Best way to record metal guitar direct....

  • Thread starter Thread starter Zed10R
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chessrock said:
* There is no Santa Clause. Or Easter Bunny. Tooth Fairy, too.

* If you are an average American, there's a 50% chance that your Mom cheated on your Dad at some point in their marriage.

* There's a 25% chance that you are, at this time, clinically obese.

* And direct guitars just sound like ass. All of them.

These are just the facts. Raw statistical data. Live with it. Deal with it, and be happy. There are certainly worse things that could happen in life.

Well, the first three ARE facts...yes...but the last one is entirely subjective opinion. :D
 
Dogman said:
Just adding to this, cuz I wanted to see some exploding heads and stuff.... :D

You will Sir....you WILL......

I'm not positive about when I will have something to post in the clinic, it looks like I MIGHT be done with my entire album before Christmas....so I should be posting mp3's and begging for punishment around the end of next month....?? That encouraging to me 'cause I've been just writing and scratch tracking this thing for 2 YEEAARSS.... :eek:




Samantha C. said:
I've also had no good experiences recording direct... especially dirt guitar...

Perhaps have a listen to Slipperman's attempt at recording direct , illustrating how it's nearly impossible to get any usable tone - mostly because of the lack of having a lossy system (which all mic'ed cabbies > to pre > compressor > etc. etc. have).

Here's a link: (right click > save target as)

interesting....... I've never really tried to record dirty guitar direct...just full on metal shread or perfectly crystalline clean......
 
Ronan said:
......take a look at the Sansamp as you mentioned but also keep an eye on the used marker for one of the original Mesa Boogie studio pre amps which you can find for less than $350 very often.

Thanks...I try to play through each of those before I decide one way or another. :cool:
 
Chessrock are you always an asshole, were you just born that way? I never said I liked direct guitars. I don't have to be honest or come to any realization, I know direct guitars suck. I was just offering up something interesting that I heard and the fact that it was as close to the real thing I've ever heard. Its amazing that you haven't talked to me one time and you get on this and act like I have no fucking clue what I'm talking about. I respect your opinion but don't be a fucking asshole about it and stop with the personal attacks, I come here for help and to help other people not to listen to you attack other people.
 
jonnyc said:
Chessrock are you always an asshole, were you just born that way?

No, I'm just an internet bully, basically, with big 'ol cyber-balls. Otherwise, I'm kind of a quiet, humble, considerate person for the most part. Most people who know me would corroberate that, I suppose.

I was just offering up something interesting that I heard and the fact that it was as close to the real thing I've ever heard.

And you got my interest on this. I'll tell ya what; If you can post this session you refer to as an mp3, and it indeed does kick ass, then I will stand corrected, and promptly eat my words. In fact, I'll even change my sig line to read: "I'm an idiot, and direct-recorded guitars really can rock balls," and I'll have everyone in the thread give me negative rep points. And I will follow-through on this. Deal? :D

.
 
i'm forced to agree with chess
direct recorded git sounds range form "suck", all the way to "kinda sucks less"

any thing in that range is possible though :D
 
I have the floor POD XT, and it actually sounds pretty good. I actually found the tones I was looking for from a downloadable program for the POD. I actually used the slave out of my amp into the POD and miked the amp as well. You can experiment a lot with the POD XT itself, and then when you mic a cab with it and record both there's a lot you can do with that. -- Beau
 
See you guys are making the mistake of assuming I said it sounded like the real thing. I didn't I simply stated it was as close to the real thing that I've heard, close not dead on. I'll post the song tomorrow, its not a final mix or anything but I'll get something on.
 
I don't know, guys. I don't buy all this shit about tube warmth playing a big role in modern recordings. Tool is a great example. Their sound is STERILE sounding if I have ever heard it. Overprocessed, and industrial sounding. You need a mic'ed tube amp, nicely recorded for what? Only to overprocess it, digitize it and make it sounds sterile?

