Muddy and Fizzy Guitar Recordings

Whenever I try recording some basic rock guitar tracks at home, I run into ill-defined bottom end, due to low-end mud, and top-end fizz with a very poor midrange. I have tried every mic placement I can think of and none of it worked to my satisfaction. I am trying to achieve a basic, boxy, British classic-metal tone, something along the lines of Maiden's Piece of Mind guitar tone (search for "Iron Maiden The Trooper Lead Guitar Track" on YouTube for isolated tracks), I am not looking to replicate the exact guitar tone, just to get in the ball park, to get something mid-rangey and focused like the guitar tone on the left channel of the Trooper isolated track.

My main recording gear is:
Fender Dave Murray Strat with DiMarzio Super Distortions
Marshall DSL15C with a Vintage 30
Marshall MX112R extension cab with a Vintage 30
SM57
JBL LSR5 monitors
Sony MDR7506 headphones
Presonus Firestudio Mobile
Garageband

Other gear I have but don't use as much, primarily due to living in an apartment:
Marshall 6100LM
Marshall 1960A
DSL20CR with a G12T-75
SM57
SM58

In addition to different mic placements, I have also tried some extreme EQ settings on the amp, with almost no bass, treble, and presence, and with mids cranked, and that was better than the alternatives, but not nearly close enough to what I am trying to achieve. I record with master volume on 4. To my ears, I can dial in really nice tones in the room, but as soon as I put a mic on the amp and hit "Record," the results are eventually always disappointing.

Can anyone help me out with this?
 
Last edited:
Cut back on the distortion by 40%...it may sound a bit clean to you in the room, but it will be right when you record.

First mistake everyone makes when recording OD/distortion is to crank to much of it....and the sound becomes blurry, undefined, and too fizzy.
 
another mistake/reality of HR (for me anyway) is setting tones using closed back headphones that muffle and add proximity bass etc...

where the pro studios,, the control room dudes are calling the tones using the isolated room and great speakers to begin with.

so the point is dont use headphone tones for the tone setting, because its probably going to sound like ass later and require mucho work.
 
Cut back on the distortion by 40%...it may sound a bit clean to you in the room, but it will be right when you record.

First mistake everyone makes when recording OD/distortion is to crank to much of it....and the sound becomes blurry, undefined, and too fizzy.

I have tried that, and know what you mean, but at the same time, I am skeptical about the whole "less is more" mantra when it comes to recording distorted guitar. There are some things that just can't be executed without a sufficient amount of gain. For example, the single palm-muted note in the intro to Maiden's "The Clairvoyant," or just about any riff or rhythm involving palm mutes and alternative picking on the root note. I am not sure how those sounds could be achieved with so little gain that there is hardly any compression.

By the way, what microphone placement do you recommend? It seems to me that everyone is using an SM57 either on the grill cloth or up to an inch away from the grill cloth, usually on the dust cap edge, and getting great tones. Yet, when I do it, I find the proximity effect—or what sounds like proximity effect—overpowering, and I'm not even using a 4x12 like the pros, just a 1x12, which, in theory, should be a case for jamming the SM57 as close to the grille as possible. Based on the many videos and pictures I've seen of pro rock bands, including Maiden, recording with an SM57 on the grille, the only logical conclusion I can make from that is that the standard SM57 placement on the grille is fine, and that my problems of mud and fizz are caused by something else and not mic placement.
 
Last edited:
another mistake/reality of HR (for me anyway) is setting tones using closed back headphones that muffle and add proximity bass etc...

where the pro studios,, the control room dudes are calling the tones using the isolated room and great speakers to begin with.

so the point is dont use headphone tones for the tone setting, because its probably going to sound like ass later and require mucho work.
Good point, but headphones are really good for checking the midrange, my main problem area. Also, they're helpful in monitoring, as they eliminate the room and the imperfections of an untreated room.
 
Is the amp on the floor and/or right against a wall? Real quick first reflections from those kinds of surfaces can really mess up an otherwise decent tone. Lift it up or tilt it back and move it away from the walls.
 
The closer you get to the dust cap the more treble you'll get in the mic. Being "skeptical" of the 'less is more' mantra isn't going to get you anywhere. It is a MANTRA because it works and has for years. Placing the mic closer to the grill cloth gets more proximity effect 'bloom' especially with a Shure. Think about your own statement about how the "sound in the room" is pleasing. Ask yourself "WHY?"

You can watch 100 videos of someone doing something and NEVER replicate their efforts simply because you're not them where they are......Those DSL Marshall , I have found in the studio, are very "fizzy" in general.

