distortion recording techniques?

  • Thread starter Thread starter xperimental
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xperimental

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I'm in the process now of recording my band for our first cd. We didn't exactly have alot of money but we were able to come up with an M Audio "OmniStudio I/O Delta 66 Combo" for about $400 down at guitar center. Everything sounds pretty good right now, except for the distortion on the guitar. I've tried everything i can think of. Mic'ing the cab on a Marshall half stack, using both the Marshall distortion and a BOSS Metal pedal, sending a line out from the head using both distortions, and plugging directly into the OmniStudio through the boss distortion. It sounds terrible, almost ripped. The levels are fine, and so is the clean tone, the distortion just sounds terrible. When i Mic the cab it sounds really piercing and not thick and has no presence. Can someone please help this newb out?
 
For one thing, you have to aim the mic off center from the speaker cone. The closer to the edge of the speaker you get, the less piercing tone you have.

Also, don't forget to try playing the distorted guitar parts at least twice and then panning them (for example, if you have two tracks of the same part, pan them hard left and hard right). That's how you get the wall of guitars.
 
ok should i set one mic at the left and one mic to the right? What do you suggest for a good distance away from the cab?
 
You also most likely need to use less distortion. Try smoothing it out and then double (or triple or quadruple) tracking it as Whoopy said.

Ken Rutkowski
Outer Limit Recording Studio
 
yea, a little distortion goes a loooooong way when recording. The amount of distortion that you use when just jamming or playing live that sounds good to you will sound over the top on tape. Set your mic off axis of the speaker on your cab and close mic it...wont be so piercing
 
I've had great success by taking the two dist guitar tracks, panning hard left / right, using two different takes (this is key), and slightly changing the dist level and the tone on the amp (maybe have one with a cut mid, and the other with less treb, more mid - just trying to cover the spectrum). Also, try using two different amps, with different mic positions on each...

Going back to the 'key,' I think it's very important to get a modern sounding dist guitar (or any 'wall of sound', sound for that matter) you must use two different takes. The slight variations really spread the sound out, and the panning leaves room in the middle for bass drum, bass guitar, vocals etc.

If you're stuck with one amp, one take - i've done this with acoustic, not dist guitar - I've used a large diaphram mic at a distance (3-4 ft) and a SM-57 up close (<1ft), and then panned each mic pretty hard left / right with different (not drastic) eq settings.

You can really hear a good difference in dist guitar recording technique between two Sublime albums, 40oz to freedom and their last original one, Sublime. Take track no. 2 from 40oz and compare it to pretty much anything hard on their last album. The dist guitar sound on 40oz really bugs me, and I'm pretty sure that it was a solo take, no doubling, panning etc (correct me learned ones if I'm wrong) and then listening to Sublime you can really hear a difference and improvement that I believe is done by doubling and panning.

Dist guitar is a tricky animal, good luck.
 
My experince in micing amps, My favorite technique is 57 off axis and LD condencer 5' away. The amps with 10watts and 8 inch speakers break up at lower volumes so you dont have to worry about SPL overload. disturbing neighbors to get the tone you want.

If you want examples of how this sounds listen to the Led Zeppelin Catalog. Jimmy Page recorded with a supro 10watt.
 
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