The same goes for just about any DAW recorded heavy guitar. Once you have it in your PC, it is all 1s and 0s. How can you have "tube warmth" well represented in 1s and 0s? Just about every rackmounted effect nowadays has digital converters in it, and so do a lot of stomp boxes. Is it really THAT far of a stretch to think that you can model an amp, skip those steps and still be not get a good sound? I just don't buy it. Tube amps are circuits, circuits are logic based, and bound by the principles of physics. Now while you can't quantify what a guitar player does, you CAN measure what a circuit does to a signal. It isn't *magic*. Every component effects the signal, and every component will predictably act a certain way in the circuit, within tolerances. Even tolerances can be accounted for. Someday, and it won't be long, amp modelers will be as commonly accepted as DAW's. In fact, the same arguments were made by the hardcore analog people clinging dearly onto their reel to reels. "You'll never get a decent digital recording..", "digital recording will never sound as good as analog.." well maybe not, but it only needs to sound as good as the record buying publics CD Player's digital converters....because anything more won't be heard anyway.

Just food for thought.
 
Direct guitar can NEVER achieve the same qualities as a well mic'ed overdriven tube amp....there I said it.

However, direct guitar sounds can be, and often are, well within the range of acceptance of most music lovers (not necessarily musicians). Also I firmly believe that pretty much anybody that records direct does so due to logistical or practical constraints rather than an actual personal preference, (i.e. - no killer tube amplifier or neighborly acceptance of noise levels). So you can't really knock anybody for that. But I'm still standing by my first statement! ;)

:D
 
amra said:
Once you have it in your PC, it is all 1s and 0s. How can you have "tube warmth" well represented in 1s and 0s?


Wow.

:eek:

That's some great stuff.
 
amra said:
I don't know, guys. I don't buy all this shit about tube warmth playing a big role in modern recordings. Tool is a great example. Their sound is STERILE sounding if I have ever heard it. Overprocessed, and industrial sounding. You need a mic'ed tube amp, nicely recorded for what? Only to overprocess it, digitize it and make it sounds sterile?

The same goes for just about any DAW recorded heavy guitar. Once you have it in your PC, it is all 1s and 0s. How can you have "tube warmth" well represented in 1s and 0s? Just about every rackmounted effect nowadays has digital converters in it, and so do a lot of stomp boxes. Is it really THAT far of a stretch to think that you can model an amp, skip those steps and still be not get a good sound? I just don't buy it. Tube amps are circuits, circuits are logic based, and bound by the principles of physics. Now while you can't quantify what a guitar player does, you CAN measure what a circuit does to a signal. It isn't *magic*. Every component effects the signal, and every component will predictably act a certain way in the circuit, within tolerances. Even tolerances can be accounted for. Someday, and it won't be long, amp modelers will be as commonly accepted as DAW's. In fact, the same arguments were made by the hardcore analog people clinging dearly onto their reel to reels. "You'll never get a decent digital recording..", "digital recording will never sound as good as analog.." well maybe not, but it only needs to sound as good as the record buying publics CD Player's digital converters....because anything more won't be heard anyway.

Just food for thought.


The thing I keep in mind is that modelers are just another tool to get a job done. And I most certainly have heard some guys getting results that do not suck in terms of how good their mix sounds. I don't try to make comparisons between a triple rectifier tube amp and a modeler trying to sound like it. It's not the same and I think we all know that. The modeling technology is improving and will continue to improve. The one thing that modeling can give you is a "different" sound and that is often what I'm looking for when using one. One thing that is important is to get a sound that "works" with your mix and that can take some tweaking of the modeler.

I'm not going to get into a fight with anyone over this but I have fooled a few folks that have said you can't get a good sound at all out of one. But I wasn't trying to sound like the real amp either. What's important to me is the final mix. I don't care what tools I use to get there as long as I've got a decent sounding mix.
 
true, it's not like you can't get a useable sound out of a pod or something like that. it's just that if you're expecting a vox ac30 from it, it's not gonna happen.

i've heard people get some neat tones out of them, but nothing that usefully copied some real git amp sound.
 
Here's my method which gets good results IMHO:

I have a flextone II combo (Line 6) which has a direct out. The rectifier setting is actually pretty thick and crunchy - but the output is low, so I make sure to run a hotter preamp to get a loud enough signal. I pan that to the left. Then I'll actually mic up my real rectifier (rectoverb) thru a mesa 2x12 - and double the part, panned to the right. The 2 contrasting tones sound right thick and muscley.

So, for that purpose I will hold on to my flextone II. I owned a POD II and a Pod XT. I was very unhappy with the rectifier in the XT, which is surprising as it is newer. The POD II rectifier was good but not as thick or real as the flextone II. I sold both Pods and kept the flextone.

I'll post something soon with this method.

Good luck!
 
