatever it is that produces the best possible sound you just achieve - in your case, the guitar amp.

 

That's the way it's been done for decades. You can record a mono signal (which is totally fine for an electric guitar), or you could use a couple of mics and record a stereo signal (usually unnecessary for an electric guitar IMO), or you could simply insert a Mono -> Stereo plug-in on the channel strip if you want to use a stereo effect on the channel strip.