Getting a good guitar distortion sound recorded?

  • Thread starter Thread starter raddo
  • Start date Start date
Longwave I hear you. I am new to home recordgin, but loving it. I have recorded in studios many times in the past as a band member and paid little attention to studio techniques. that is why i am learnign here now.

what i do remember is using the odd little toy here and there for something strangfe and it working.

i remember (about 1994) using the original first Zoom box, which was a little thing looked like a pager(beeper). it had a zillion different sounds on it. most a lot of crap. I actually believe the unit we had was a prototype to the production model that followed.

anyhow the music was rock, and i needed someting odd for the verse. i was always used to running throug an amp and micing it. we instead ran my tele into a y split. one end into an amp which was mic'd and ht eother into the zoom box into the board direct. mixing the 2 signals gave use exactly what we wwanted. would i buy a zoom box. heck no, but it was the perfect toy for that day.

its good to play sometimes. and try the least obvious sometimes.
 
when im recording guitars, i take DI's of some tracks. only if it's a big band and if i have a big production budget. then in the mix, i can sit around, and change amps and see what works best.

a month ago, i was producing a band who were after a wierd sound for the solo. so i took a DI of the guitar, and also mic'd up a mesa boogie stack. then, i played around with the DI. i stuck it through a pod pro on a really thin sound, straight into a 3630 to make it sound reeeeeeally squashed and shite, then into a electrix filter factory, and stuck the "buzz" feature on. got an insane sound. in the end, we got rid of the mic'd amp!

with another band, we had a huge production budget, and they wanted a cool intro to a song. so i bought em a telecaster from the local music shop, got a really long lead, told the guitarist to go out onto the studio entrance and drag the guitar on the gravel floor. i taped the result, and boy did it sound cool. stuck loads of multitap delay and compressed the hell out of it. lol, i was quite impressed!


anyone done any surreal things with guitar setups?
-Romesh
 
LWS. really cool info and experiences. I dont have anything to top that dragging of the tele on a gravel road. dont go over to the TDPRI (telecaster discussion page re issue) message board. they might lynch you. ;~(\) LOL!! Heresy. But I bet it did the trick.

my favorite recording story was that of the 80's hardcore/reggae band The Bad Brains. The singer HR was always in toruble and landed himself in prison. THe band was in the studio cutting the I Against I album and needed him to song on the track. SO they called him up in prison and had him sing over the phone. Killer track too. Works for me.
 
You know that's right...

Never go direct!

Do two tracks: the part with a bassier, blunt tone and a 57 aimed at the edge of the speaker cone and the part with a brighter, edgier tone with a 57 slightly of axis with the center of the cone. You can't go wrong!!!

Not only does this method give your track more life because you did it twice, but you now have more options; Chorus the bright part... Reverb the low part, etc... Hell! Do a third or forth track with different sounds!!!
 
LongWaveStudio said:
when im recording guitars, i take DI's of some tracks. only if it's a big band and if i have a big production budget. then in the mix, i can sit around, and change amps and see what works best.
Click to expand...

That is an excellent idea.

It allows you to audition tons of amps without having to re-record a take for each amp. I gotta try this. Record one dry track and sit for hours tweaking amps only to see which amp/setting sounds best in the mix.

So many guitarists get a tone that sounds great when it's just them, but weakens when combined with other instruments.

Matt
 
Phrophet,

I think you misunderstood me. i mean record the DI of the guitar on a seperate track for mixdown purposes. i dont mean the DI of the amp pre.


BBB,

If it's a big recording, I will take a lot of DI guitars. I will then get my engineer to run different amp config's till we find anything usefull. saves trouble with impatient guitarists who are just used to that one JCM900 marshall stack sound.

BBB, if you're doing the DI thing, make sure you also record the guitarists amp WHILE recording the DI. just incase anything goes horribly wrong and you loose a great take, or you cant recreate his/her sound for some reason.

better safe than sorry...
 
Good point LWS.

However, my current plans are to generate a generic song in a particular genre of music. Then record my preferred drums and bass. Then do a DI of an axe and test various amps and settings to see which ones sit best in the mix.

The reason being is that I can achieve and have heard so many great guitar tones that sound great solo. Unfortunately, these tones sometimes lose certain characteristics when combined with other instruments. For example, a scooped out EQ setting on a guitar may sound heavy by itself, but then get muddied up by the bass and cymbals in a mix.

I actually didn't even consider such "experimenting" when recording others. But now that you mention it, it might be worth a try to use the guitarist's mic'ed cab compared to my own configurations...
 
OK boys and girls ;) Here it is: The ultimate distorted guitar secret, something a whole load of the top players on both sides of the water use, and something they are unlikely to tell you.

The HOTPLATE.

What is it? Well, to explain it the easy way, just imagine you've got your amp, and you could turn everything on 10 (or 11!), to get that REALLY cool distorted sound, but it would rain plaster from the ceiling, the neighbor would blast you with a 12 bore, your parents kick you out of the house, your wife flee to your best friend etc., or something much worse ..... you could even damage one of your speakers.

The hotplate replaces your speaker cabinets, and gives your amp the same resistance normally provided by your speakers, so you can crank your amp (or head with the speakers disconnected), up as loud as you want, without all the palaver, while taking a nice line output from the HotPlate.

For live gigs it also provides you with the best sounding direct there is.

