A very frustrated musician. (Particularly need help with recording lead guitar)

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McK

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It's been about a year since I started working with pro tools and recording. I started because I wanted to take the next step and actually make my music in a form that many could listen to. Since then, I have about 20 pro tools projects of small bits of me testing, trying to make something and eventually giving up. I've learned a lot since. I've moved to a new and great room to record in and have started a project that I think I may finally finish. I've gotten better about getting good-sounding backing tracks and rhythm bases for the most part. My biggest problem as of now is getting that lead part. I'm no singer so my lead melody would be lead guitar. I don't worry about getting my sound extremely precise to what I want. I just want a "good" sustained, large lead guitar sound. I've tried mic angles, I've tried splitting my signal 2 ways. One to interface and computer amp and the other to my amp which is recorded about 7 feet away with my mic.
So far the recording and producing project has been nothing like I imagined. I've been through lots of videos and articles. I find myself continuously failing of frustration, starting again with high spirits, recording for a few days and failing again.

If it helps, I run pro tools 11 on minimum supplies.
Asus laptop
Line 6 Ux1 interface (I use Midi for drums too)
M-audio keystudio
Blue Spark Microphone
Several guitars
Vt80+ amplifier


Attached is a portion recording of a recent thing I've been working on. It's an old recording of the song (Couldn't send my newer bounced file because of file type) The rhythm of this recording has now been cleaned up a lot but sadly that little lead in the middle is about the best I can get.
 

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  • Remains 2_1.mp3
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You are starting to get it ok in the middle and towards the end there... sounds like your gain levels are off in the beginning part. Hard for me to tell though, others on here will have more insight.
 
Are you getting the sound you want out of your amp? That's what you've got to get first - change guitars, strings, amps to get what you need. Then you have to capture it.
Some people might suggest your Line 6 interface is not very good, but any half-decent interface should be able to capture the sound you want, providing you find the right way to capture it.
You're using a mic 7 feet away for the amp - have you already tried close miking? Any other mics?
 
mjbtos said:
Are you getting the sound you want out of your amp? That's what you've got to get first - change guitars, strings, amps to get what you need. Then you have to capture it.
Some people might suggest your Line 6 interface is not very good, but any half-decent interface should be able to capture the sound you want, providing you find the right way to capture it.
You're using a mic 7 feet away for the amp - have you already tried close miking? Any other mics?
Click to expand...
I have no problem finding a likable sound playing out of my amp... I have no problems with my guitar either. For awhile I thought my compressor mic was the problem. I was going to look into a dynamic mic like sm57 but in a guitar recording test, the blue mic sounded better. I've found the overall opinion is that the interface wont affect the captured sound majorly at all. As for the far miking, I read it as a technique for capturing lead guitar. To capture clarity through di and width/"size" through far miking. That definitely did not work
 
IMO from what I hear from your sample, there is either a gain stage issue and some type of clipping or the guitar tone is just too distorted before recording.

I would suggest to you that the sound that you hear with your ears is not the same as what a mic picks up. You have to find what works to get the tone you hear recorded. That being said, I have never had any luck getting guitar tone to work with any condenser mic (I assume by 'compressor' you meant condenser-or is that a language translation thing?).

For sure go with a dynamic. I use a 57 and/or MD421 mostly myself. Sometimes a ribbon mic for harsh tones, but for me that is more to soften a harsh sounding tone.

I really think you need to change the mic and address your tone from your guitar amp in the perspective of what it sounds like mic'd and not what you think sounds good with your ears in a room.

A great guitar tone usually sounds great with the right mic. If the guitar tone has issues to begin with then you are left figuring out how to fix it.
 
Just to add what jimmy said - when recording, less distortion is more = turn the gain/distortion down a little.
 
As ever, I am not qualified to comment on sound quality (distorted guitars all sound much the same to me!) but I would suggest a good read of the article in Sound on Sound Aug 07.

Dave.
 
Thanks for all of your advice (Well besides b00n). I guess I'll try messing around with tones on my amp through the mic. I mean before it just made sense to me that my favorite tones would be the best qualified for recording. I'm also going to look into a dynamic mic instead of my condenser (yes I did mean condenser before....).
 
I'm still not clear on what YOU don't like with the guitar.
You say that's the "best you can get"....but you never really say what exactly is bothering you about it or what you are after.
 
McK said:
I don't worry about getting my sound extremely precise to what I want. I just want a "good" sustained, large lead guitar sound. I've tried mic angles, I've tried splitting my signal 2 ways. One to interface and computer amp and the other to my amp which is recorded about 7 feet away with my mic.
Click to expand...

