Can't achieve studio quality...

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Kyle015

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I am a guitarist in a band and me and my bassist have tried everything to achieve studio quality in our sound. We are going for a hard rock sound. To record guitar, we usually have my guitar plugged in to a GNX 1 distortion factory (a $200 guitar pedal, for those of you who don't play guitar) and then output to a 30W amp. We mic the amp with an Audix i5. Sometimes we have the Audix go to a mixer and sometimes we have the Audix go directly to the computer, it doesn't seem to make a difference. When we have the guitar recorded, it sounds fine on our nice computer speakers, but it doesn't sound studio quality on car speakers, headphones, or home stereo systems. It always seems to be lacking the brightness you hear in professional band's guitar work. Now, we have tried everything to get it to sound good. We have recorded in a livingroom, a bedroom, a garage, and a bathroom. We have messed with mic placement, and we have even mixed the Audix i5 with an Audix condenser mic, but to no avail. Can anyone suggest something to help us out? Much appreciated.

P.S. The sound card in our computer is a SoundBlaster Live!. We are using Sonar 5 to record, if that matters.
 
Audix i5:
Frequency Range
50 Hz - 16 kHz

if you're looking to improve brightness then you need a mic that is flat past 20khz... even my Rodes don't do this... I use a small diaphram condenser (actually a shotgun mic) a Sennheiser ME66K6 because I have i laying around for video stuff... I think Sennheiser makes a less expensive non-shotgun version...


plus you didn't mention what amp with what guitar, etc. I'm a drummer so I don't really know anyway :)

and yes the soubndblaster 5 matters a lot... it sucks.
 
You've actually got a few things stacked against you here. You can't be expecting studio quality out of that Soundblaster card first of all. That is not up to snuff for serious recording duties. Invest in a better, purpose built soundcard. Second, if you are getting all of your sound from that distortion pedal, you could very well be recording a less than desirable sound to begin with. Usually distortion boxes tend to produce a thin and lifeless tone. You may or may not be able to do anything about that. Just know that a big guitar sound usually comes from a nice amp with a fat distortion sound.
You should be running the mic into some sort of mic preamp. Be it a mixer channel or a stand alone pre. You should not try to use the mic input on your soundcard (unless you get a new soundcard with a decent built in pre).
Also, a good guitar recording usually consists of multiple performances panned across the stereo field. Sometimes with performances stacked up with different guitar tones to fill out the sound. It's not a rule, but it's very common, especially with huge rock and metal guitars.
 
I'll also add, how many studios do you know that record guitars in a livingroom, a bedroom, a garage, or a bathroom? How many studios do you know that use Soundblaster cards?

You can't expect to get the Mona Lisa from an Etch-A-Sketch. Your final product is going to be as strong as your weakest link.
There is a reason professional studios use the equipment they do. Your choices are, IMO, to either purchase better gear and treat your room acoustically or pay for studio time.
 
You really need to get some monitors. You have already noticed that the computer speakers are lying to you.

As was already said, there is a minimum equipment and recording space requirement for getting a good sound, you aren't even close. However, keep working with what you have. If you learn how to make passable recordings with what you have, you will be far ahead of the game when you upgrade.
 
bennychico11 said:
I'll also add, how many studios do you know that record guitars in a livingroom, a bedroom, a garage, or a bathroom? How many studios do you know that use Soundblaster cards?

You can't expect to get the Mona Lisa from an Etch-A-Sketch. Your final product is going to be as strong as your weakest link.
There is a reason professional studios use the equipment they do. Your choices are, IMO, to either purchase better gear and treat your room acoustically or pay for studio time.
Click to expand...


Bingo.

Thinking you have it going on because your pedal cost $200 was my first clue that OP didn't really realize what he was up against.
 
I agree of course with everyone who's said that you should not expect studio quality sound when you're not recording with studio-level equipment or experience. However, the fun is in seeing how close you can get with whatever equipment you do have or within your budget.

I would second the recommendation to replace the soundcard. I had a consumer level Turtle Beach Santa Cruz soundcard originally in my computer and swapped it out with an Delta Audiophile 2496 a couple of years back and was really shocked that even I could hear the difference right away. Next stop - my crappy Behringer mixer... :o

Some other tips with the current setup/eq you've got would be:
- play around with mic placement as it can make a huge difference
- play around with amp placement (get it up off the floor and away from walls for instance)
- try pulling back a bit on the distortion as a lot of times you lose a lot of clarity with too much overdrive and can actually get a stronger sound with less
- as someone else said, try layering the same guitar parts, tweaking the sound a bit for each and spreading it a little around the stereo field

Home recording is not a simple "just-add-water" kind of thing where you're producing great sounding stuff right off the bat. It takes time experimenting and making some crap to learn what doesn't work and gradually improving your skills with experience (and of course continued visits to this site). I'm still in the making crap stage! :D Don't get discouraged, but if you're looking for a high quality demo yesterday, then I would second the suggestion to book some studio time.

