Guitar Recording - Amp Miking or DI?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mish
  • Start date Start date
+1 on the EV635 mic.

Sweet little mic. Easy to get a good sound with.
 
for those who hate on DI tones, go to ultimatemetal.com, head to the andy sneap forum...then to the "rate my tone" subforum

from there, check out any of the clips of the peavey revalver MKIII plug. paired with some good cabinet impulses, it sounds scary close to a mic'd amp.
 
I say that for distortion nothing beats a mic'd amp but you can get away with clean with toneport or something like that.
 
Ironklad Audio said:
for those who hate on DI tones, go to ultimatemetal.com, head to the andy sneap forum...then to the "rate my tone" subforum

from there, check out any of the clips of the peavey revalver MKIII plug. paired with some good cabinet impulses, it sounds scary close to a mic'd amp.
Click to expand...
... until you try to seat it in the mix.
 
haha i don't know man. Check out some of the mixes with the MKIII on that forum. Sounds damn good to me for distortion in general.
 
I think it really depends on what you're going for. You're not going to replace, for instance, Eddie Van Halen's tone on his first alblum with a DI/modeler gadget. At the same time, I think the modelers do a great job of the "nu-metal" sound.
The fact is, it's not the easiest thing to get a truly "great" guitar sound, no matter how you do it. Personally, I don't feel like I've captured a "great" recorded sound yet. Some very good ones, yes.... but nothing like Eddie's sound (for instance), and how memorable those first few albums were. For me, the idea is to have as many "tools" in the tool box as possible, and be able to use them when it's called for.

Peace!

~Shawn
 
Or Eddie Van Halen's tone on his second to last album. God I love that record.
 
I went DI with recording the current band I'm in out of necessity. We wanted something fast that sounded alright and at the item we didn't' have the most desirable amps for our genre of music (extreme thrash with a big of death and black metal no core though :p ). We figured that because we were jsut getting our tone from stomp boxes recording DI through a modeling interface would be the simplest solution. Looking back we really should have used the modeling interface through an amp and mic'd that, as it probably would have sounded better. In the recordings the tone sounded fairly "up front" but it severely lacked the power that really needs to be there in our genre. We're gearing up to record an album and this time around we have the right stuff to do it after having learned from our mistakes.
 
two questions immediately come to mind:

do you have the room to get a 50W tube amp *really* cranked and going? b/c that shit's gonna be LOUD. half of the yummy marshall goodness is getting the power tubes saturating--it's not just preamp gain. 50W of EL34-powered fire-breathing mojo is not for the faint of heart (or the close of neighbors).

and do you have a good sounding recording room? b/c miking an amp in a bad sounding room is a sure-fire way to end up with boxy sounding tracks. especially when it's a big amp and you start talking sound bouncing off walls, creating a comb-filtered mess.

i really don't like the sound of any modeller i've heard/used. some of em are fun for wanking and whatnot, but when it comes time to mix, the guitars just don't sit right. i FAR prefer the sound of a miked amp. but you've gotta be able to get the amp purring and at minimum be able to get the room out of the way.

have you thought about the Fargen Miniplex? it's right in the same ballpark and a fraction of the wattage. and you can always mic an amp for a gig.

a great solution to the "how do i record myself" problem is this:
1. Record a scratch track with the guitar DI'd. I've got a number of DIs, but my favorite is my Countryman Type85.

2. Use a reamping box (i've got a Radial X-amp) to send the DI'd track back out of the computer/tape machine to an amp.

3. Get the amp settings dialed in using the reamped DI track. Once the amp is dialed in, position the mic(s) and get them in the right spots too. remember: often the amp sound that works best for the song is different than what "sounds good" on its own. a mix is the sum of the parts, so get the sounds right at the start (when recording).

