Guitar tone help required…

[Mike_J]

I'd really appreciate any help anyone can give me regarding my awful guitar tone results when recording. I'm trying to get a good general hard rock/overdriven sound. What I'm getting now is generally a flat muddy sound like someone threw a blanket over the cab.

The guitar set up is: Fender Strat, Marshall DSL 50 watt head, Mesa 4x12 cab.

The recording set up is: Shure SM57 plugged into an old 4 track X28H 4-track cassette recorder (using this as a mixer) into the old free Pro Tools version (5.1) on an old G4 Mac.

When recording, I isolate the cab in a large walk-in wardrobe (so the neighbours don't kill me), set the Shure to about an inch from the cab grill pointed at the center of the speaker cone. I crank the amp to about 2 thirds master volume and a bit of gain. I use no EQ, compression, plug-ins etc on anything (a little bit of bass and treble on the amp).

The sound is fine to the ear when playing but the recording process is not reproducing anything close. While the wardrobe provides a "dead" sound, I always though it is better to add reverb, delay etc when I come to mixing.

Pro Tools works fine and the G4 has plenty of power, the guitar rig sounds ok-I'm wondering if the old Fostex is the problem and wondering also if I should be applying EQ, compression, limiting, effects and plug-ins while I am recording. If anyone can point out where I'm going wrong, I'd be grateful.
Cheers,
Mike.

 

[ido1957]

It would helpif you could post a clip of the guitar so we can hear what you are hearing. Are you monitoring on headphones or monitors? What type? ProTools should be fairly transparent but the fostex preamps or mac soundcard could be the problem. What input are you using on the Mac - mic or line? Also what settings do you have for gain/eq on the Fostex? Have you tried recording voice on the mic to see if they too are muddy? The more info you can provide the better.....

 

[marshall409]

try experimenting with mic position. while what you're trying right now is what works for most people, amps, guitars, rooms, and recording chain all vary too greatly to not experiment a lot to get YOUR tone right. the main thing is the perfect position between the cone and the outside of the speaker, generally speaking somewhere inbetween is where most people find sounds best.


sounds like a sweet rig btw.

Adam

 

[TelePaul]

Use proper gain staging when recording - be peaking at between -18 and -12. Try moving the mic back somewhat to capture some ambience.

 

[gbondo9]

Try moving the mic back somewhat to capture some ambience.

mmmmm....closet ambiance.....

I've had good luck pointing my mics off center off the speaker code (so...not right in the middle).
Also - whenever I do "big" rock guitars - I always mix 2 or 3 takes (all recorded somewhat differently) in the mix. Sometimes a mostly clean take will give a nice distortion that "crunch".
Sometime I use my Tele to rock out the other takes and mix that in. The twang adds to the beef and voila!

Just keep trying.

 

[Supercreep]

It may be that the closet is killing your amp sound. Any chance you can play at a lower volume in a space that will let the amp breathe a little?

 

[Mike_J]

Thanks

Thanks for all the responses. I have not got a sound clip I can post sorry, but I will try all the suggestions you guys have posted. Thanks very much for the help.
Mike.