straight8413
New member
I'm new to recording on my own (started less than a year ago) and while I am making some progress with getting distorted rhythm guitar tracks to sound a little less awful than they sounded at first, I am having a heck of a time recording good leads. Especially octaves that compliment the rhythm guitar but even single note leads just sound...too fizzy and flat I guess is the phrase I'd use.
My recording rig is pretty basic, a Tascam 2488 MKII with a bunch of low end pre-amps (Presonus Studio Channel, ART MPA PRO II's, etc.) and for recording guitar I normally use an SM57 and an old grey Sennheiser MD421-N for close-miking plus a RODE K2 as a room mic (I record in a pretty big room). For guitar I play a hotrodded Les Paul through a Marshall JCM900 SL-X into a Marshall 1960A 4x12 loaded with Vintage 30's and G12T-75's in an x-pattern wired series/parallel. A Tubescreamer dialed in for mild boost in front and a MXR 10-band EQ in the loop; I don't scoop mids and I usually only run the gain at about 50% when tracking rhythm. I used to dime the gain and wonder why my recordings sounded like fizzy mush until I finally just dropped the gain down and layered tracks...sounds WAY better now.
But my lead tracks, even though they are not done with full-throttle gain, still sound crummy. Anybody have any advice for me as to how they would record lead if they were given this exact setup to work with? These leads are just not cutting through the mix and when I try to brighten them up or kick up the mids they just turn to fizz. I basically record at my house to make demos to send to other people I'm working with and it's mostly punk/hardcore type stuff which is easy but getting a really great guitar sound is a lot harder than I initially thought. Any advice appreciated.
My recording rig is pretty basic, a Tascam 2488 MKII with a bunch of low end pre-amps (Presonus Studio Channel, ART MPA PRO II's, etc.) and for recording guitar I normally use an SM57 and an old grey Sennheiser MD421-N for close-miking plus a RODE K2 as a room mic (I record in a pretty big room). For guitar I play a hotrodded Les Paul through a Marshall JCM900 SL-X into a Marshall 1960A 4x12 loaded with Vintage 30's and G12T-75's in an x-pattern wired series/parallel. A Tubescreamer dialed in for mild boost in front and a MXR 10-band EQ in the loop; I don't scoop mids and I usually only run the gain at about 50% when tracking rhythm. I used to dime the gain and wonder why my recordings sounded like fizzy mush until I finally just dropped the gain down and layered tracks...sounds WAY better now.
But my lead tracks, even though they are not done with full-throttle gain, still sound crummy. Anybody have any advice for me as to how they would record lead if they were given this exact setup to work with? These leads are just not cutting through the mix and when I try to brighten them up or kick up the mids they just turn to fizz. I basically record at my house to make demos to send to other people I'm working with and it's mostly punk/hardcore type stuff which is easy but getting a really great guitar sound is a lot harder than I initially thought. Any advice appreciated.