Guaranteed to be a Fun Question to Answer!!!

[pisces7378]

Hey guys,
If any of you are as adventurous as I am when it comes to home Recording, then you will LOVE to sink your teeth into this question....

I am wanting to record some guitar tracks over existing drum, and Bass tracks. I have already generated the bass lines and drum tracks with my Roland JV 1010, using Emagic Audio Logic Platinum 4.6 version. They are perfect. Now I am trying to record the guitar tracks into my Delta-66 Sound Card via the Delta Omni I/O Audio Interface break-out box. (Which is a wonderful little thing by the way). Now here is my problem....

All I have in the way of hardware is...

- 1 Piece o shit no name acoustic guitar,(sounds great though)

- 1 Dean markley snap in Acoustic Pickup

- 1 $50 Marshal Micro-Stack (6-9 inches tall)

- 1 4033a Audio Technica Cond. Microphone.

And that is it!!!

Now if you respond and tell me... "go buy a pre-amp," or "Go buy an amplifier and a Les Paul!" Then I will lose all faith in the adventurous spirit of Home Recorders.

Now the insanity of it all lies in the fact that I want distortion on this acoustic guitar. Now I realize that I will never get a Les Paul's "electric guitar" sound on a no-name acoutic, without a pre-amp. And I am not going for that at all. I WANT a weird distortion. I want people to say, "What the hell made that sound on the guitar?"
Basically what I am asking is...

- How do I play an acoustic guitar as if it were a Les Paul?

I have no pre-amp, and no effects reck. All I have is the acoustic pick up, the Marshal Amp with NO OUT PUT, and the Cond. Mike.

Here is what I was thinking...

I was going to record as usual the guitar parts as if it were an electric guitar. Then I was going to use the Audio Logic Distortion Plug-In's to creat the distortion.

Obviously these "plug-in" distortions sound like Do Do. So What would you guys do.

And COME ON GUYS!!!!!! Dig Deep!!!! I want to see just how creative you guys are. Please don't goof on me and send me some, "can't happen man" response. IT CAN HAPPEN!!!

What would you do. Keep in mind that the budget here is $300. Consider it an excersize. How can you accomplish this with $300?

Pretend it is an ARMY drill. It can be fun.

Thanks Guys,
Mike

 

[Bones]

How bad are your speakers?

Really bad?

Cheep too?

Good.

Record your guitar like normal with the condenser. Luvely nice sound? Soon solved, ok crank your cheapo speakers (if they are) till they distort, record the speakers wiff da condenser, of course you'll need to mute the monitoring on the mic.

bingo!

Tell me how it sounds dude

Bones

 

[lazyboy]

I was thinking record the acoustic direct from the dean Markley, careful not to clip at this point. Pipe that out from your soundcard into the micro or a cranked boombox that's mic'ed that with the condensor. Pretty much the same as Bones' idea, only I'd use the pickup for the initial recording because they sound harsh and ugly to begin with and should break up and distort with more punch.

 

[rjt]

Record the guitar straight and distort it with a plug-in? (Sorry, I play piano and don't distort that [well not too much], so if this is a stupid suggestion....)

 

[Stratamatic]

I have a Sans amp direct box that I use to record accoustic direct. With this thing you can get bluesy fender to hot rodded marshal distortion on an accoustic, you wouldn't believe the heads that turn when I kick this pedal on when playing live. Of course, you can also play clean through it too. It is also a direct box and will bring your signal up to line level to plug straight into a mixer (works great on bass too).

You could use something like this, then if you still wanted to run to the Marshal to get that really ugly sound no problem, go for it. Atleast you would end up with a VERY versitile pedal to use in further recordings that can go from clean to scream and doesn't require an amp. As far as playing an accoustic like a Les Paul, that's easy, Just put lighter strings on your accoustic to facilitate string bending and such and just go bonkers on it. I do it on occaision and it blows people away when I make a accoustic guitar sound like a screamin electric .

 

[pisces7378]

The Spirit Lives!!!!!!!

Thanks guys,
Thank GOD!!!! that the human homerecording spirit still lives, and there are still those creating good music out there with more creativity than dollars. I mean, I am capapble of buying a pre-amp etc... I just don't want to. If I wanted to pay top dollar for everything and produce a top ten album then I would just go to a studio. Thanks guys.

Mike

Dolmetscher Records
Volkart Straße 80 #76
c/o Pichler
80636 München
Germany

 

[drstawl]

POD!!!!!!
Lots of fun.
And it works for doing just what you want to do.

 

[guhlenn]

find at least two crappy dist. pedals (obscure brands are the best!!!) and hook 'm up just plain between guitar and well whatever you're using. This gives utter SICK sounds... it ll be like throwing up after partying 24 weeks in a row drinking liters (europe...) of tequila or other fine drinks...

greetz guhlenn "noise is not my middle name but i sure would like that!"