Anyone with some IDeas?

[Randy5235]

heres the problem,I live in an apartment,thats it really,and oh yeah all i have are tube amps(not that,that is really a problem elsewise),any ideas for recording a good tone?cant get loud enough to even really get the good tone out of the amps,let alone get a good signal/noise ratio on mic,tried running out the line out on the amp,crappy sound all the way maybe i could build a small (not that small i guess)box to hold my cabinet so I could crank it?any other ideas?,im open ,thanks

[dobro]

1 Get a Pod.

2 Shift the amp into the closet, line it with sleeping bags, foam and dead bodies. After 7 mic placement experiments, record the track.

Now, which one is easier?

[Kelly Holdridge]

Have you considered disconnecting the wires from the speaker and running them through resistance first? This will help your "out of the tube sound," but it won't be the same as when you crank up your amp w/ normal speaker levels. If that doesn't work, try the POD. I think you can get the new version for $299.

[Track Rat]

Kelly, I think you're refering to a power soak. You can get the tubes to light up but that's only half of the problem. The guitar won't "light up" and then there's the speaker distortion that only occurs when you're driving the system hard. Maybe a Sansamp or the mighty pod is the only answer if you're in an apartment.

[KingNothing]

Get a Marshall Power Break or whatever its called.

[Mountaineer]

Track Rats Right. Get on Ebay and search for a Tom Schultz ( Boston ) power soak. They go used for $75 - $100 and will let you use all the tube power at low volumes. They are installed between the amp and the speakers.

PAPicker

[virtual.ray]

I've never used this type of device,but I've heard that they wear out your power tubes faster than normal operation.There's a guy who makes a 5 or 6 watt tube amp with a speaker for just such an application.Sirry I can't remember his name,he had an ad on Harmony Central.com a couple of months ago.The Idea is to have the sound of the whole chain,preamp,power tubes,output trans,and speaker overdriving w/o getting evicted.

[BigKahuna]

I'd take a POD over one of those attenuators any day. Give it a listen at least. You may want it in your rig even when you can play your amp loud.

[joeguitar]

Yeah, POD rawkes! I also have a DC-30 and I can get great tracks from POD easier than setting up and "hopefully" getting a good mic placement. It helps to keep using the tube stuff on gig's and band rehearsal to keep your ear trained for "tweaking" the POD but for recording, it's great!

Also, you can record "clean" tracks while monitoring only a decent POD tone. Run the "clean" guitar back into POD during final mix and really tweak the POD and effects to the vocal. Very cool!

Sometimes I run the the same clean guitar signal back through the POD several times with different amp settings and get a massive "layered" sound! Just like Keith Richards running into a Bassman, Marshall, Vox etc. at the same time! (o:

Cheers, joe