Recording Distortion

Venesectrix

Venesectrix

New member
Ok here's my setup..

I'm playing a Les Paul Studio through an AVT275, I own three mics: SM-75, OM-2, and a MXL990. I'm plugging my mics through a Behringer UB802 and that is plugged into my E-MU 0404.

My problem is that no matter what I've tried thus far,(different mics/placement, eq) I've never seemed to get a halfway decent recording of my overdrive channel. In my room, the amp sounds good, it's just my recordings sound muddy, distorted, and sound almost like running a stomp box direct into the computer.(eww!)

I've been reverting to recording a guitar riff a few times, pan, delay one side, add some eq etc.

Is there anything in my set up that could be the problem? Or a good link to some basic guidelines to getting a decent sound?

Sorry for the long post,

Thanks,

Venesectrix
 
put yer head to the speaker, then see if it sounds good. Tweak it until it sounds as best as you can, than cut some of the gain, and boost some of the mids. Then experiment with mic placement, most people like it pointing to the side of the cone, slightly off axis. Experiment around before touching the eq. (id actually wouldnt touch the eq on the behringer and just use an eq plugin.) Either that or use very little eq on the mixer. Then while yer mixing you might want to try duplicating the track, or recording the same track again with different settings, pickups, eq, positioning, ect ect...Now experiment with the panning and mixing the two tracks and your almost bound to get a pretty good guitar sound.
 
Putting the mic where you ear says it sounds good is a good idea but you may be picking up a lot of the room too. That could be a good deal depending on your room. You also want to back off on the distortion for recording. You don't need as much as you think when recording(less is more err better). Also, remember that just because the track sounds great on its own doesn't necessarily equate to sounding good in the mix.

When mixing an instrument you are competing with other instruments for space. You may have to roll off some of the bottom end of the guitar to make room for the bass but don't just use eq to make room for instruments. Look for the natural spaces for each instrument. Use placement to give instruments their own space.

Usually the bass sounds good dead center with the guitars panned left and right with a little verb on the drums to set them back but there is no hard rule. If you have a lot of tracks that are muddying up the guitar, put the guitar dead center and pan the others off to the side. Back off on the other instruments to let the guitar shine but don't leave it out there too long, you don't want it shining the whole song.

Keep in mind that all the instruments have support roles so you need to give them all a space in the song to shine through to keep your listener interested. Be creative, experiment and come up with your own mixing techniques and sound.
 
I know alot of people laugh at this idea as many of you are very old school...but go buy yourself a POD...i got a POD liveXT and actually use it infront of a marshall valvestate on its clean channel and all the distortion sounds incredible...especially the jcm800 and soldano models....and when u record u just direct record straight from the POD....its to easy....after gettins such nice sounds from that i dont think I wanna mic and amp again...but im sure someday I will....thats my suggestion!
 
Thanks you guys I'll keep that in mind. I was messing tonight with different setups and I think it's all a matter of spending a lot of time tweaking different things to get the sound I'm looking for. Great tips by the way.
 
Ok, where do I start.. I don't claim to be an expert at this stuff but I should be able to help you out a bit here.

First of all, I'd try the SM-57 on the amp.. that should be common sense unless you're REALLY new to this. Don't worry TOO much about the room sound yet, you'll be close miking the amp so it won't be as much of a factor as you think. Bump your mids up a bit higher than usual, it's always better to have them and then if you wanted the scooped out sound you can cut them later. Gain should be a bit lower than usual.

The biggest problem I've personally experienced/seen with people just getting started in home recording is that they hear the amp/room sound when they're tracking and assume the guitar sounds the same to the mic, which is another beast altogether. Read Harvey Gerst's very-excellent thread in the Mic forum and look for the part about near field and far field.. this should change the way you think quite a bit. Most people recommend you just put your ear to the amp, but this isn't always feasible/healthy when the amp is turned up loud, which is common for distorted guitars and necessary on a tube amp. I recommend a set of good closed headphones, maybe those Extreme Isolation headphones, they should help you out a fair bit in getting a better picture of what's gonna be recorded. Record the guitar dry, you can always add reverb/delay later. Add a touch of compression if you find you don't have enough sustain.. actually I'd recommend you add some anyways unless you have an exceptionally noisy amp. Oh and if you have a nice sounding room a LDC a few feet out can spice things up.. blend to taste and enjoy. :-)
 
Lanny Cox said:
.... Gain should be a bit lower than usual. ....
Click to expand...

As all the above suggestions indicate, there are all kinds of things you can try, but simply using less distortion is a great KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) solution to try out.

I don't play or record death metal so maybe that's why this one works for me. But I've noticed that everytime I have trouble getting a nastier guitar sound doing something counterintuitive like reducing the distortion level is what finally gives me the sound I was looking for. The heavy distortion can sound fantastic on its own, but if there's too much I find it just muddies up the guitars.

YMMV.
 
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I have an avt50 and can't get a good distortion sound. I'm of the belief its marshalls avt series of amps that suck for recording. I used to record everything straight from the combos 12" but wasn't happy with how thin it sounded. So I bought 1960a and that helped alot. I also use 2 different mics, a sm57 and ksm109 each on a different(two best sounding) speakers. I still record with it though a lot of eqing is involved i've found cutting the distortion a tad and cranking the volume has helped alot with tone, but I really think I'm just gonna buy a TSL, I recorded a band a few months ago with a TSL and I didn't even have to eq it, sounded so damn good.
 
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