Can't Get Guitar to sound right when recording

  • Thread starter Thread starter Simplex09
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They're the same (almost) - still crazily thin and weedy. Forget the mic swaps, forget the positioning - sort the tone.
Telling us knob positions doesn't help at all. We all, I think, are realising that you just haven't got a good sound in the room yet - so there is no point recording it with cleverness. You MUST sort the tone. I wonder if you're just reluctant to try things, basing your settings on what you read, not hear? Turn the bass up full, turn the treble right down and the mids set to middle. Add distortion to that and hear the difference. remove the distortion and lower the bass a bit and add mids, add distortion - that kind of process. Give it some balls by cutting the top and putting in the bottom that seems to be missing from every recording.

An SM57 vs a chinese 57 is subtle. It can be heard, but it's a tiny difference. Your recordings are always the same - tinny, sizzly and thin. Any changes you make are totally hidden.
Explore your tone - then when it's good, get a mic out.

It is like tweaking the computer in your car for better performance when instead of petrol, you're running it on vegetable oil.
 
rob aylestone said:
They're the same (almost) - still crazily thin and weedy. Forget the mic swaps, forget the positioning - sort the tone.
Telling us knob positions doesn't help at all. We all, I think, are realising that you just haven't got a good sound in the room yet - so there is no point recording it with cleverness. You MUST sort the tone. I wonder if you're just reluctant to try things, basing your settings on what you read, not hear? Turn the bass up full, turn the treble right down and the mids set to middle. Add distortion to that and hear the difference. remove the distortion and lower the bass a bit and add mids, add distortion - that kind of process. Give it some balls by cutting the top and putting in the bottom that seems to be missing from every recording.

An SM57 vs a chinese 57 is subtle. It can be heard, but it's a tiny difference. Your recordings are always the same - tinny, sizzly and thin. Any changes you make are totally hidden.
Explore your tone - then when it's good, get a mic out.

It is like tweaking the computer in your car for better performance when instead of petrol, you're running it on vegetable oil.
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Ok thanks for the advice Rob. I will mess around with the tone see if I can get a better sounding tone
 
Simplex09 said:
Ok thanks for the advice Rob. I will mess around with the tone see if I can get a better sounding tone
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Here is a file I just did the mids are 10 and the treble is 7. I think it sounds better than the one yesterday actually and the sound in the room sounds a bit better less highend. If you wouldn't mind letting me have some advice on it. I'll do some more messing around with the tone.
 

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Papanate said: "You ears must be trashed" Might be more than that? Maybe Simp's hearing is very HF compromised? Thus what sounds balanced to him is "ice pick" to you guys with 20-20 lugs? Even I with very littel past 2kHz find the sound a tad fizzy.

There is an amp maker whose products were criticised often enough in forums for having a rather "dead" sound, no "sparkle". I knew the man who had the final word about all the amp's voicing and he had very good hearing and could pick up on tiny sound problems others missed. When I got such an amp on the bench with the measuring kit, almost always I found the annoying frequency spike and tracked that down to a wrong or missing cap'.
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Dave
 
Simplex09 said:
Here is a file I just did the mids are 10 and the treble is 7. I think it sounds better than the one yesterday actually and the sound in the room sounds a bit better less highend. If you wouldn't mind letting me have some advice on it. I'll do some more messing around with the tone.
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You absolutely must be putting us on. If you aren’t your problems are deep and long - you can’t play for one thing - you won’t get a useable sound if you don’t learn to play.
 
Papanate said:
You absolutely must be putting us on. If you aren’t your problems are deep and long - you can’t play for one thing - you won’t get a useable sound if you don’t learn to play.
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The elephant in the room?

To the original poster…. @Simplex09

Are you a new and novice player? There’s a huge difference between Marty’s tutorial video and your playing.

Yours is choppy, out of time, uncertain and generally sounds bad. And I’m not talking about the tone….. but that’s bad too.
When you click on the distortion, it sounds a little better. Distortion is often a crutch for beginning players because it hides things and gives a false confidence.

Whatever the situation is, you definitely need to get better as a player. Capturing a good tone with the mic is the least of your problems. First you need to achieve a good tone in your hands.

But don’t take that as a personal attack. ALL of us should and can become better players. It’s all about practice.
 
