Distorted DI guitar

[NewOrder]

I have a tiny fender frontman amp (I am saving for a new amp, but that is irrelevant) and am planning on getting a mic and pre soon. But in the mean time, I tried to record guitar from the headphone out of the amp into the line-in. Its all distorted and crap, even when I turned the amp down, and the volume for the input in the control panel. Then I hooked my discman into the line-in and recorded that and it was perfect. The only conclusion I could come up with is that because its a crappy amp, the output is dirty. Even though, its not distorted through the headphones. Is that what the problem is?

PS: when I get a mic and pre, will the output of the pre into the soundcard be the same way?

Thanks.

 

[alienelvis]

It is what it is. Just because an amp has a headphone out doesn't mean it sounds good. Getting a good direct overdriven sound is not easy. The best thing I've found for this is a line6.

If you could get a good sound with tiny amps there would be a lot more rock stars.

I think though that if your using the clean channel on the amp you could possibly get a good sound that way but only if the levels are set right.

A mic and pre-amp on a little amp could get interesting sounds if you like the sound of that amp through the speaker. Some mics like the standard sm-57 require a lot of volume to get a full sound.
A condensor mic could work for lower volume settings.
Even better use two mics. One right on the speaker and one out in the room (Find the best spot by listening all around the room.).

And you can get great bass sounds direct into the pre-amp(With a compressor in front of the pre-amp if you have one.).

As far as your actual question goes: does your amp have a line out or effects send? If so try these instead of the headphone out.

 

[NewOrder]

And I'm not trying to record overdrive guitar, just clean. and its coming out distorted.

 

[Major Tom]

Maybe the headphone out signal is too hot (powerful) for your soudcard's input and the signal is getting clipped.

 

[mbuster]

I've never been able to get any type of decent direct sound, overdriven or otherwise, without using an amp/speaker simulator. Otherwise, it's like plugging your guitar into the back of your home stereo. If that worked we wouldn't need amps. Another benefit of a simulator, you can easily recreate exact settings without worrying about all the variables involved in mic'ing an amp (not that I'm against mic'ing your amp!) and you can change your sound extemely fast.

 

[charger]

A headphone output is powered... ever notice those little speakers in your headphones? Try plugging your headphones into a "line out" and you will hear pretty close to nothing.

A line-level input expects a certain amount of signal that is pretty darn tiny. A headphone output puts out WAY too much of that signal, probably on the order of 10x or more.