The "pros" do not necessarily use a 4-12 cabinet to record with especially in a small untreated area. The difference in the sonic quality of Iron Maiden in whatever studio they are using and your modest surroundings is night and day. If you have ever stood in the middle of a great live room you would know immediately where that sound comes from. Your bedroom ain't that.

So you take the limitations you have and learn to use them. Do you have a second mic? Perhaps a condenser of some sort? Do you have a vocal shield of some sort? Put the condenser out in the room...put the shield behind to cut down on the flutter echoes and the standing waves. Move the 57 away from the speaker grill and move it towards the speaker edge. Record both mics and time align the room mic.

Turn down the distortion. It's already been said and by people who actually record stuff.

If you have a piece of auralex put it behind the amp of if your extension cabinet is closed back just use that.

The point is to get as much of your room out of the equation as possible.

Perhaps you need a better grasp on 'gain-staging' ....... google that term and learn.
 
I have tried that, and know what you mean, but at the same time, I am skeptical about the whole "less is more" mantra when it comes to recording distorted guitar. There are some things that just can't be executed without a sufficient amount of gain. For example, the single palm-muted note in the intro to Maiden's "The Clairvoyant," or just about any riff or rhythm involving palm mutes and alternative picking on the root note. I am not sure how those sounds could be achieved with so little gain that there is hardly any compression.

By the way, what microphone placement do you recommend? It seems to me that everyone is using an SM57 either on the grill cloth or up to an inch away from the grill cloth, usually on the dust cap edge, and getting great tones. Yet, when I do it, I find the proximity effect—or what sounds like proximity effect—overpowering, and I'm not even using a 4x12 like the pros, just a 1x12, which, in theory, should be a case for jamming the SM57 as close to the grille as possible. Based on the many videos and pictures I've seen of pro rock bands, including Maiden, recording with an SM57 on the grille, the only logical conclusion I can make from that is that the standard SM57 placement on the grille is fine, and that my problems of mud and fizz are caused by something else and not mic placement.

You can also try a reamp setup...split the signal and crank your amp to where you like it in the room, but record a clean DI signal.
Then reamp and fine tune the amp to where it sounds right. You'll be able to try all kinds of settings and mic positions without having to replay the parts.

AFA mic position (either for reamp or for straight recording)...I'm not a big fan of the 57...and like in the video above, people always end up having to use another mic with the 57, and then do some kind of combination track of the two to dial in the sound. I kinda prefer to use one mic, and for that, I'll use either a AKG D1000E, which IMO sounds way better than a 57, and can capture guitar tones really well, plus it has a 3-way tone switch...or I'll use a ribbon mic, and work the position. I have a few ribbon mics, and they all have their sweet spots. My most recent favorites are the Beyerdynamic M160....but with it, you have to watch the proximity. I also generally don't record with mics on the grill...and prefer a little distance....maybe 1'-2' away for some things, but I think for Metal, you probably want to be close-n-dry.

There's a cool little micro-pedal called the Defizzerator...it's a passive device you stick in the FX loop of your amp, and you can dial out the fizz at varying degrees and frequencies...which then allows you to crank up the amp, set the mic for less boom...and then if too fizzy, dial some of that out.
Of course...there are a million guitar sounds...and it's hard to know what people hear in their heads VS what someone else is going for...so you just have to work it. Sometimes it takes a bit of post-tracking EQ to get it where you want it. I find that it's easier to remove a bit of boom or even fizz...than it is to add what's missing.
 
And get off the dust cap. Heavy guitar tones for me are best recorded with mic placed towards the outer edge of the speaker.
 
The closer you get to the dust cap the more treble you'll get in the mic. Being "skeptical" of the 'less is more' mantra isn't going to get you anywhere. It is a MANTRA because it works and has for years. Placing the mic closer to the grill cloth gets more proximity effect 'bloom' especially with a Shure. Think about your own statement about how the "sound in the room" is pleasing. Ask yourself "WHY?"

You can watch 100 videos of someone doing something and NEVER replicate their efforts simply because you're not them where they are......Those DSL Marshall , I have found in the studio, are very "fizzy" in general.

The "pros" do not necessarily use a 4-12 cabinet to record with especially in a small untreated area. The difference in the sonic quality of Iron Maiden in whatever studio they are using and your modest surroundings is night and day. If you have ever stood in the middle of a great live room you would know immediately where that sound comes from. Your bedroom ain't that.