Good luck and enjoy! :)
-Jeff
 
When i replaced my stock sound card with an echo digital layla, my girlfriend noticed the difference immediately from playing MP3s thrgouh itunes. It sounded like turds rolling around in a dryer in copmparision.

By the way, what you ahve discovered is the home-recording verison of the drug dealer credo "the first one is free, but after that it's gonna cost you". ANYONE can get a microphone and start recording, but if you want it to sound good, you start an endless climb to upgrade your mics, preamps, compression, eq, delays, reverb, every other effect imaginable, converters, recording software, room acoustics, monitoring chain. Every time you reach a plateau, you see faults and start to look at the weakest link, then that shows another area that is weak and so on.

That is why you will often read on these pages that when people post about "my band wants to record..." the answer will be "go to a studio, you wil not save money or be happy with the quality for a demo home recording"

Other than for novelty, home recording for high (not even studio really) quality sound is done by enthusiasts- that is people who do it purely because thye like the idea and the process and the toys.

Daav
 
Don't get discouraged - master your skills at this level and you'll have it so much better at the next.
 
Kyle015 said:
I am a guitarist in a band and me and my bassist have tried everything to achieve studio quality in our sound. We are going for a hard rock sound. To record guitar, we usually have my guitar plugged in to a GNX 1 distortion factory (a $200 guitar pedal, for those of you who don't play guitar) and then output to a 30W amp. We mic the amp with an Audix i5. Sometimes we have the Audix go to a mixer and sometimes we have the Audix go directly to the computer, it doesn't seem to make a difference. When we have the guitar recorded, it sounds fine on our nice computer speakers, but it doesn't sound studio quality on car speakers, headphones, or home stereo systems. It always seems to be lacking the brightness you hear in professional band's guitar work. Now, we have tried everything to get it to sound good. We have recorded in a livingroom, a bedroom, a garage, and a bathroom. We have messed with mic placement, and we have even mixed the Audix i5 with an Audix condenser mic, but to no avail. Can anyone suggest something to help us out? Much appreciated.

P.S. The sound card in our computer is a SoundBlaster Live!. We are using Sonar 5 to record, if that matters.
Click to expand...


It could be in the process of mixing down to a mp3. Make sure your Kbps (sp?) is set above 196 and not like 128, cause you may be losing alot of quality in that conversion. other than that i dont know!
 
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I found an anolog tape recorder in my grandma's basement with 2 mic inputs and 1 output. This might be a stupid question, but could I achieve better sound quality using that recorder instead of using my computer to record?
 
Kyle015 said:
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I found an anolog tape recorder in my grandma's basement with 2 mic inputs and 1 output. This might be a stupid question, but could I achieve better sound quality using that recorder instead of using my computer to record?
Click to expand...
What model is it?
 
I don't know the exact model number but I think it is made by Dolby. I also think it is about 10 years old, but I could be wrong...
 
Kyle015 said:
I don't know the exact model number but I think it is made by Dolby. I also think it is about 10 years old, but I could be wrong...
Click to expand...
Are you sure the brand is dolby? I thought dolby was a standard...
 
If your problem is lack of sparkle, analog tape won't help. It really sounds like a monitoring problem, not a recording medium problem.

Peoples main complaint about digital is that it is too sceachy and sterile sounding, muddy isn't a digital problem.
 
You are probably right, but what exactly do you mean by "monitoring problem"?
 
Kyle015 said:
You are probably right, but what exactly do you mean by "monitoring problem"?
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He means the speakers you mix on suck. If they suck they'll lie, if they lie, they don't translate to other systems.
 
Johnny's right. If your speakers are too bright, your mixes will be dull sounding on other systems and vice versa.
 
He could also be trying to get that post mastered BBE'd and exciter'd to death sound along with stereo imaging handy work. IF that is the case, then you really want to look into mastering which is that last bit of sparkle that is added after mixing.
 
bubbagump said:
He could also be trying to get that post mastered BBE'd and exciter'd to death sound along with stereo imaging handy work. IF that is the case, then you really want to look into mastering which is that last bit of sparkle that is added after mixing.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but mastering something to add sparkle that you removed during the mix because your speakers are too bright isn't going to sound good at all........
 
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