Muddy guitar sound when I record to Garageband

G

Grad

New member
Hey everyone,
I have a Tascam 1641 connected to my iBook, and I am recording with Garageband 9. I have my Les Paul connected straight into one of the Tascam's inputs, and then the Tascam is connected via USB to my iBook. With this setup, things sound muddy...not very clear at all. In contrast, if I connect my Les Paul to a practice amp, things sound great. So what is the best way to get some nice sounding recordings? I see all of the time that people are using audio interfaces on their computers to do their recordings, but I have no idea how to get a nice sound doing so.
 
You need to mic up the amp or (if it has a direct out) go from the amp to the interface. Since you said you get a good tone from the amp, I'd mic it up. Then if it still sounds muddy, you need to tweak your tone settings and just play around with them until you get what you like on the recordings.
 
Two bits of a advice:
1) mic the amp. direct is almost always a bit muddy. micing takes some work and practice, but the sound is way better. or if you have some sort of simulator like POD or something you can do that direct (even though most of us prefer micing, but this way is simpler and necessary for those living in apartments).

2) ditch garage band. i have been using Reaper lately (free for as long as you want, and $40 once you man up and pay for the real license, which everyone should do). it is WAY better and pretty simple to just get started in. LOADS more options and plugins and it'll take you a lot further than garage band will.

my opinions only, but who cares what i think, do your own thing.
 
yup...mic the amp and if you're jammin distorted/crunchy....back off the gain more than you normally would live.
 
thanks for the tips, I will try adding a few mics next time. I also started playing around with the equalizer settings in Garageband and it helped quite a bit.

So, why is Reaper going to be much better than Garageband?
 
Reaper's better than Garageband just ... because it is, but I've heard really impressive stuff done w/ Garageband, too. Anyway, like others have said if you can get a sound you like from your amp, you'll do way better to mic that sound... use less gain that it seems like you want from the amp. Search these forums on mic placement for recording electric guitar, there's loads of info here to learn from. It's helped me a looooot. If you can't get a good sound from your amp (you said practice amp, so it's something to thinka about), you might look for an amp sim to treat your direct recorded guitar tracks. I have no experience with this but I've heard others say they've gotten good results.

J
 
jjjtttggg said:
Reaper's better than Garageband just ... because it is

If you can't get a good sound from your amp (you said practice amp, so it's something to thinka about), you might look for an amp sim to treat your direct recorded guitar tracks. I have no experience with this but I've heard others say they've gotten good results.

J
Click to expand...
Reaper comes with several decent amp sims...
 
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