Ok where do I start…
The most common production these days is the “in the box” production, meaning the whole song or album was made completely within one software (DAW), meaning a person used VST instruments, plugins, emulators.. to make a song and also mixed and mastered it within his DAW. “Outside the box” means you would use physical hardware (console, compressors, EQs..) in your recording/mixing/mastering process). The reason why “in the box” production is so popular is because it’s very affordable, you don’t need a studio with a 100,00$ console, bunch of compressors and eqs, all you need is a computer, daw and some plugins and you are good to go.
Easiest way to record a guitar is to get an audio interface and a guitar amp emulator software. You just plug your guitar in the interface, open the amp emulator and you hit record. YOU NEED and audio interface if you want your recordings to sound good. The other more complicated and more expensive way to record is to record your amp with a microphone but then you need a room that is acoustically treated, microphones and some knowledge on how to position mics and which ones to use.
The thing you need to keep in mind while recording a guitar or anything really is MAKE SURE IT’S NOT CLIPPING. Clipping means your signal reached over 0dB and because of that it will get distorted and it will make those crackling noises. 0dB is the maximum level your signal can reach without clipping, anything above that (+0.01dB -> +∞dB) will start clipping. So you can look at 0dB as the ceiling your signal can reach.
Also make sure you have enough head room while recording. Head room is the space between the maximum level of your signal and 0dB. So let’s say you are recording your guitar and the peak of your signal reaches -10db, that means you have 10dB of head room which is good. You don’t want a headroom of only let’s say 2db while recording because you can start playing your guitar a bit louder and your signal can reach over 0dB and it will clip, so that’s why you want to make sure you have enough headroom.
After the recording process there comes the mixing. Mixing is basically ajdusting the levels of your instruments, panning them left or right, EQ-ing (adjusting the frequencies of a signal so it sounds better), compressing (lowering the dynamic of a signal), adding FX (reverb or delay for more depth…)
After mixing comes mastering. Mastering is basically glueing your song together. So you mixed your song, you export it and then you have only 1 audio file with all your instruments and vocals together and then you want to master that audio file. So you can EQ that audio file but you don’t want to EQ it too drastically because you are EQing all instruments and vocals and not only one instrument. So maybe +1db boost or cut on some frequency to make it even better. Then you can compress it so the song gets more energy, then you can run it through a tape emulator or an actual tape to get that vintage sound so it sounds better and at the end you limit the song, meaning you increase the volume of the song as loud as you can until it doesn’t start clipping. Most people limit the songs to -0.1dB or 0dB to get the maximum volume level. But everyone wants to sound louder because louder=better and that’s when it comes to loudness war (basically incresing the audio level so loud that it starts losing the quality and dynamics). “The Stage” by Avenged is actually few dB lower so that’s why it sounds a bit quieter but that’s because they didn’t want to lose all that dynamics on the songs so that album is supposed to be listened on a higher volume so you get the full experience.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, I probably forgot a lot of stuff but hopefully i made some things more clear for some people. If anyone has any questions I’ll try to asnwer you if I can