capturing high gain guitar tones

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custom>standard

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So I want to record some great full, thick, big guitar sounds. I know its not an easy task. So how do I go about doing it with a Carvin Mts 3200, presonus firebox, an Sm57, and the very crappy cubase le?

Share the ways you go about getting your fat high gain tones.
 
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the best way i've found is to go easy on the distortion while recording, and acheive the 'full, thick' sound by layering. so that means record the guitar parts several times over, with different tones, and then layer them together to get a bigger sound. i like to use 2 layers on both the left and right sides, but if i'm lazy, it still sounds pretty good using just 2 separate right and left layers. it's pretty common practice.
 
Put the speaker cabinet on a stool or a road case or whatever you have to get it off the floor and closer to 'ear height'. Tweeze the sound in the room so it sounds excellent to you [and hopefully in some form of context to the music].

Take the 57 and put it in front of the cabinet in a place where it sounds good.

This could be jammed in the grill in front of one speaker... or a foot or two off the center of the cabinet [off the logo plate if it's a 4x12" cab]. If you're mic'ing one speaker remember that the more you move the mic to the center of the driver [toward the speaker's dust cap] the 'brighter' the sound will get. The more you move the mic to the edge of the driver [the surround/outside of the basket] the thicker the sound will get. The more you pull the mic back [as in away from the grill] the brighter the sound will get... blah, blah, blah.

Once you get the guitar so sound excellent with the cabinet off the floor you're 80+% of the way to the promised land.

Your tools aren't the best so while they may be an impediment they will not stop you from getting an acceptable sound if you work long and hard enough to get the tone and texture from the instrument that is appropriate for the presentation of the song.

Best of luck with it!!!
 
Well, you failed to mention the most important aspect of your guitar sound. Your amp. Do you have a decent amp to mic?
 
metalhead28 said:
Well, you failed to mention the most important aspect of your guitar sound. Your amp. Do you have a decent amp to mic?
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+1...

without the tone... it'll be uphill all the way.

a good amp with the right speaker will make micing it a lot easier.

if you can't put up a 57 (I like an i5 better) about 5 inches from the cone center directed there abouts, and get a descent tone, then change the tone coming from the amp. yes moving the mic fine tunes the captured tone, but it's not a panacea.
 
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Woops, I forgot to put that in. I have a Carvin Mts 3200 combo. Its 100 wats all tube, sounds really good and I can acheive the sound I want with it in real life.

How should I eq it? I like a nice punchy bass, and a good amount of mids and highs. So should I just eq like that?

Your tools aren't the best so while they may be an impediment
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If I were to invest in better equipment, what should I get? Better software?
 
If you can, try adding a very short delay in the signal chain. If you can tell it has a delay to it, then it's still too long of a delay.

I know some units come with some basic effects other than distortion settings.
 
custom>standard said:
Woops, I forgot to put that in. I have a Carvin Mts 3200 combo. Its 100 wats all tube, sounds really good and I can acheive the sound I want with it in real life.

How should I eq it? I like a nice punchy bass, and a good amount of mids and highs. So should I just eq like that?



If I were to invest in better equipment, what should I get? Better software?
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Play with e.q.'ing the amp and guitar while you record several tests. It's far better to get the tone right when you track it than to try and fix it later. You can actually kill the tone if you try to "fix it in the mix" later on by overdoing it. Use your ears and test record it first. It will save you massive headaches later on.

You can use all the effects you want going in. Just remember that what ever you record with is there, and if you don't like it, you won't be able to remove it later without retracking. This is especially true of time-based effects like reverb and delay. If you have to use them to achieve your sound, do so sparingly.

One last note on distortion/overdrive: you will find that the amount you use live will often be fuzzy or tinny when you record it. You will have to bring the levels down when you record it. You can compensate some by bringing up the master volume. Just be wary of clipping, especially with digital gear. Clipping is the distortion caused by too much volume overloading your gear.

I know this is a lot to process. Good luck.
 
Search term: "Slipperman". Don't plan on doing anything for about 15 hours, though. hehe
 
Alright thanks for the responses guys, keep em' comin.

I have a question, the headphones I'm using are just regular headphones, and my amp is right next to me when I record, so I have to record something and play it back to hear the tone. Is there any way of getting around this?

Search term: "Slipperman". Don't plan on doing anything for about 15 hours, though. hehe
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What?

Tweeze the sound in the room so it sounds excellent to you
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Hmm, can you explain more?
 
custom>standard said:
I have a Carvin Mts 3200 combo. Its 100 wats all tube
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Unimportant information
sounds really good and I can acheive the sound I want with it in real life.
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All that matters.

You might also want to look into either pulling a couple of output tubes to drop it to like 50w or adding something like a "Hotplate" or "Motherload" to bring down the output volume and control the overall sound of the amp.

The 'Hotplate' is an attuator that goes between the head and the cabinet so you reduce the amount of damage you're doing to the speakers while still achieving your tone. The "Motherload" is a unit that will replace your speaker cabinet and give you a "line level" output which you can take directly into your recording system.

There is another unit from "Palmer" called a PGA-04 that is also excellent for 'speaker cabinet-less' recording [and playing live... there are a ton of band's out there that are doing the "direct injection" thing to 'Front of House' where the speaker cabinets on the stage are basically only there to work as "props"].

Last... this point can not be stressed nearly enough... you CAN NOT perform alchemy with the recording equipment. If the sound isn't there when you go to record it... then it's not going to be "there" when you go to mix. The "source sound" is E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G.

Best of luck with it.
 
Fletcher said:
The 'Hotplate' is an attuator that goes between the head and the cabinet so you reduce the amount of damage you're doing to the speakers while still achieving your tone. The "Motherload" is a unit that will replace your speaker cabinet and give you a "line level" output which you can take directly into your recording system.
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Or you can try a TS-9....
 
Fletcher said:
You might also want to look into either pulling a couple of output tubes to drop it to like 50w or adding something like a "Hotplate" or "Motherload" to bring down the output volume and control the overall sound of the amp.
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That model (Carvin MTS 3200) has a 50/100w switch on the back.
 
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