I gave it a second listening.
Tune your...oh, I already wrote that.
Good sustained large lead guitar sounds are all about high volume in a big room to me.
Close micing with bedroom levels only will bring you so far.
So, what you basically need is feedback to help you with sustain, and an illusion of high volume in a big room, so, perhaps try good reverbs?
And yeah. Tune that frigging axe.
 
I am of the same opinion as you OP about the lead guitar and I can understand your frustration. It's a combination of the guitar lacking some harmonic distortion, signal level, tuning quality and ambience. I think in combination with your other gear you are experiencing "death by a thousand cats" (English is not my first language). :eatpopcorn:

If I were you I would start off by looking at the audio interface, the one you are currently using is not going to make life easy for you, that's for sure. Once you have landed at an audio interface with good conversion quality and input/output capacity, your setup can at least receive some nice harmonic distortion. After that it's time to consider choosing a good guitar, which indirectly will help to resolve the tuning issue, I recommend a Telecaster, those are sweet, they open up the mix in a very nice way. After that it's time to choose a good tube amp, for instance a PRS 2-channel “H” head combined with a vintage Fender Bassman 2x12 with Celestion Vintage 30s. Then setup a really nice stereo mic configuration so that the lead guitar does not get stuck dead center but spreads out a little across the stereo field. Then tune the guitar with a good guitar tuner (avoid the standard 440Hz tuning) and run one of the microphones (experiment) through an Urei 1176. Inside of the DAW you can then further color that microphone with for instance a Slate VCC in the Brit N setting and apply a Bricasti on the other channel. Then feed a delay into the un-compressed channel too from the other channel and finally pan the signals until you have a really nice sound stage and a good tone. After that, record some nice rhythm chords and apply EQ spikes on the compressed Brit N channel to further enhance the harmonics while you balance the two tracks and the pan settings. Finally, if you feel you want slightly more emotion, you can add a chorus in front of the reverb with a mild setting. Put the compressed channel on the L side and the reverb/chorus on the R side (while ensuring you have many enough other reverbs on other sound sources on the L side). Then last but not least, assign much enough signal to it in the mix. I promise this will resolve the issue. :cool:
 
Last edited:
b00n said:
What is your problem with 440?
Especially, when the bed tracks are 440?
Click to expand...

I did not mean to have a unique tuning on the guitar only, the whole band needs the same tuning (avoid using samples on non-percussive sound sources unless you can do a key by key tuning on it, which is pretty rare). The standard 440Hz tuning is out of tune, I recommend everyone to stay away from it. Please do some research into this, I promise it will pay off...
 
MusicWater said:
I am of the same opinion as you OP about the lead guitar and I can understand your frustration. It's a combination of the guitar lacking some harmonic distortion, signal level, tuning quality and ambience. I think in combination with your other gear you are experiencing "death by a thousand cats" (English is not my first language). :eatpopcorn:

If I were you I would start off by looking at the audio interface, the one you are currently using is not going to make life easy for you, that's for sure. Once you have landed at an audio interface with good conversion quality and input/output capacity, your setup can at least receive some nice harmonic distortion. After that it's time to consider choosing a good guitar, which indirectly will help to resolve the tuning issue, I recommend a Telecaster, those are sweet, they open up the mix in a very nice way. After that it's time to choose a good tube amp, for instance a PRS 2-channel “H” head combined with a vintage Fender Bassman 2x12 with Celestion Vintage 30s. Then setup a really nice stereo mic configuration so that the lead guitar does not get stuck dead center but spreads out a little across the stereo field. Then tune the guitar with a good guitar tuner (avoid the standard 440Hz tuning) and run one of the microphones (experiment) through an Urei 1176. Inside of the DAW you can then further color that microphone with for instance a Slate VCC in the Brit N setting and apply a Bricasti on the other channel. Then feed a delay into the un-compressed channel too from the other channel and finally pan the signals until you have a really nice sound stage and a good tone. After that, record some nice rhythm chords and apply EQ spikes on the compressed Brit N channel to further enhance the harmonics while you balance the two tracks and the pan settings. Finally, if you feel you want slightly more emotion, you can add a chorus in front of the reverb with a mild setting. Put the compressed channel on the L side and the reverb/chorus on the R side (while ensuring you have many enough other reverbs on other sound sources on the L side). Then last but not least, assign much enough signal to it in the mix. I promise this will resolve the issue. :cool:
Click to expand...

Doubt the OP will have an 1176 anytime soon.
 
MusicWater said:
I did not mean to have a unique tuning on the guitar only, the whole band needs the same tuning (avoid using samples on non-percussive sound sources unless you can do a key by key tuning on it, which is pretty rare). The standard 440Hz tuning is out of tune, I recommend everyone to stay away from it. Please do some research into this, I promise it will pay off...
Click to expand...

I've been tuning to 440 for years and it never caused me any problems.
 
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