problem with distortion/effects

[lzr23]

Just recently I've been recording through my amp onto Nero Soundtrax, which has been working out pretty well so far, but just a few hours ago i tried turning up the distortion on my Line6 Spider amp and when i recorded it sounded horrible, very very very scratchy. I was curious and turned down the distortion and turned on other effects on the amp i'd never used much like phaser and tremolo and 50% of it was buzz.

I don't use distortion/effects much, but I'm curious to see why this won't work. Is it the amp?

Please help!

 

[Guitarer]

Try turning down the gain on your preamp and make sure it's not clipping.

After that simple troubleshooting, if it still sounds terrible it's because the amp sounds terrible. Hate to break it to you, but your microphone seems to be more honest than your ears.

 

[MrBluesMan]

Just recently I've been recording through my amp onto Nero Soundtrax, which has been working out pretty well so far, but just a few hours ago i tried turning up the distortion on my Line6 Spider amp and when i recorded it sounded horrible, very very very scratchy. I was curious and turned down the distortion and turned on other effects on the amp i'd never used much like phaser and tremolo and 50% of it was buzz.

I don't use distortion/effects much, but I'm curious to see why this won't work. Is it the amp?

Please help!

If 50% of the sound coming out of the amp is buzz, try changing your leads and cables. My friend was using high impedance PA cable (which happened to be 1/4" connectors) as guitar lead, and he has a load of buzz. If its still buzzing, its the amp.

Out of interest, do you normally play guitar with the amp on the floor pointed at your legs, or do you have a cradle for it?

 

[lzr23]

If 50% of the sound coming out of the amp is buzz, try changing your leads and cables. My friend was using high impedance PA cable (which happened to be 1/4" connectors) as guitar lead, and he has a load of buzz. If its still buzzing, its the amp.

Out of interest, do you normally play guitar with the amp on the floor pointed at your legs, or do you have a cradle for it?

i changed leads to cables, sounds much better thanks
also turned gain all the way down, also better


i have it at my legs, why

 

[lzr23]

Try turning down the gain on your preamp and make sure it's not clipping.

After that simple troubleshooting, if it still sounds terrible it's because the amp sounds terrible. Hate to break it to you, but your microphone seems to be more honest than your ears.

no, its not the amp

i turned the gain down and its alot better, thanks
also did what guy below you said

 

[EvanHilz]

not only can you turn the gain down so the clarity of the notes is better, but you can also pull the mic back a few inches or feet even. this helps when the amp is really loud because the mic's diaphram can be distorting even though the signal is not clipping. you don't want this, you want a clear representation of your amps distortion sound. it will also bring the sound of the room into it a little, which is good when you are recording in a dead-sounding, quiet type of room. lets the amp shine. also, layering distorted guitars a whole bunch of times makes it sound a lot better. just do it over and over, you can always not use something

 

[Waffleness]

i have it at my legs, why

If you have the amp at your legs, you wont hear the true sound it produces.

If you think - you are used to hearing the amp 5 feet away, on the floor with the cone pointing nowhere near your ear. A microphone is right up near the cone and hears exactly what comes out.

A lot of guitarists have cradles which aims the cone up at you, so you can hear the true tone of the amp. This might be why it sounds different to you.

 

[Dani Pace]

To put it as simply as possible, mics usualy "hear" distortion as noise. That's why less distortion/lower gain records better as a general rule.