Can't Get Guitar to sound right when recording

  • Thread starter Thread starter Simplex09
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rob aylestone said:
It's still painful. ALL the energy is in the mid and HF - there IS low frequency stuff there, but it's more percussive than 'note'.
I think nobody has mentioned (forgive me if I missed in it so many pages) that TWO mics interfere with each other - hence why there is a polarity reversal button on mixers and DAWs - the little phase symbol. One way it's thin and weedy with no bass, and the other way they blend nicely. You need to forget recording and concentrate on learning how to EQ your guitar and make playing sound better. Recording only works when you have mastered the sound and created something positive.

Stop buying stuff for the moment - and remember Fender and Ernie Ball make guitars/amps and strings - cables will be made by somebody else. If a cable crackles it is faulty. Do not be taken in by marketing hype. Next thing - do not believe all the stuff on the net about swapping speakers. The improvement this makes is VERY subtle and is a shift in the tone. As you have a sh*t tone at the moment, any spend is wasted until you get a good sound. Only then can you decide if the speaker swap will work for you. The kind of thing you have read is like the car guys - when they swap X carburettor for a different one. Most people don't even know what one is, and these guys wrap themselves around trees when they get it wrong. We just spend the money and often say "damn, I can't here the difference". Two mics is the same. Exotic cable is rarely worth doing. China factories produce whatever their customers want!
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Thanks so I do use softtubes EQ just to monitor the eq while playing I don't know if there is a better program to monitor eq. Yeah i was looking at that at the store there is really lowend cables and better cables. I really didn't want to buy new cables but my cables were from 2016. So the last take was just a sm57 only mic im wondering if its stereo i anciently saved it as stereo instead of mono. Sorry ill read the rest of the message after once i get home and try what you mentioned. Just for reference what would be better eq?
 
Why would you want to monitor EQ when playing? Most appropriate EQ, is what is needed for the song, or genre, or setlist, or ....... Most people being very honest find an EQ setting on the amp that works, and then use the guitar tone range from song to song - only changing the amp when the guitar control cannot do it. I doubt people keep records of their tone settings that would be useful to anyone else. Guitarists plug into kit new to them - maybe provided backline gigs and spend a short time 'recovering' the sound they want, which is always different from the amp's current settings from the last player. This is what you must learn first. Only then should you record. If you are struggling, stop spending and ask a guitarist friend to help.
 
rob aylestone said:
Why would you want to monitor EQ when playing? Most appropriate EQ, is what is needed for the song, or genre, or setlist, or ....... Most people being very honest find an EQ setting on the amp that works, and then use the guitar tone range from song to song - only changing the amp when the guitar control cannot do it. I doubt people keep records of their tone settings that would be useful to anyone else. Guitarists plug into kit new to them - maybe provided backline gigs and spend a short time 'recovering' the sound they want, which is always different from the amp's current settings from the last player. This is what you must learn first. Only then should you record. If you are struggling, stop spending and ask a guitarist friend to help.
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Should trebble maybe like 6 mid 4 bass 5? Sorry not home so I can't go into much detail
 
Ii tried a bunch of ways on random shit. first simple XLR PA outs, then ... 60 seconds of un limited...30 seconds of nothing ............then at 1.15 I when to the limiter. Pushing it against a set range as many ways I could.
 

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LazerBeakShiek said:
Ii tried a bunch of ways on random shit. first simple XLR PA outs, then ... 60 seconds of un limited...30 seconds of nothing ............then at 1.15 I when to the limiter. Pushing it against a set range as many ways I could.
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Nice dirty sound there LazerBeakShiek.
 
Simplex09 said:
Thanks so I do use softtubes EQ just to monitor the eq while playing I don't know if there is a better program to monitor eq. Yeah i was looking at that at the store there is really lowend cables and better cables. I really didn't want to buy new cables but my cables were from 2016. So the last take was just a sm57 only mic im wondering if its stereo i anciently saved it as stereo instead of mono. Sorry ill read the rest of the message after once i get home and try what you mentioned. Just for reference what would be better eq?
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What???
You don’t need anything other than your ears to ‘monitor eq’.
Just turn your damn knobs on the amp till it sounds good.
You’re complicating things to the point of being ridiculous.
We’ve told you time and time again to stop complicating this.
Do you heed any of our advice? Seems not.

I’m out.
 
LazerBeakShiek said:
its kinda complicated? ..
i use only limiter.
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hahahaha

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no more tiny shit..big boy toys!
 
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Listening to lazer’s track abd the OP’s the difference is very obvious. Even the flangy undistorted star5 had balls. Energy everywhere and it sounded well, normal. We cannot fathom what the OP is doing to his chain. He asked yet again about bass at 5, mid at 6 etc, and we have no idea at all? Who knows if 6 is a lot or a little. I just dont think he is listening the same way we are?
 
rob aylestone said:
Listening to lazer’s track abd the OP’s the difference is very obvious. Even the flangy undistorted star5 had balls. Energy everywhere and it sounded well, normal.
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wow! Surely not talkin bout my tracks. it was random. i fool around with it. mix getting closer to ok.
rob aylestone said:
We cannot fathom what the OP is doing to his chain. He asked yet again about bass at 5, mid at 6 etc, and we have no idea at all? Who knows if 6 is a lot
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what cap values you solder in? go small. so knob twist is lightly detailed. not strong to muffled.
 