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The time has come to invite another guitarist into your space and have a real second opinion. As in a friend or friends friend who can pick up your guitar and say great tone, or as we suspect, whoa what the hell is going on here? I think we just can’t help because you evade questions and potential solutions and bang on about your new mic positions. Something is wrong we cannot diagnose at a distance
 
Now, I know I mention my son a lot but he is the only 'reference' I have. He spent lockdown time REALLY working on his classical guitar technique. He has found out things like "don't try for speed. Try for precision and the speed will come." Squeaks and fret buzzes are also a sign of poor technique.
The bottom line to all this was, when he picked up his Tele again he realized that getting a good electric guitar tone ALSO needs chops!

Dave.
 
RFR said:
The elephant in the room?

To the original poster…. @Simplex09

Are you a new and novice player? There’s a huge difference between Marty’s tutorial video and your playing.

Yours is choppy, out of time, uncertain and generally sounds bad. And I’m not talking about the tone….. but that’s bad too.
When you click on the distortion, it sounds a little better. Distortion is often a crutch for beginning players because it hides things and gives a false confidence.

Whatever the situation is, you definitely need to get better as a player. Capturing a good tone with the mic is the least of your problems. First you need to achieve a good tone in your hands.

But don’t take that as a personal attack. ALL of us should and can become better players. It’s all about practice.
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Well if I'm completely honest with you I have been playing about 10 years. But actually during 2017-2023 I didn't play at all hence why I don't sound like I have been playing for 10 years. Like I couldnt even hold a pick anymore or remember how to strum lolol. Actually the reason why i stopped playing because I started school so I couldn't keep up doing both started soon from 2017>20. I'm not really looking for lithium to sound like martys video only because its not the riff im looking for. Im looking to recreate the live at the paramount tone/riff bit less bass then Here 11:00 . (E stanard, less palm mutes, (ds1>replaces big muff or russian big muff live).

I also have been having trouble playing because I'm quite busy with work. Somedays I have 20 mins to practice after 14 hour shift which can interfear your playing being tried or what not. Anyways the reason why I mention that because unfortunately to get a good tone you need the amplifier on the dat louder side. Only because I can't play at 2am on full volume. So that's why usually I have often mentioned that I had to grab it quickly before/after a shift. Anyways the reason why I mentioned that because it doesn't matter in this situation because I have hopefully started to be working less hours so hopefully I can work on my tone/playing a bit.

Thanks for your help to get this far actually we have made quite a improvement to get to this point from post 1. I mean we should hsve after like 6 pages lol. I appreciate everything you and everyone else has done for me. Please don't take that either as the wrong way or some information isn't important at all in my post but more of a explanation of everything. Anyways to make a long story short I'm going to work on it a bit in the following weeks and hopefully I can come up with something better.
 
rob aylestone said:
The time has come to invite another guitarist into your space and have a real second opinion. As in a friend or friends friend who can pick up your guitar and say great tone, or as we suspect, whoa what the hell is going on here? I think we just can’t help because you evade questions and potential solutions and bang on about your new mic positions. Something is wrong we cannot diagnose at a distance
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Exactly I was thinking the same thing in the yesterday. Thanks for your help appreciate it.
 
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RFR said:
There’s a huge difference between Marty’s tutorial video and your playing.

Yours is choppy, out of time, uncertain and generally sounds bad. And I’m not talking about the tone….. but that’s bad too.
When you click on the distortion, it sounds a little better. Distortion is often a crutch for beginning players because it hides things and gives a false confidence.

Whatever the situation is, you definitely need to get better as a player. Capturing a good tone with the mic is the least of your problems. First you need to achieve a good tone in your hands.
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Totally agree.

@Simplex09 Watch the tutorial as many times as neccesary. Lose the effects until you can play it cleanly. Work on your timing.

Then worry about recording and applying effects. ?

I had never heard the song...until this thread.

 
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Anyways thanks for your help guys I'm going to do just that and mess around with the amp settings till I get something that I'm happy with (clean) and then work on effects. I don't really know what else I can say other then that.
 
Coincidentally, Nirvana Live at the Paramount is on AXS TV tonight. I was never a big fan of Nirvana, but I have heard a number of their songs (Lithium, Teen Spirit, In Bloom, All Apologies, and a few others).

At least on this concert, the "tone" is just a fuzz pedal cranked to the max. Without the bass and drums, it would just be a "fry your ears" fest. His clean tone isn't really anything special, a pretty typical Fender into a loud amp. It's an either/or sound. Clean or Fuzz.
 
