Distant Guitar Sound

[aaronmcoleman]

I'm trying to make an intro to a song sorta like pink floyd wish you were here, where it sounds like it's playing on the radio, and the band comes in to the room and plays along.

I've tried recording the recording coming out of my monitors, but that sucked. Now I've tried boosting the mids a lot and smashing the whole thing with compression and some reverb but it just sounds like a middy, smashed guitar drenched in reverb (hmm wonder why).

anyway, any tips on how to do this in a classy way and not sound too cheesy?

Thanks.

 

[heatmiser]

Maybe run the intro through a cassette deck? If you use a really nice one you might not get enough contrast, and if you use a crappy one you might venture into garbage territory. If you record it to tape at relatively high levels you can induce some compression that many find undesireable (compared with larger tape formats), but I like the effect as it can be kind of old-timey, and it might take you in the direction you seek...just a thought...

 

[Relic1882]

Sweep the EQ to find the frequency that will give you that telephone/radio sound, and pass the lows. You probably don't need nearly as much reverb as you think you do. I'd start with a small amount of reverb and slowly turn the wet up until you think you've gone too far, then back it down 2 or 3 steps from there.

 

[heatmiser]

Sweep the EQ to find the frequency that will give you that telephone/radio sound, and pass the lows. You probably don't need nearly as much reverb as you think you do. I'd start with a small amount of reverb and slowly turn the wet up until you think you've gone too far, then back it down 2 or 3 steps from there.

Actually, that sounds better...and simpler . Go with that.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

Bandpass filter the signal from about 300Hz to about 6kHz for the AM/telephone sound. A little distortion can help, but if you do that bandpass filter it again after the distortion. The higher the low cutoff frequency the thinner it will sound, so sweep it around.

 

[aaronmcoleman]

I have something I like well enough now. I"m going to play with it some more to get a better sound. But basically I cut off below 300hz and above 5khz, and created a bell curve boosting the mids around 1200. Then I smashed it with compression. It came out good enough. It doesn't sound exactly like I envisioned, but it's a good sound so I'll stick with it unless I can get something better. Thanks for the advice.

 

[mjbphotos]

I just read in the Pink Floyd book Another Brick In The Wall - play the part through a cheap radio speaker - that's how they did it!

 

[RAMI]

The EQ method advice is good.

Another good way might be to play the track through a pair of headphones and mic the headphones for that "transistor radio" sound.

But MJB's method is probably the best way, considering that's exactly how Floyd did it.

 

[aaronmcoleman]

alright I'll try the headphones and some tiny speakers. I tried micing my monitors and recording that, but it sounded pretty bad. Trying things out is the most fun part anyway.