My guitar sounds bad in my recordings.

  • Thread starter Thread starter pokinatchapunk
  • Start date Start date
P

pokinatchapunk

New member
This is my first post and I'm sure that this has been addressed before.

So I've been having this issue with recording guitars at home. They always seem to sound bad. Especially with distortion.

I'll attach a clip of a "punk" track I'm working on. I'm all about trying to get a good sound at the source for what I'm doing and it seems no matter what I do I can't get a guitar sound I like at home. My chain is as follows:

American Fender Telecaster or Gibson SG--> Orange Rockerverb 50 MKII-->Mesa Boogie Cab Clone Amplifier Interface--->XLR into Focusrite 2i2-->Logic Pro X

Things I already do:

-Roll back the gain quite a bit for double tracking
-Double Track and hard pan
-High pass and low pass filters. Hi Pass is usually around 90Hz and Low Pass is usually around 9-10k depending on the song.

My goal is to try and get it right at the source or as close as possible in order to make my mixes have more clarity. I live in a apartment which is why I have to use the cabclone vs the cab to mic scenario.

Any feedback or ideas would be helpful. I just can't seem to get these guitars where I want them to be and it's holding up my progress on releasing these punk rock tracks.

It's the first track on this soundcloud page: https://soundcloud.com/lp63
 
Last edited:
I don't hear the guitar tone being so bad. The lack of a bass guitar backing it up is what I hear missing mostly.

You can surely find one of those around right?

:)
 
It's probably because you've got yer guitar thrust into your groin... that's known to affect sound quality... :laughings:

I'm with Jimmy... nothing wrong with it that I can hear. What is it that's bugging you?
 
I'll add a bass track down on it tomorrow after work.

As for the sound itself, I just feel like it lacks that depth or punch. Or "in your face" tone. It also seems to my ears that it isn't as tight in the distortion category as I would like. I know that I can always tighten my playing and really fine tune the part that is being played. But I just feel like the tones I've been getting won't sit well in my mix and it just doesn't seem right to my ears. Maybe because I'm trying to go for a bigger/wider sound, with a good bit of balls and clarity. And not using a mic/cab setup I know doesn't help.

TLDR: Want bigger/wider sound, more in your face/balls in the guitar, depth, and possibly tighter distortion and am worried about how this will all sit in a mix with the current sound.
 
Why is your first post one huge hyperlink that goes nowhere..? :D
 
I think I fixed it. Like I said this is my first time doing this. I think when I was adding the soundcloud link I did something weird with it and it made the whole post a link to nowhere.
 
pokinatchapunk said:
I'll add a bass track down on it tomorrow after work.

As for the sound itself, I just feel like it lacks that depth or punch. Or "in your face" tone. It also seems to my ears that it isn't as tight in the distortion category as I would like. I know that I can always tighten my playing and really fine tune the part that is being played. But I just feel like the tones I've been getting won't sit well in my mix and it just doesn't seem right to my ears. Maybe because I'm trying to go for a bigger/wider sound, with a good bit of balls and clarity. And not using a mic/cab setup I know doesn't help.

TLDR: Want bigger/wider sound, more in your face/balls in the guitar, depth, and possibly tighter distortion and am worried about how this will all sit in a mix with the current sound.
Click to expand...

I didn't listen super close and I can't listen now, but how do you have the two guitar tracks panned?
 
Well tone has barely any low end but I wouldn't call it bad.
You could add a bass or add low end.
 
It sounds like a great tone for recording. Hit The New Tone thread and see what others are doing! It might inspire your tone.
 
I listened to the one called "punk idea guitar" and a couple of others. Doesn't sound bad to me. What sound are your looking for?
 
I listened to "punk idea guitar", it seemed it lacked some low end, but mostly i felt like I was hearing the strings just like you hear them in an acoustic guitar?

For a punk guitar try to go a bit crazier , do you have an overdrive pedal? Just like the:
Maxon OD808 Overdrive | Reissue Series Effects

It gives you the freedom to give your tone a bit of low end without muddiness (which is the main reason most metal/punk rock/metalcore producers use it).

But please give us an audio sample with a bass guitar in it too.
 
Finally got to add bass. Got a little tied up with things. Just added it to the soundcloud. It adds more meat to the track but I still don't like the guitar tracks overall. :(

soundcloud.com/lp63
 
That's really strange that you heard like you would hear it on an acoustic guitar, since I don't even own one.

Like I said, it's an American Tele ---> Rockververb 50 MkII-->Mesa Cab Clone--->Focusrite 2i2----> Logic Pro X

I haven't had an acoustic sitting around in years sadly. As for picking up a MaxonOD808, it's on the to get list once a few spare bucks comes my way. Definitely something I've been eyeballing for a bit.
 
The problem is that you are mixing like a guitar player [guitars are too loud]. Get the bass and drums sounding beefy first then slowly bring up the guitars to the proper level.
 
Greg_L said:
Get rid of the cab clone, and mic a cab.
Click to expand...

Good idea but it's not necessary to do that, he can create some greater tones than he already has
(no offence OP, I just wanna help you improve your rock tones).

This is a tone I've created with a signal chain similar to this, but in their digital/simulator form: Maxon OD808 -> Peavey 5150 -> Mesa Cab

In this video I used the Maxon OD 808 and 5150 from Amplitube. The mesa cab is free.





If you don't own Amplitube 3 you can get similar results with these free plugins:

Free Peavey 5150 -> https://sites.google.com/site/nickcrowlab/donate (the 7170 is what you're looking for, that's how he named it but it's really a 5150 one)
Free od808 overdrive pedal -> TSE Audio - Software
To load a free cab just get an impulse loader -> LePou Plugins: LeCab2 (VST for Windows)
The Cabinet Impulse: Download Here (I've also included the preset you heard above in case you own Amplitube, so you can import it right away)


As always, consider donating/supporting the developers, they are worth every cent for their hard work :)
 
I guess it wasn't obvious to our recording guru that the OP is looking for a Punk tone and not a Death Metal meat grinder tone.

Hey...I like some Metal (mostly the older stuff)...and maybe this is where Metal tone is these days, with the playing all chopped up hard and turned into little sound bytes instead of actual playing...
...but if my guitar rig made that kind of tone, I would burn the amps and the guitars that made it...or in this case, the computer. :D

To each his own.

:eatpopcorn:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top