I wanted to post last night but i was too wasted, so ill do it now.
If you're going to record with an amp (preheat tube amps 10 min and play for about an hour for best preformance) you should place the mic right in front of the speaker, if you're recording from a kabinet, in the middle aiming slightly upwards, or fiddle around with it untill you get what you want. :]
The guitarports. Not too sure. Im not fond of them, i like the sound as raw as i can get it.
Im buying one soon though because i wanna try it out... heheh.
A way to reduce amp noise :
- Intervene the cable with a noisegate/noise canceller/etc
- Buy a expensive cable. If you're using just any random kind of cheap cables, they generate static and break more easily than others.
- Turn down your fucking gain! I know from personal experience it might soften the balls on the sound, but thats not the case.
Sometimes a little less gain can make it sound more clean (if you're for instance riffing a metalcore thing) and more badass in general. And the noise is suffenciently less.
Tip for recording solos : You know that some guitars let other strings sing along with the one you actually pick, so you could use a cloth or some foam to dampen the strings on your 1st fret. Just put up a barrier that if you're not touching the fret board there can't be any tone. This is expecially useful for sweeping and tapping solos, i reckon. Haven't used it myself - yet. So tell me if its any good.
That's all for now, if you have more questions, lemme know