I am not quick to judge. As many members know, we are very tolerant here - you only had to monitor Prime Time to see the result of moderation.
For those of us who were qualified teachers, part of your training is sort of the psychology of how people learn new stuff. Not listening to advice, cherry picking ideas and persisting is perfectly normal. So is being rude. Nobody here has to join in. If you are fed up, stop posting. Our friend is asking questions. We do not know why our advice is ignored, but if this was some kind of trolling, then an awful lot of effort is being put in.

I choose to continue to try to help if I can - but for others, it's totally fine to ignore the topic.

Some of what was posted was quite cutting - we have all been beginners at some point. No need for posts of that kind - I killed them. Back to topic.

While browsing youtube - I came across a video on sennheiser guitar cab mics and in the middle was a mic, slapped on a cabinet for viewers to listen to. The sound was what I expect to hear when I see a mic in this position. Totally different sound to the problem here, but to the OP - can you hear the tone difference?
 
rob aylestone said:
I am not quick to judge. As many members know, we are very tolerant here - you only had to monitor Prime Time to see the result of moderation.
For those of us who were qualified teachers, part of your training is sort of the psychology of how people learn new stuff. Not listening to advice, cherry picking ideas and persisting is perfectly normal. So is being rude. Nobody here has to join in. If you are fed up, stop posting. Our friend is asking questions. We do not know why our advice is ignored, but if this was some kind of trolling, then an awful lot of effort is being put in.

I choose to continue to try to help if I can - but for others, it's totally fine to ignore the topic.

Some of what was posted was quite cutting - we have all been beginners at some point. No need for posts of that kind - I killed them. Back to topic.

While browsing youtube - I came across a video on sennheiser guitar cab mics and in the middle was a mic, slapped on a cabinet for viewers to listen to. The sound was what I expect to hear when I see a mic in this position. Totally different sound to the problem here, but to the OP - can you hear the tone difference?
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Thanks for the help Rob! I'm sorry for any inconvenience if i caused anyone.

I didn't mean to ignore any advice given but to be honest with you I think the problem is sometimes the internet gives good advice and sometimes bad advice. By that I mean a few pages ago you were talking about "you need more lowend" so I got saw in a video "how to mic your guitar cab" to move the microphone to capture more lowend. So I think the problem is I got confused between the mic position and the bass knob if that makes sense.

Do have a question though my solid state ultimate chorus sounds good in the room but when starting to use distortion the volume dropped quite a bit in the recording only.

I did some messing around with the settings turn up and down the settings till i found something that I liked. Even bypass the master volume by cracking it and using the main volume. Here is what I ended up with last time;
 

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Turning the bass down to 5, turning up the mids and then adding treble is a very strange sound - probably exactly what we are hearing. Have you listened to the audio on that you tube video? To be very clear - your sound lacks bass, it has excess treble and the middle is very peaky sounding - probably like a wha wha pedal pressed down hard. Turn off the processing, strum a chord and see what the lowest notes sound like compared to the high ones.
 
rob aylestone said:
Turning the bass down to 5, turning up the mids and then adding treble is a very strange sound - probably exactly what we are hearing. Have you listened to the audio on that you tube video? To be very clear - your sound lacks bass, it has excess treble and the middle is very peaky sounding - probably like a wha wha pedal pressed down hard. Turn off the processing, strum a chord and see what the lowest notes sound like compared to the high ones.
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Ok! I will go higher on the bass and see what happens. Start from 10 and roll back same with trebble / mids start a bit lower and roll to 10

I was watching this YouTube video and he is using a Marshall with a 4x12 cab but he cranks the bass to 10. And he used 3 for trebble because he says he backs it off for recording.

I just like to watch as many videos as I can because it helps me understand how others start to get their tone. Then I can start from there.

So you were saying about to turn off the processing so no pedals? and play the low/high note; so you mean create a sound that's quite low pitched and high pitched? Like Low E and High E
 
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I hope you realize that a) Marshall amps sound different from Fender and Vox (and Dumble, Peavey, Mesa, Soldano, etc). b) different model Fender amps sound different as will different model Marshall, Vox, Peavey, etc. c) changing speakers will change the voice of an amp a bunch d) the numbers on the amp are just markers for you. They are meaningless when comparing different amps. e) studio recordings will usually be different from live concert recordings in volume, equipment and mic technique which makes a difference in the sound recorded.

As an example, when Joe Walsh played Funk 49 live with James Gang, he used Marshalls or HiWatts, or big Fenders. When he recorded the song, he used a 5 Watt Fender Champ with an 8 inch speaker turned all the way up.
 
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