So you take the limitations you have and learn to use them. Do you have a second mic? Perhaps a condenser of some sort? Do you have a vocal shield of some sort? Put the condenser out in the room...put the shield behind to cut down on the flutter echoes and the standing waves. Move the 57 away from the speaker grill and move it towards the speaker edge. Record both mics and time align the room mic.

Turn down the distortion. It's already been said and by people who actually record stuff.

If you have a piece of auralex put it behind the amp of if your extension cabinet is closed back just use that.

The point is to get as much of your room out of the equation as possible.

Perhaps you need a better grasp on 'gain-staging' ....... google that term and learn.

Interesting points. To test what you said about the DSLs, I compared my DSL15C, DSL20CR, and 6100LM, all with EQ set to noon, run through the same 1x12 extension cab with a Vintage 30. I put the 6100LM in 50 Watt mode, with the low-volume compensation switch engaged. The DSL20CR is the fizziest and thinnest of all three of them, but not by much. The 6100LM has a ton of bass, but once I dialed it back, it sounded a bit better than the DSLs, but not by much; definitely not by $2000 and still kind of trebly when compared to a few pro reference tracks.

Which would have to mean that the main issue isn't the gear, but rather something else, maybe poor room acoustics in my living room. Just as an aside, I have been at this for two years now, so I'm pretty familiar with the most standard recording techniques of raising the amp off the ground, away from walls, tilting it, etc. If room acoustics is as important as you say and is what is messing with my recordings, even with close-miking, then I really wish there was more straight-forward, comprehensive information out there for home recordists to make us aware of these standard issues and to provide guides on what to do to get the most out of our rooms and gear. I have no experience with professional studios, so I will have to take your word for when it comes to the importance of room acoustics. Given what we know now, is there anything else you recommend I do? What mic placement has worked best for you?
 
Is the amp on the floor and/or right against a wall? Real quick first reflections from those kinds of surfaces can really mess up an otherwise decent tone. Lift it up or tilt it back and move it away from the walls.

Usually I lift the speaker cab an put it on the kitchen counter, pointed at a slant toward the opposite living room wall, but yesterday when I did some more testing with distance from the grille, I was being lazy and had the closed-back cab on the carpeted floor, with the back near the counter wall. Are these reflections a big problem, and do they contribute to a muddy, fizzy tone?
 
Last edited:
Apologies if it's been asked already but how loud is this amp?
I didn't see it mentioned and volume makes a huge difference!
 
Interesting points. To test what you said about the DSLs, I compared my DSL15C, DSL20CR, and 6100LM, all with EQ set to noon, run through the same 1x12 extension cab with a Vintage 30. I put the 6100LM in 50 Watt mode, with the low-volume compensation switch engaged. The DSL20CR is the fizziest and thinnest of all three of them, but not by much. The 6100LM has a ton of bass, but once I dialed it back, it sounded a bit better than the DSLs, but not by much; definitely not by $2000 and still kind of trebly when compared to a few pro reference tracks.

Which would have to mean that the main issue isn't the gear, but rather something else, maybe poor room acoustics in my living room. Just as an aside, I have been at this for two years now, so I'm pretty familiar with the most standard recording techniques of raising the amp off the ground, away from walls, tilting it, etc. If room acoustics is as important as you say and is what is messing with my recordings, even with close-miking, then I really wish there was more straight-forward, comprehensive information out there for home recordists to make us aware of these standard issues and to provide guides on what to do to get the most out of our rooms and gear. I have no experience with professional studios, so I will have to take your word for when it comes to the importance of room acoustics. Given what we know now, is there anything else you recommend I do? What mic placement has worked best for you?

When you say "fizziest and thinnest of all three" you are telling me that all have the very thing in their sound that you are trying to eliminate. And there is a very old saying in this business from an engineers standpoint....MIC DON'T LIE......If YOU hear that kind of sound coming from your amp, the mic will 'hear' it too and since the mic doesn't have the built-in ear filter that peoples brains have, the parts of the sound you don't like will be present.

There's a phenomenon that occurs in your brain in dealing with music. It's related to two parts of the brain and how it connects to your ears and your logic. There is 'subjective' and 'objective' listening. Subjective is when and what you hear when you are playing the music....objective is hearing back what was played from a listeners point of view. There are lots of things a person will hear when listening to a playback of something recorded that you won't necessarily hear when recording the passage.

You asked in an earlier posts if reflections in a room contributes to problems in the sound.......Yes, especially if your amp is loud enough to excite these reflections. You would think that a close-mic'd cabinet would rule out these things but in certain frequencies is doesn't. A 57 has a good "null" area in it's pattern which is one of the main reasons it's been such a successful stage mic for so many years. But even in a close mic'd situation the leakage from the side when the amp is loud and exciting the flutter echoes and standing waves in a room is measurable. Combine that with an amp that is producing "fizzy" or "muddy" tone and it's a salad you can't fix. And then there's finding that sound that you hear on records and want to emulate without the means or the gear to replicate what you hear in your head.

