What am I Doing Wrong?

EX-351D

New member
Hello Everyone,

I am working on getting a nice sounding distorted guitar tone, but I keep running into issues with fizzy high end and loose low end. I am using a Peavey 5150 head with a Marshall 4x12 with two Celestion Vintage 30s and two G12t75s. I have tried using a Shure SM57 and an MXL CR30. I am playing a Gibson Explorer with a Tom Anderson H2 in the bridge position through a modded Boss SD-1 into the 5150. My amp settings on the rhythm channel are:

Gain: 10 o'clock
Bass: 1 o'clock
Mids: 1 o'clock
Treble: 2 o'clock
Resonance: 1 o'clock
Presence: 2 o'clock

The settings on the SD-1 are:
Level: 2 o'clock
Drive: 9 o'clock
Tone: 1 o'clock

I have messed around quite a bit with settings on both the amp and pedal. I have tried plugging directly into the amp, different guitars, and many different mic positions. It sounds great while I am playing but I just can't seem to capture a good recorded sound.

Here is a clip of both the SM57 and the CR30. The SM57 is first and is just off center about 1-2 inches from the grill of the cab. The CR30 is about 6-8 inches from the grill and just off center. For both clips I recorded two guitar tracks and panned them 55% to either side.


Thanks!

---------- Update ----------

It turns out I can't post links, but the clip is on vocaroo.com/i/s1LerLCR4knN
 
...It sounds great while I am playing but I just can't seem to capture a good recorded sound...
The microphone is capturing the sound you are making. At the time of recording (i.e. when we are actually playing) our hearing system naturally tends to block out the undesirable stuff. It's only on playback that our hearing finally relents and 'allows' us to hear the sound in its entirety. FWIW I don't hear anything untoward in your recordings - nothing that HP/LP filters and a touch of EQ wouldn't fix.
 
First thing to do is get a good sound from the set up - get your head down where the mics will be. IF you listen out in the room, its not the same.
Next thing to try is moving the mics around. Suggest you work with one at a time. Towards the edge of a speaker cone, rather than to the center/voice coil position
 
Mic's don't "hear" the same thing as our ears(Fletcher-Munson curve). Most of the time this means backing way down on the drive and the low end when recording to match what your ears are doing in the room. The best way to get the tone you want "on tape" is to monitor the signal after the mic(closed back headphones for most of us, monitoring the signal going to or from DAW/tape) while moving the mic/adjusting guitar and amp controls until you are getting the timbre you want instead of what you hear in the room itself. Sometimes you have to move the amp, change the mic etc to get where you are going.
 
I'll say basically the same thing.. if what you're hearing while playing is straight through
to your ears (no headphones) then you're getting "the sound" mixed with your room's
acoustics. Listening through your phones cuts most of that out. Just for kicks, you can
use the CR30 only up next to your head and record that - see the difference on
playback. Might not be useable, but it will illustrate the point.
 
I agree that our hearing is not the same as what a microphone hears....but in this case, the OP is not saying that he can't get the same sound as what he's hearing...he's saying that everything he's tried and listened to on playback, sounds fizzy and loose.

My advice...find the tone that sounds great to your ears for distortion...then take out about 30-40% of that distortion...and then play around with mic position.
With high-gain distortion, you always want less when recording compared to how it sounds in the room. Fizzy and loose low end is a clear sign that there is way too much gain/drive, and the mic is mostly picking up the fizz.
Clean it up some, and the fizz will diminish and the low end will tighten up.
 
First thing to do is get a good sound from the set up - get your head down where the mics will be. IF you listen out in the room, its not the same.
Next thing to try is moving the mics around. Suggest you work with one at a time. Towards the edge of a speaker cone, rather than to the center/voice coil position

Good way to fry your ears. Besides your ear and mic never hears the same thing.

Better to have your cab in an other room and have an assistant moving the mic around while you monitor from headphones or spkrs till you get the desired tone in the context of the mix.
If by yourself, I guess you'll be walking back and forth. :)
If you only have one room, just print some tracks and fiddle with things till you get the desired tone.
It's always best to evaluate your tone in the context of the mix.
But as previously mentioned, use less gain than you normally would think to use.
 
Read the responses, and I still think it's a mic position problem. I'm not fluent in mic positioning, but when you consider that millimeters one way or the other can alter the sound in big ways, I think that's where I'd start looking. Good luck
 
Thanks for all the responses, everyone! I was honestly feeling pretty discouraged until I read through these and gave it another go. I think the issue was a combination of mic placement as well as relying too much on what I was hearing in the room. I got some help with moving the mic around while monitoring the sound and I think that helped quite a bit in improving my sound. Thanks again!
 
What?!? ;)
If your amp is that loud, you're recording too loud to start with! :listeningmusic: The point is that listening out in the room is different than where the mic is.