4. Either re-record the DI track via the mics as it plays, or run your guitar to the amp and play it again.

Often I'll just reamp and re-record the DI'd track, b/c when recording DI I can worry more about the performance and not so much the tone. Plus, this is a great way to get two different amp sounds out of the same rhythm track--very nice to have a shimmery Fender clean on the left and a Marshall/Vox at the edge of dying on the right. And since it's the same performance, it sounds nice and tight--yet the two parts sound different enough due to the different amps.


cheers,
wade
 
... until you try to seat it in the mix.
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:

again, check out the revalver III clips that people have posted on the andy sneap forum @ ultimatemetal.com

most of them include some sort of drums and sometimes bass as well. i'm not saying that this is the end-all, be-all of guitar tone, but you're just as likely to get a usable hi-gain tone with this plus some GOOD impulses as you are mic'ing up an amp in your bedroom
 
Ironklad Audio said:
:rolleyes:

again, check out the revalver III clips that people have posted on the andy sneap forum @ ultimatemetal.com

most of them include some sort of drums and sometimes bass as well. i'm not saying that this is the end-all, be-all of guitar tone, but you're just as likely to get a usable hi-gain tone with this plus some GOOD impulses as you are mic'ing up an amp in your bedroom
Click to expand...
I won't go into that.

All I can speak from is my own experiences with DI guitars. I posted a song that I recorded all the guitar tracks DI (straight into a Fostex MR-8, using the efx built in). The only negative comments on the track were about the DI guitars. I've recorded other things DI and had similar results: The guitars lack space. They are in your face, and turning up the levels of everything else in the mix gets you clipping. Turning the guitar tracks down and they are lost in the mix.

I even tried to take the guitar tracks through modeling software. While they sound a little better on their own, when I added them to the mix, same result. Too "in your face".

I don't like it, can't do anything with them. But I applaud anyone who can. There is a place and time for DI tracks. I just never found it in my mixes.
 
@ gdavi1; you beat me to the epi valve jr... for the price you cant beat its tone... although lacking in features, it can be modded... if you can spend the $500, the blues custom from epi is also great and much more versatile(although it could use some v-30s)... pure class a & a/b switchable = best of both worlds... or build your own(my next venture)
I also would suggest the senn. e906 for guitar amps. @ $170, its a great mic for the tubes(ill prollie get backlash for this, eh?) and is also GREAT for grabbin that slap off the bottom of a snare... just dont get the e609... its okay but is a little lifeless...
also, Ive had great results using a dynamic( e906 or sm57) in conjunction with a ldc(assuming you have one for vox) a few feet away for a great sound... but we were using orange AD30 and an orange Rockerverb50... I mean, A LOT depends on the room, but just experiment... we all get diff results according to pref, amp, room, guitar, pres, interface, ect. Whatever sounds good to you is whats best.. its all about the music, man... and alot of music nowadays got no soul... so if youre diggin it, ride it.
Beau
 
Get the amp and a 25 dollar Roills Matrchbox DI or something similar

I will break ranks with the crowd here and claim that you WILL get a way way way way way way way better sound on record using the DI and amp sims, but having a real amp is useful for so many things and the DI Im talking about is only 25 bucks and lets you record BOTH amp and DI at the same time
 
I won't go into that.

All I can speak from is my own experiences with DI guitars. I posted a song that I recorded all the guitar tracks DI (straight into a Fostex MR-8, using the efx built in). The only negative comments on the track were about the DI guitars. I've recorded other things DI and had similar results: The guitars lack space. They are in your face, and turning up the levels of everything else in the mix gets you clipping. Turning the guitar tracks down and they are lost in the mix.

I even tried to take the guitar tracks through modeling software. While they sound a little better on their own, when I added them to the mix, same result. Too "in your face".

I don't like it, can't do anything with them. But I applaud anyone who can. There is a place and time for DI tracks. I just never found it in my mixes.
Click to expand...

the main thing with getting a good hi-gain DI/amp sim tone is that you're going to have to do a lot of stuff that you wouldn't otherwise have to with a regular guitar track. hi and lo pass filtering, heavy EQ, convolution reverb with cabinet impulses, and multiband compressors are pretty par for the course...but the point is, it's getting to the point that it's damned hard to tell the difference between a real amp and the sims.
 