Long ago I quit trying to instruct about the signal chain. No matter how important it is. With the advance of technology, even the most modest set-up can get a "pro" sound if the physics of reproducing sound are adhered to. Just sticking a mic on a speaker that's located somewhere in an untreated room and then is not 'optimal' in it's sound quality isn't going to get what you are looking for. I have ZERO problem with Marshall gear but the newer stuff just doesn't get that big rich mid-range that the 'real' Marshalls get. These DSL's and multi-channel units are built to emulate a sound but to do it in an easy and quick manner mostly for stage performances when you need a versatile rig to play your variety stuff. "Oh man, it sounds great..." "I can really get that Marshall tone out of it...." etc etc...Then the proof becomes a reality in the studio.........

What you will have to realize is getting a certain sound with what you have is going to require and open mind and lot's of work. Thinking that you are eliminating the problems when the problems lie in the exact same spot no matter the amp placement or the mic placement should be a clue.

The reason that 'pros' get these sounds is the surroundings and the elimination of variables that cause the problems in the first place. And remember this and it IS a MANTRA.....Source ! Source ! Source!...... It's where it begins and ends if you think about it.

Check out iso-box. Handy. Think about sound control. Necessary. There are lots of small wattage amps on the market now that do what you might like. Marshall makes the Class 5 head which is as early Marshall as it gets. When you are trying to achieve that clear and at the same time driven guitar sound you need to move a little air. 1 or 5 watts is plenty to record with. An Iso-box and small amp you can turn up will do the trick .
 
Apologies if it's been asked already but how loud is this amp?
I didn't see it mentioned and volume makes a huge difference!

The main amp I use to record is my DSL15C (see top of this thread for a complete list of my gear). I usually have the volume set to 3, sometimes 4.
 
The main amp I use to record is my DSL15C (see top of this thread for a complete list of my gear). I usually have the volume set to 3, sometimes 4.

I don't know that amp so I'm not really sure what 3-4 sounds like, but I know a lot of people struggle to get meaty/full tones because they're trying not to annoy the neighbours too much.
If you can talk over it, turn it up. ;)
 
Usually I lift the speaker cab an put it on the kitchen counter, pointed at a slant toward the opposite living room wall, but yesterday when I did some more testing with distance from the grille, I was being lazy and had the closed-back cab on the carpeted floor, with the back near the counter wall. Are these reflections a big problem, and do they contribute to a muddy, fizzy tone?

I second ashcat's sentiments. See what happens if you get the amp out into the middle of the room. And elevate or tilt it so it's pointed at your ears while you dial in your tones.

Especially at lower volumes, the room will play a major role in how a microphone perceives a signal. If your mic is right up on the speaker grille, as you turn up the volume the direct signal from the amp overwhelms the reflected sounds from the room so it's less of an issue (still an issue, but less).
 
moving to a Palmer PDI-09 was just simple genius for me....

i can still mic all i want,
but this thing gives me clarity.
mixes well.
use it live.
it's all good.
 
I did some of the things suggested on here, but my big breakthrough finally came when I came across a video by Lewin Berringer from GaragebandandBeyond and tried his recommended mic placement of placing the mic three quarters of the way between the center and edge of the cone, as many live and recording engineers do. Placing the mic like that finally helped me get the midrange right.
 
Just my 2 cents: If you already know, as I do and has already been mentioned, that with all of the limitations to recording ANYTHING in a typical home studio environment that you will have in comparison to professional studios, then is mic'ing an amp all that important? I understand that we all are trying to get the best sounds possible recorded. But to me, the mic'ing of an amplifier in a home studio setting and the time consumption of trying to find your sound does not meet the return and in fact invites the "law of diminishing returns" and frustrations that you are experiencing, and as I have experienced. Some home recordists are great at it. Not me. The amp simulation software available and the technology of it, ease of use, etc. is the way to go for me as a home recordist. I won't say what I use because some may think I'm promoting it - only if asked. I'm not trying to start the infinite arguments over software versus mic'ing. This is just my opinion and has saved me a lot of misery and it put the "fun" in home recording for me. Perhaps there are some, even yourself, who have fun micing the amp. That's fine of course. It just wasn't for me. I never got good it to my satisfaction either. Just my 2 cents.
 
Back
Top