Are you out of your mind? You would have gotten fired as an engineer in 30 seconds flat on any of SRV's sessions with an attitude like that. ;) ( or many other rock artist's sessions)

Take a Marshall 50 watt plexi, get it in the sweet spot to get it singing, and go ahead, stick your ear right next to a celestion.
Let me know how that goes for you. :)

Or, a fender twin or a bassman, a deluxe, an Vox AC 30, etc.

Hell I wouldn't even stick my ear next to the 8 inch speaker on my Fender Vibrochamp when it's turned up to 7. (Which is a glorious sound by the way)

Maybe you have very little experience with tube amps, but they really start to come alive when the power tubes start distorting.
And that takes turning the amp up to a level where I'd never stick my ear right by the speaker.

Besides, as I and others have mentioned, mics 'hear' differently than the human ear.

So, you stick a mic onto the speaker, and monitor through the monitors. That way you can actually hear what the mic hears. (In the context of the mix)

Sticking your ear onto your amp's speaker is not only non-productive, but dangerous and stupid.

As far as your claim of recording too loud, that's ridiculous as well.
I wouldn't stick my ear right next to a snare being hit . Must be too loud. :D
I wouldnt stick my head inside the kick drum and tell the drummer to go at it. Must be too loud. :D
I wouldn't stick my ear right next to the singer as they're belting it out. Oh, that source must be too loud too. :D

Point is, there are lots and lots of audio sources that would be too loud for your ear if you stuck your head right next to them. A guitar amp is just one of them.

:D
 
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Are you out of your mind? You would have gotten fired as an engineer in 30 seconds flat on any of SRV's sessions with an attitude like that. ;) ( or many other rock artist's sessions)

Take a Marshall 50 watt plexi, get it in the sweet spot to get it singing, and go ahead, stick your ear right next to a celestion.
Let me know how that goes for you. :)

Or, a fender twin or a bassman, a deluxe, an Vox AC 30, etc.

Hell I wouldn't even stick my ear next to the 8 inch speaker on my Fender Vibrochamp when it's turned up to 7. (Which is a glorious sound by the way)

Maybe you have very little experience with tube amps, but they really start to come alive when the power tubes start distorting.
And that takes turning the amp up to a level where I'd never stick my ear right by the speaker.

Besides, as I and others have mentioned, mics 'hear' differently than the human ear.

So, you stick a mic onto the speaker, and monitor through the monitors. That way you can actually hear what the mic hears. (In the context of the mix)

Sticking your ear onto your amp's speaker is not only non-productive, but dangerous and stupid.

As far as your claim of recording too loud, that's ridiculous as well.
I wouldn't stick my ear right next to a snare being hit . Must be too loud. :D
I wouldnt stick my head inside the kick drum and tell the drummer to go at it. Must be too loud. :D
I wouldn't stick my ear right next to the singer as they're belting it out. Oh, that source must be too loud too. :D

Point is, there are lots and lots of audio sources that would be too loud for your ear if you stuck your head right next to them. A guitar amp is just one of them.

:D

You seemed to have missed the emoji in my post, and the point
The point is that listening out in the room is different than where the mic is.
 
C'mon chaps! Settle down. Hearing damage is a function of loudness and TIME. Yes, sticking your ear next to a V30 on full chat IS daft but not because you will be instantly deafened but because you will be temporarily "shifted" into a modified hearing "mode" and when you come up be bog useless at judging sound qualities at normal (for which I shall say ~85dB) levels, akin to a photo flash. But, even if a quick stoop and harken is safe, don't do it on a regular basis! Hearing loss is cumulative and exposure should be kept in reasonable bounds. (even concert musicians are getting hearing loss these days. Recently won damages)

Easiest way to hear what the mic hears is headphones, preff' closed back with good isolation. If there is only thee you can record a track by DI and "re-amp" it into the guitar amp on a loop (could just use a looper!) then, cans on, move mics about.

I am not qualified to judge but the point "less is more when it comes to gain and distortion" is made all the time, all the places I read about recording rock guitar.

And, as ever: soundonsound Aug 07.

Dave.
 
I am not a full experienced audio engineer but in my little years in the world of music I could notice some stuff, or tricks on the stage and in studio, Slayer played here in Brazil, São Paulo, in the year 2006 and was a gift for me to be present in the sound check, and was a surprise to hear the sound coming from the KK amps, but it sound like s***, miles away from the sound that I remember in the albuns, hours later in the crowd, I could hear that riffs with that sound we recognize with a single note.
The sound coming from the amp it´s not always the sound we´ll hear in the audio track, in my humble opinion, in the most of times we can set the amp via monitor in the engineering room, rather in front of the amp, to hear the sound that will be track.
 
Got to post a link. Nobody can imagine what you are hearing. Do you have the mic on the V30s? Try moving them to the other speaker. Spend some time working with your mic positioning.
 
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