Multiple guitar tracks EQ carved to suit & blended.
the one & only time I managed a useful distorted sound was a mic'ed amp with an attenuator so I could saturate the valves & get "that" sound. THEN sorting out the total of EIGHT tracks with EQ, pass filters, panning, some blending & mixing to get a good sound. None sounded much solo'd but blended they did the job.
After all so many albums are made with multiple guitar tracks there has to be a reason for it.
NOT all mind but I don't have an ace producer, superb engineer, top flight studio & THE match of guitar & amp let alone the right mic's.
 
The biggest issue for me, and I'm sure many others, is noise--I can't sit in my "studio" and crank up a guitar amp. I never could, and so I've grown accustomed to modelers. I never use an amp, for recording or otherwise. I did use my old Crate solid state for a distorted sound once on an old tape demo, and it actually sounds good, but I was able to model that sound fairly easily (I know what you're thinkin'--try modeling an old Fender twin, or some exotic thing like an Orange). I haven't had any problems getting the gits to "sit" in the mix, and I'm not EQ-ing the piss out of them either. I suspect this has more to do with psychology (mine!) and nostalgia for pre-digital sound. I'm not saying miking an amp is not the way to go--its the best way to get the tone your after, depending on the type of music you play.
Let's face it, people blend multiple guitar tracks because they can; same goes with vocals, and about everything else. I read where J. Mascis recorded a vocal 70 times or so, and then compressed the sum. Why?! Because he could, that's why. I read where songs (hit songs) have over 120 tracks. You just know that one or two or ten of those overdubbed and processed vocals or guitars could have been safely dispensed with.
To suggest that modelers are good because you can do things fast is not a reason to use them. I used them because I had to, and now I use them because I want to.
 
TimN said:
The biggest issue for me, and I'm sure many others, is noise--I can't sit in my "studio" and crank up a guitar amp. I never could, and so I've grown accustomed to modelers.
...
I haven't had any problems getting the gits to "sit" in the mix, and I'm not EQ-ing the piss out of them either. I suspect this has more to do with psychology (mine!) and nostalgia for pre-digital sound. I'm not saying miking an amp is not the way to go--its the best way to get the tone your after, depending on the type of music you play.
...
To suggest that modelers are good because you can do things fast is not a reason to use them. I used them because I had to, and now I use them because I want to.
Click to expand...
BINGO! A very objective and well-stated explanation, IMHO.

What I have just fairly recently come to realize are that the more one works with a modeler - which often happens out of necessity for many home guitarit/recordinsts - the better their modeling technique gets, and the far better the ultimat e sound they get out of their mixes. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Which sounds more like a Mesa; an amp modeler or a Mesa? The Mesa, of course, will always sound more like the real thing because it IS the real thing. When it comes to modeling, the original will always sound more like itself a model will (duh!)

But I believe it is extremely myopic to say that is the only gauge by which to judge the sound that one gets. The folks most experienced with modelers can and do get some great sounds out of their modelers, many of which, while they might not sound exactly like a (favorite brand here), regularly fool listeners in blind taste tests in thinking that are at least real cabs and not modelers.

So what if it doesn't sound like brand X? In which commandment is it listed that guitars have to sound like brand X to sound good? Where in our evolutionary history did it become encoded that our brains can only repsond positively to sounds that are transduced through a loudspeaker and then back through a microphone cartrige again?

Let's not forget that the guy after which the Les Paul is named perfered it clean and transparent.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
What I have just fairly recently come to realize are that the more one works with a modeler - which often happens out of necessity for many home guitarit/recordinsts - the better their modeling technique gets, and the far better the ultimat e sound they get out of their mixes. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Click to expand...
The results you get out of a modeler have a LOT to do with how well you understand how to make an amp sound good.
I see lots of folks that get terrible sound out of nice amps. So how are they gonna get anything good out of a modeler when they obviously don't even understand how to set an amp to sound good in the first place?
Like any tool ..... it's all about how well you learn to use that tool.
 
Now I caused one massive debate!

I'll go for an amp anyway, seing as I'm going to start gigging with my band soon instead of sitting at home recording. Thanks for all the replies anyway, very insightful
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top