You can find info on the HotPlate here: http://www.thdelectronics.com/products/index.html , they cost just over 300 bucks, the factory is months behind with their production as they are all hand-build, so if you can find them in a store at the moment you're lucky, but if you really want one, I keep 2 new ones here at all time, as I always use them, and every guitarplayer wants to take one once they have used one......

While you look at the THD website, also have a look at the UniValve amp, which imho is THE best sounding and most versatile amp ever made.

Amen, hallefriggerdylujah.
 
the HotPlate....hhhmmm sounds like the ole Marshall Power soaks (or Power brakes...whatever they called em) from the days of yore. They came out about the time Master volume controls came out, if I remember, and the master volume controls where shunned by all "real" guitar players then too. Had one on my Ampeg V4 for about a week...then it just got always left all the way up, after that.

There is nothing like some moving air to get the sound goin'.....but I personally don't dismiss the current stomp boxes either (donning the asbestos suit now!). Shit, my POD sounds great [to me!] ...J- station "solo crunch"...beautiful.. I still say...screw all you purists who think you have to emulate with one of those boxes. Hell, I didn't emulate with my Rat either....and it cut too!

I also don't particularly like the DI scenario to let you change amps at a later date.....kinda like the amp farm deal. too much of the sound of many players, including myself, has to deal with hearing the amp sound at the moment. Not getting Hendrix feedback, mind you...but how you pick, mute strings, sustain, etc. Just screwing around, I've tried doing just that, more so out of curiosity, and never found it really works. The sound may come out ok, but the playing gets compromised, imo. It's like you're just dialing thru sounds on an effects box, after the fact, to me, looking for a solution, rather than having the solution in hand, at first. (yeah, yeah, yeah....I play with verbs at later dates...get off my case!!!)
 
LOL headcase - thats why the plate is so good, its just the head you hear
 
BBB said:

So many guitarists get a tone that sounds great when it's just them, but weakens when combined with other instruments.

Matt
Click to expand...

Makes you wonder how Dave Gilmour got such delicious tone after the rest of Floyd went home...
 
just thought i'd toss in my approach... which seems to yield a very present and rich distorted guitar sound... i had been working at this for a few years as my current living quarters do not allow for a mic'd cab

First, I got the Johnson J-Station... which at first was really cool... but as I got recording with it, and listening to the guitar sound I wanted... i quickly realizes that the j-station was weak as far as producing "richness" its great as a speaker simulator (great modeling on this thing).

Then I got the presonus bluetube mic-pre which has a lot of drive (i mean a lot... more than most pre's). So, now I run my j-station out into one of my bluetubes, drive the saturation almost all the way... and then I insert my 4-band parametric eq (which is also tube-driven)... and shelve off the high end, to take away an remaining "brightness" and to tighten up the low end.

Whalla... rich, warm, natural... ala foo fighters (or there-a-bouts).
 
hey i'm tryin to get a good like distorted sound in like screamo/hardcore songs...kinda like the band bayside if ya know em but any help would be great!!
 
I've been fucking around with guitar tones alot and I've realized a lot. Perhaps this will help someone:

Less gain, more mids, yadda yadda, all that stuff, does not mean that you record with John Fogerty tones for your Nu-metal project. It means to back it off ENOUGH, and add enough! Listen to your amp with a speaker miced on axis in a warm location near the edge. Start with your EQ all at 5, gain all the way up, and when you find the sweet spot with the gain where lower notes (not power chords) maintain definition and are more like a growl than a woof, where you can still hear the pick pluck the string, you're there. Mids are a bit more tricky. I try to the mids to unify the voice of the guitar so that the low E has almost the same general body as the D, so that it sounds focused throughout the instrument. On some amps, depending on the room, I've had my mids all the way up, some places at like 4.

When it comes to actually micing the speaker, to cover more bases and get yourself some natural EQ options while mixing, USE MULTIPLE MICS, but make SURE to check how they affect eachother. In other words, make sure that you don't get a phasey, scooped out, degraded tone when you mix multiple mics together. The sound should improve as you give closeups of different parts of the speaker, not get worse. Try a 57 75% of the way towards the edge of the speaker and another mic pointed on axis with the speaker(not the grill) pointed horizontal opposite of that mic at 50%. Try whatever. Just don't settle and PAY ATTENTION, you'll know when the mics are right. Then during mixing you have two sources to mix with one another before you apply EQ. It'll be akin to having a bass and treble knob and it won't fuck with the sound like an EQ will!

Actually...This is most important.

Don't be lazy. I know how some people are, 'cause was one of them, but just 'cause the guitar isn't made up of as many bits and pieces as the drum kit doesn't mean it doesn't deserve the same attention. I used to be the guy who'd spend an hour micing a drum kit only to throw a mic up without even listening to it when it was time for guitar.


PRESENCE!!! This needs to be said. Presence, when available, is NOT to be treated like another treble knob. Visualize this: If your guitar tone were a person at a job interview, the bass would be the overall body structure (HEALTHY weight, not too fat, not too thin), the mids would be the overall personality and credentials, the treble would be the tenacity and perk and wit, the go-getterness, and the presence would be like a nice suit and haircut. In the right situation, a nice shirt and fitting hairstyle can set you apart from the crowd so that you can be noticed for your personality (which is very very important) Use the knob with your ears. When you have too much, you'll have a thin tone, when you have enough, it is invaluable in making sure that the guitar sounds brilliant and clear even with cymbals going nuts.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top