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LazerBeakShiek said:
hahahaha

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no more tiny shit..big boy toys!
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I notice that you have a reverse positive feedback phaser/flanger in your chain. Do you have any trouble with the mid-low-high parametric EQ after the Bosworth 4-pole filters?
I always had issues with that. I finally changed it out for a 6-bi-pole Butterworth filter made by Eddy Current back in the 40s.
 
Occam's Razor:
"The simplest explanation is usually the best one."
 
Actually, the OP is obviously trying to get Kurt Cobain's tone, which was on the thin side. He's not trying to get a Grant Green or Wes Montgomery jazz sound, or a Jimmy Page, Carlos Santana or Duane Allman rock sound. His last post with the straight in recording isn't too far off the mark of Cobain's clean tone. A touch more bass might get there. Obviously the one thing that he's missing is Krist Novoselic's bass and Dave Grohl's thundering drums. They provide the bottom that Kurt didn't have.

He still needs to work on setting his DS-1. It's just "fingernails on the chalkboard" irritating, and sounds nothing like Kurt's distorted sound. Cobain also used several different distortion pedals over his career. A different pedal might be the quicker way to get to his goal. He didn't use the same gear over the years.

Changing a tube, or a new cable isn't going to do diddly. I have guitar cables that are over a dozen years old. As long as the solder joints are ok, they fine. If they start to cut out, I get the soldering iron out and fix it. My main cable is one built by a friend with a Neutrik Silent Tip plug on one end. He was selling cables many years ago as a hobby. It doesn't sound any different, but it doesn't go BUZZZZ when you try to plug it in.
 
"There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation." - W. C. Fields
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I think we have come to that time.
Miles: Sometimes you gotta say, what the f*ck.
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me: :thumbs up:
 
I have to post this. I've had no troubles recording with this setup. (BTW: This is my analog side.)

On the right is a Peavey RSM 4026 and below it on the rack is a TASCAM 16X08. I use the TASCAM mic preamps to condition the signal to the Peavey. Why? Because the preamps in the TASCAM are superb, and extremely quiet. Moreover, it gives me a significant amount of gain, with a S/N ratio >60dB, (and a Line Out if I want it. It also gives me the option of using a mic for the amp, preamp from the amp and/or both. I can monitor the output of the unit with headphones at this gain stage.

From the TASCAM I run the Line Outs to the Peavey's Mic inputs. This gives me another gain stage. This allows me to essentially fix the levels where I want them without having to worry about the S/N ratio. (I know this sounds redundant, but it really keeps the noise floor very low). The Peavey has a channel strip, pans, 6 AUX channels and 6 Groups. There are also Inserts for each channel so if I choose, I can send any or none of 6 channel to the dbx 266xl compressors. I purposely leave 2 channels "raw". I can also monitor the signal at that point. Even with LED meters, It's good to hear. (I wish they never did away with VU meters ☹️)

The Peavey has Direct Outs and Tape Returns which I send to the REVOX C 278. The REVOX pretty much takes care of itself. The inputs have a "CALIBRATED" setting which sets all 8 channels inputs to a fixed reference (meter) setting of 0dB. There is also an "UNCALIBRATED" function with allows for individual input adjustment. If I need to use that, I did something wrong early on in the gain staging. There is also a headphone output there to monitor the signal at the recorder.

The Peavey has Master outs, which is self explanatory.

I showed just three guitars. Each present different challenges for recording. However, if it's taken step by step, good things result.

No, I will not be posting any recordings, and don't call the number on the For Sale sign. It's not mine and the person on the end of that line is ... Well, just don't call.

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RFR said:
What???
You don’t need anything other than your ears to ‘monitor eq’.
Just turn your damn knobs on the amp till it sounds good.
You’re complicating things to the point of being ridiculous.
We’ve told you time and time again to stop complicating this.
Do you heed any of our advice? Seems not.

I’m out.
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I'm so sorry my mistake! I kept thinking that higher lowend could be gotten by moving the mic away from the center because most of the videos I watched would say for example "You move the mic away from the speaker center to capture more lowend" so that's what I was doing. 🤣 That's why I wanted to monitor it because I was thinking its mic postion for example move 1 foot to the left of the center to boost the lowends. I knew of course of the treble/mid/bass on the amp but I was thinking it was all mic postion lol. Ugh maybe just my brain is tried and not reading properly. 🤣 🤣 My apologies I have been quite busy so I haven't had time really to sit and mess around with the info said back and forth sometimes I can't do into detail about what I'm doing on a phone screen. So I plan to do it tomorrow to just roll off the high/mid/low end until find something that works.

Tomorrow I really want to do some huge messing around with the treble / mid / bass like do the roll down and roll up till I get it right.

So I recorded this audio clip, So I just thought I would do some testing around with just lowering the treble and raising the bass a little. But I got home quite late after work I'm just a bit tried so couldn't focused. So I didn't really have time to experiment around with it so I would say its a draft not complete. To me this sound a bit better but it was just a quick grab and adjust and listen and record. Of course its better than what it started on the first page so thank you for that help!!!

High between 6-7
Mid 6
Bass 5

Thanks again for your help and sorry for my misunderstanding.
 

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