guitar distortion

[zooms]

hi, im pretty new at this. I have been recording at my house for about 8 months now and i can get my accoustic and vocals to sound great. i have tried nemerous times to record my electric and that would also work great untill i tried to use distortion (recorded wet). when i tried to use first my amp's distortion (Fender hot rod deville 410). then my pedal (Boss medal zone), and it sounds nothing like my guitar. it sounds like the really crappy digital distortion in acid. i thought i was over distorting the computer so i turned the gain down, but even with the gain as low as it goes it still sounds like crap. i have talked to a lot of different people about this and it stumps all of them. i am recording into a preamp then into my computer. i have checked and the guitar sounds fine at the preamp so it has to be the computer. i have tried recording with my line-in and with my mike. it sounds the same both ways. i want to try splitting the signal into wet and dry and then mixing them together but my sound card only has one mono input so i cant do that. do you guys have any ideas?

[perottol]

When recording directly from the preamp into the computer you are asking for crappy sound. You should:

1.) Play the guitar thru an amp (loud) and mic it up.

2.) Use an amp-simulator plugin on the signal you record from your preamp. Try out iZotope's Trash or IK Multimedia's Amplitube.

[zooms]

thanks for the info but i have tried to mic my amp and it still had the same problem. does turning up the amp the down the mic make a difference? also where can i find more (cheap/free) plugins?

[scottyd]

i use a line six guitar port for my guitar now, the best plug in i found was called amplitube you can get a demo from there web site.

[despised7]

Originally Posted by zooms

thanks for the info but i have tried to mic my amp and it still had the same problem. does turning up the amp the down the mic make a difference? also where can i find more (cheap/free) plugins?

You can find tons of free effects by searching google. Some are good....some leave something to be desired. You can download a free wrapper (http://www.spinaudio.com/downloads.p...download_id=33) to use VST effects within Cool Edit/Audition. The newest release, 1.5, has the capability to use VST effects without a wrapper. At the Audio Masters forum we've started a thread of VST effects that work or don't work in 1.5. Here's the URL to that:

http://www.audiomastersforum.org/amf...&highlight=vst

On a side note....I haven't found a FREE amp simulator that I like. Like the others said....Amplitube and Izotope Trash are both good. Personally, I still mic my amps.

What sound card are you using?

[bbop73]

What's your computer setup? Soundcard, etc.

[zooms]

im using a pretty new dell with a nvidia sound card that came with the computer. i got the sound upgrade that i think upgraded the sound card.

[bbop73]

Have you checked the soundcards mixer settings? If everthing checks out there, I would check the manufacturer's website for any known issues. If you can't find it there, then contact tech support.