Guitar sound need help!

L

LTG

New member
I have been working with my friends band trying to record his guitar sound but I
can't capture it. I'm a beginner, so please help. He is looking for a Blink 182/ New
Found Glory/ Green Day type of sound. I'm recording the guitar with a shure sm57
through a mixing board and into computer. Please listen and tell me what to do?
Listen at:
 
I'm no authority on Blink 182 (or recording) and don't track into a computer, but I'd work on the amp/guitar tones and mic placement primarily and then move on to eq and such later.

It sounds really canned to me, but I've got a head cold. What are the surroundings? I've got an amp stuck into a large wooden cabinet that sounds great until you try to record it. It sounds a lot like that, but not nearly as clear!
 
Get him a tiny amp and crank it all the way. Dont use any
kind of distortion , amp or outboard, then go from there.
A tiny amp, not more than 15 watts top, go dry and use outboard effects later, feed him effects back in the headphone monitor mix if he wants them but dont mix it to disc. Use quality effects and good cables.
 
Thanks for the replies. Ok, we had been using a crate amp, but i'll try recording a small fender practice amp we have. What kind of outboard effects would I use? I record in a carpeted small room. I can record guitar clean fine, but when I add distortion from the amps it doesn't capture the sound.
 
If you use the tiny amp and saturate the power output tubes
you should be able to get a real nice distortion, ( I am assuming a tube amp here) not box distortion, or preamp circuitry distortion, nice power output saturation without
blowing your ears off. Any quality guitar effects should work but if you have recording quality outboard effects, reverbs, delays, chorus, flange, etc I would feed the guitar
player what he wants with that in the headphone mix but not to the main mix , and add it later if possible, you never know whats going to sound best and should leave yourself the most room to work with, try leaving the eq flat to the recording and add that later also but feed the guitar player
what he wants so he is comfortalbe and able to play at ease.
What he wants to hear is not necessarily the best recording
situation? If any of this makes sense I am amazed. If you are not sure how to do any of this we are probably in the same boat so ask if you are in need.
 
I hear great sound coming from the amp it's just not sounding good on recording. How would a small tube amp help the problem? I figure the problem could be maybe my A/D converters or the delay effect I used to make the sound more stereo? But we don't want to record a clean tone, we want distorted guitar.
 
First, it sounds like there is a short delay on there with the feedback turned to high. There's also a bit of a flange sound to it. I'm guessing the sound is a patch from an "all in one" type stomp box. Either get rid of it completely, or turn off everything in the patch except your dist/od and noise gate (although I'd just use the Crate straight, they sound alright). You never want extraneous effects on the original track. You can add them later, but you can't take them off if you tracked that way. Always keep the amp master around 4-7, and don't leave the gain on full (maybe 6 or so). The higher the gain the more phoney it'll sound.

Second, it sounds like the mic is 90-degress to the speaker. Have it angled closer to a 45 so it's catching more of the side of the cone. A second mic 5-10 feet back helps get a more a natural sound.

Third, ignore how it sounds in the room. What sounds good in a room often sounds like crap tracked. Also, add a compressor with a medium length attack setting, just keep the ratio down 2-3:1.

Hope this helps.
Jeff
 
blink 182 sound with a crate amp? that IS hard. rent a mesa for a few days...

greetz guhlenn
 
here's a couple ways to add bigness:

at a minimum double track. it takes a lot longer, but it sounds a lot better

add a bit of 2/3 tempo delay. (depending on song type)

add a real short reverb, select a drum room type. experiment with rolling off the low end of a totally wet reverb signal, and then mix this back with the original.

remove some of the low end of the dist gtr

experiment removing some frequencies between 200 and 800.

start with a good tone...

-kp-
 
The best amp for what you want to accomplish is a line 6...spider,flextone.all line 6 amps have direct line in.you won't need to mic the amp.This amp has so many different amp models,effects etc.The amp is digital,and it will record perfectly to a home recording pc.Another option is a line 6 "pod".Ican record "direct" into a stereo reciever,into a tape deck with my line 6,and it sounds sweet!If you need more info,e-mail me,or if you want to hear some samples,just go to a search engine and type in line 6 pod web ring.You will find sample that you can listen to...you'll like what ya hear!...good luck
 
Give us some specifics of what's missing from the recorded sound vs the live sound, for example is it too trebly, too dry, too distorted, not distorted enough, not big enough, not processed enough, etc. Also, are you listening to the guitar sound just by itself, or in the context of a mix?
 
Use your ears, get down in front of the amp and listen to it from the spot where the mic is, I bet it sounds totally different, tweak the amp till it sounds good when your ear is in line with the speaker, then move around till you find the spot where it sounds the best and put the mic there. Watch your ears of course.
 
The guitar sound you have would be quite suitable for a Blink 182 type endeavor. Justa few thigns you have to do. Firstly, don't judge the sound until you put it into a full mix. Secondly, double it. At least, maybe quadruple it. The guitarist sounds like he might be capabvle of this, he seems to have some sort of rythym, just have him get 2 takes of the same thing perfect and pan one hard left, one hard right. The sound will fill out like you don't believe. Thirdly, don't judge the sound until you put it into a full mix. Something that might sound bad on its own could sound good when mixed with some bass and drums.
Jake
 
I'm surprised nobody said that earlier. Get some other instruments in there and it will sound good. You won't believe some of the awful weak and pathetic sounding guitar tracks i have in some of my songs which have a large powerful sound overall when there is 4 of them or so. There is a lt of guitar tone perfectionists that won't stop untill it perfectly ideal, fuck that go an make some toons .just go add the other bits in and it'll be cool, yeah?

Ta
Nick
 
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