Guitar inexplicably clipping

S

Stinky

New member
Hey Folks,

Okay, here's the dilly-o.

I'm getting what I'm guessing is clipping on the electric guitar track I'm trying to record.

1. I've tried two different mics (57 and V67G), cables and recording channels on my recorder, but am getting the same clickity clackity scratching popping sound. Almost like someone's messing with a scratchy pot or the plugged-in guitar cable. It's that popping sort of sound.

2. I've used these same two mics, cables and recorder on a session today when I recorded ambient drum machine tracks to get room sound. So, I know the cables, mics and recorders work fine.

3. My input and output levels are about five on a scale of 1 to 10. I'm not pushing the preamps or recording levels at all.

4. All tracks sounds fine when listening on headphones on the recorder (Fostex MR8), but the guitar track breaks up/scratches when I plug the flash card into the computer to listen to the wav file. And, again, the drum tracks sound fine.

I'm stumped. Any clues?

Thanks very much!--Stinky
 
Well, I'm not sure that's the problem. I've recorded drum machine parts with the same mics, roughly the same pre settings and input levels on the mixer and recording unit and the drum parts don't clip.

And when I play the drum tracks on the computer they're fine, so I don't think it's the machine or transfer.

I'm recording the guitar on a little 2X8 Ashdown amp at very modest levels, so I'm not blowing out a lot of sound.

Thanks for trying to help out.--Steve
 
Stinky said:
Well, I'm not sure that's the problem. I've recorded drum machine parts with the same mics, roughly the same pre settings and input levels on the mixer and recording unit and the drum parts don't clip.

And when I play the drum tracks on the computer they're fine, so I don't think it's the machine or transfer.

I'm recording the guitar on a little 2X8 Ashdown amp at very modest levels, so I'm not blowing out a lot of sound.

Thanks for trying to help out.--Steve
Click to expand...
This may sound obvious, but what setting do you have the selector switch in the back set to? You know, the built-in mic/mic/guitar setting switch?

You need to have it set to mic. You only set it to guitar if you are DI'ing your guitar parts.
 
Yeah, it's set to "mic", but I forgot that switch exists since I don't DI anything. Damn, for half a sec, I thought I may have a solution. It's driving me nuts.

Thanks for the response, though.
 
Okay, I've also tried two different compact flash memory cards. Additionally, I just recorded a guitar track DI'd and it did the same thing.

Weird.

Help! :)
 
could it be something to do with the bit rate of the audio and the playback rate ?

with drums being a quick punchy sort of sound and guitar being a longer sound(if you get what i mean ) any audio conversion would be more noticable , you could try and record the guitar with very short notes to see if it does the same noise.

????????????? i don't know i'm guessing too!!!!!!!!
 
Try recording the drums and guitar one after the other without stopping the recorder. Does it still only clip with the guitar?
 
In programs like Acid, they have different ways to record tracks - one of them is "beatmapped" and generally is BAD for recording live instruments because it creates that poppity weird sound

but if it's not that, and If the actual signal is not clipping, then maybe it's a demo plugin or something?
 
I'm recording directly into my standalone Fostex MR-8 recorder which is a standalone unit. The unit records onto a flash card which can then be read via a card reader as a wave file. I'm not using any recording software or plug-ins.

I'm going to try a different guitar and cable, but I'm otherwise running out of options.

And, I hope that Chessrock quote isn't directed at me. I'm a hobbyist, but not quite a newbie. I think I've done a decent job of articulating what I've done to try and eliminate the problem. And I've yet to get a solution from anyone. I hope I'm just misunderstanding you, because I've gone a few rounds with Chessrock before and it wasn't fun or productive.

Thanks again to folks who are trying to help.

Cheers, Stinky
 
I have a MR8 as well. Dont use it since i switched to pc recording. Maybe its something internally in your machine thats all screwed up now. How long u had it?? oh........i think everybody has gone a few rounds with "Chessrock" before :cool:
 
Yeah, I've had it a few years, but haven't used it for a while. I'm starting to wonder if it's just crapping out. That's going to be one of my approaches at this point. Besides, it's more fun to fuck with broken gear than to actually, you know, make music. We'll see, i guess.

Rock on.
 
I missed point 4 completely ...
Are you trying to play the guitar tracks as well as the drum tracks directly off of the Flash card on the computer?

In my experience with flash cards and readers (mostly for pictures - I have a 1GB card that takes nearly 10 minutes to dump on to the hard drive when it's full), they usually have only o.k. transfer rates to computer, and audio on computer needs great transfer rates. It might be OK for the recorder since it was build specifically for the flash card

Have you dumped everything to the computer's hard drive to try playing it in a DAW (like reaper or something free - just to see)? might be worthwhile to try
 
Stinky said:
And, I hope that Chessrock quote isn't directed at me. I'm a hobbyist, but not quite a newbie. I think I've done a decent job of articulating what I've done to try and eliminate the problem. And I've yet to get a solution from anyone. I hope I'm just misunderstanding you, because I've gone a few rounds with Chessrock before and it wasn't fun or productive.

Thanks again to folks who are trying to help.

Cheers, Stinky
Click to expand...
Wah..Wah..Do you need any cheese with that whine? :rolleyes:

You shouldn't wear your emotions on your sleeve. :eek:

The Cheeserock comment is my signature at the moment and I wear it proudly I might add. :D

When you DI'd your guitar track did you use the same channel?
 
it is the MR8, i used to have the same problem, one of th reasons i got rid of mine and moved to 24 bit recording with a real interface. The thing seems ot have a very small window where your gain structure needs to be to get ti to go over to the PC cleanly. I honeslty don;t know what causes it other than if you track quiter it will probably go over the to the PC trak better.

Here is the thread where i first complained about that same thing:
http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=186291

Daav
 
I agree with the suggestion to turn your input level down.

Metering doesn't always show peaks accurately. It could be that your levels are distorting even though the metering shows otherwise.

Tim
 
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