Clipping while palm muting?

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Guitarfreak585

New member
"Clipping" may not be the proper term, but thats what we used to call it anyways. But whenever I palm mute, certain notes are sending the signal waaay into the red, even if most of the rest of the time its green and barely moving into orange. I've tried playing with the compressor, but it ends up making the rest of the track sound like crap when I finally get it to stop distorting the speakers.

BTW, I'm using the digital I/O input on the soundcard, and the line out/recording port on my amp, on just about the lowest volume itll do. Its just a little Roland practice amp.
 
Turning the bass down on the software's EQ seems to have helped quite a bit so far, and hasnt made it sound toootally dead. But it's still not quite right.
 
Supercreep said:
That soundcard is great........for playing videogames. It isn't designed for recording at all. It's designed for riced-out gaming rigs.

You need a dedicated audio interface, sir.
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Though a dedicated interface is a good idea of that soundcard, I don't think it would fix your issue. Part of the reason your receiving the clipping is because Proximity Effect. The proximity effect is basically an increase in bass and low frequency response the closer the sound source is to a mic. Typically within very close ranges such as an inch or 2.

I would guess that you have your mic right up to the grill on your amp not centered on the speaker code but more torwards the outside of it (where there is naturally more bass response). What you need to do is play with your mic placement. The further from center on the cone you are, the mose bassy the tone will get. Also, what settings you use live are often times not what you want for recording. You may need to turn down your bass EQ on your amp, or possibly turn down some gain.

Hope this helps.
 
Bass is at about a 4, mids at 3, treble at 5, gain at 5, rectifier setting. I'm really not pushing this amp at all. The palm mute is the only place I've got any kind of a spike though. This isnt the first time I've recorded, just the first time I've recorded on my own, and I dont know what I'm doing. The EQ change helped it alot though. Still sounds like I want it to without all the extra noise.

I'm not shooting for professional grade stuff, just dont want the sound to distort my speakers. Then it'll REALLY sound bad when I actually run it through a media player with an eq and bass boost and all that stuff.
 
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Hopefully that means more to you guys than me. But this thing has three different modes for entertainment purposes, gaming, and recording. So hopefully it's not just an average sound card for gaming.
 
c7sus said:
It's a glorified gaming card.
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But even a glorified gaming card should be able should be able to record palm mutes acceptably. I have a 32 channel ADAT-to-firewire converter/interface. And I can record palm mutes. Seven years ago, I recorded straight into the 1/8" jack on the side of a crappy laptop. I could also record palm mutes then.

The problem lies with some combination of tone, volume, and compression. Not to mention the fact that he's using the line out. Percussive styles like palm mutes are much effectively tracked with a mic as opposed to a line out.
 
WhiteStrat said:
But even a glorified gaming card should be able should be able to record palm mutes acceptably. I have a 32 channel ADAT-to-firewire converter/interface. And I can record palm mutes. Seven years ago, I recorded straight into the 1/8" jack on the side of a crappy laptop. I could also record palm mutes then.

The problem lies with some combination of tone, volume, and compression. Not to mention the fact that he's using the line out. Percussive styles like palm mutes are much effectively tracked with a mic as opposed to a line out.
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Right, and eventually, thats what I plan to do. I'm not shooting for a pro grade recording. I'm mainly using this as a writing tool for myself is all.
 
Guitarfreak585 said:
Right, and eventually, thats what I plan to do. I'm not shooting for a pro grade recording. I'm mainly using this as a writing tool for myself is all.
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Yep, and trust me--you can get there from here! For now, is there any you can mic that amp? The palm mute would sound much better that way. Short of micing it, you need to add some compression to tame the hot spots. Also--watch out for anything on or near a harmonic when palm muting-- those will jump out big time.
 
I just dont have a mic at the moment. And really the only way I'd be able to do that i think is to either A: get a mixer to go with the mic to run into the sound card, or B: get an interface like yall are talking about. Either way, I just dont have the cash at the moment. Someday soon I will, just cant right now.

BTW, at the moment there arent any real hot spots, except for where I was palm muting. But I am using a compressor to the best of my extremely limited ability. Just enough to make it sound a little tighter. I dont even know what all the controls mean. And I cant hear a big difference in a lot of it.
 
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If you're using these recordings just for writing purposes, just record at a lower level so the palm mutes dont clip. Then use some compression to equalize the amplitude on the track. You don't need to record "loud" all the time.
 
Try setting you recording volume a lot lower so it doesn"t clip and if after recording you notice that the non palm muted notes aren"t loud enough you can add some compression to make the quieter notes close in volume to the loud notes ......
 
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These are my settings. I'm not recording loud, lol. I'd be recording even lower, but theres a line on the volume where its just barely audible, and where it actually turns on. Thats about as low as it'll go. I'm in an apartment using a line out into the sound card.
 
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