Hope I'm not too late...

Zed10R said:
I'm going to my favorite cd store this weekend to find some Hypocrisy. "Abducted, you say?? Cool....I'll look for that one..... :cool:
While the above is one of my favs, I gave it a listen on my monitors, and heard some yuckiness (sure it's a word ;) ) going on that I hadn't noticed before. I can only describe it as a certain artificial sounding "fizziness".

So I hope you didn't blow your money on my advice :o
Sorry!

(maybe these guys are right about DI recording... the voices of experience once again have again been validated! again)
 
amra said:
I don't know, guys. I don't buy all this shit about tube warmth playing a big role in modern recordings. Tool is a great example. Their sound is STERILE sounding if I have ever heard it. Overprocessed, and industrial sounding. You need a mic'ed tube amp, nicely recorded for what? Only to overprocess it, digitize it and make it sounds sterile?

The same goes for just about any DAW recorded heavy guitar. Once you have it in your PC, it is all 1s and 0s. How can you have "tube warmth" well represented in 1s and 0s? Just about every rackmounted effect nowadays has digital converters in it, and so do a lot of stomp boxes. Is it really THAT far of a stretch to think that you can model an amp, skip those steps and still be not get a good sound? I just don't buy it. Tube amps are circuits, circuits are logic based, and bound by the principles of physics. Now while you can't quantify what a guitar player does, you CAN measure what a circuit does to a signal. It isn't *magic*. Every component effects the signal, and every component will predictably act a certain way in the circuit, within tolerances. Even tolerances can be accounted for. Someday, and it won't be long, amp modelers will be as commonly accepted as DAW's. In fact, the same arguments were made by the hardcore analog people clinging dearly onto their reel to reels. "You'll never get a decent digital recording..", "digital recording will never sound as good as analog.." well maybe not, but it only needs to sound as good as the record buying publics CD Player's digital converters....because anything more won't be heard anyway.

Hey AMRA, Its clear from you sig that you have a keen interest in direct recording and that's cool, but based on your comments I am wondering if you ever ever recorded with a good tube amp? I do not mean that in a shitty condesending way, but your experience seems to be so radically different from mine. To me the difference between micing a good tube amp and recording DI, or even with a solid state amp is night and day. I would rather record a great tube amp to a 16 bit ADAT than record any amp modeler to a Studer 2 inch machine any day.

One point of disagreement in your argument is that it is not yet possible to quanitfy what a tube does because it is so complex and constantly changing based on internal and external factors. One obvious expample of this is to see how much the sound of a good tube amp changes when you play hard or soft. The sound will barely change with a modeler with the same test. The sound of a good tube amp will change dramaticly just by adjusting the volume knob on the guitar, you can often go from clean to crunch just with the guitar volume knob. I have never found that to be the case with any modeler.

I am not enough of a techy guy to really argue hard science, but as a guy that has mixed several thousand songs it has been my experience 100% of the time that modeled guitar sounds do not live up to the real thing when it comes to getting the guitar to sit in the mix and compliment the song.
 
therage! said:
I have fooled a few folks that have said you can't get a good sound at all out of one. But I wasn't trying to sound like the real amp either. QUOTE]


Bingo!! SPOT ON!! Perfect!! Exactly!! Modelers are tools, just like amps are tools. It is foolish to try and use one tool in away that is better suited for another. Modelers are a dfferent tool with properties specific to them. I happen to PREFER some of the sounds I've heard come from a POD, for example.


metalhead28 said:
Direct guitar can NEVER achieve the same qualities as a well mic'ed overdriven tube amp....there I said it.


You can even say that a well mic'd and overdrived amp will NEVER achieve the same qualities as a well tweaked and set up direct modeler. :p :D
 
Zed10R said:
You can even say that a well mic'd and overdrived amp will NEVER achieve the same qualities as a well tweaked and set up direct modeler. :p :D

You just blew my mind. :cool:
 
I tried EVERYTHING to get good direct sounds for metal/rock.

The bottom line is you need a good amp and a mic.... even the direct out on my Boogie sounds "not as good" as cranking the 4x12, and a little room.

That said, I use Amplitube or my guitarport when the wife is asleep.... but if I want a "keeper track", it's me and Mrs. Boogie!!!!!

Oh... and tube warmth CAN be captured in 1s and 0s... what the hell you think a CD is???
 
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