Guitar Track too rough

Doug H

Doug H

I'll be there
I've been having a lot of trouble mixing the guitar. As far as I can tell the wav form is too frantic, and with any kind of volume is causing a clipping type signal. I've looked at the wave form up close and it's a little crazy.

I am micing a high gain Marshall, but I think there way to much harshness in the signal. It was miced a little too close to the center tho. I've had the amp looked at but the guy seems to think it's ok, I'm starting to wonder if I've abused the speaker at some point, but anyhow...

This is a piece of the wave form I'm getting at 16 / 44100

Wave Form

The dots are samples as far as I know. Does anyone have the expertise to tell anything from this small sample? and is there any kind of plugin I can use to soften the track up a bit?
 
I didn't check your file, but perhaps your recording the signal too hot at the get go.
OK, I did see it after it became a link. Do you have a shot of the waveform itself, rather than just a trace. Like a sample edit shot showing the levels and such.
 
Here's a shot of a bigger sample.

Zoom Out

This is pretty indicitive of the whole track. The peaks are't clipping, and are most likely 5% or more below 0 db.
Some final mixdown I've done are also well below 0 db.
 
looks fine

i think that basically looks fine...how about an even bigger zoom out shot?

is that a clean guitar or distorted?
what did you mic it with?

honestly it LOOKS like it's been tracked fine. i guess if you really need you can compress/limit it a little bit, but other then that i'm not sure what the real problem is...got any more info?
 
it's distorted, miced with an SM57. Thanks for checking it out.

It's not reaaly the peaks, it's the wave itself is so violent it seems to be stressing the mix with any amount of fader. It did run a compressor against it and it's a little beter.

I'm thinking I may have done something stupid like have the mic actually touching the grill.
 
Have you experimented with lot's of different mic placement. Sometimes it takes hours/days to get that great sound..I noticed with my own recordings that what may sound harsh in one position, will smooth out in another. Of course you could be right about the grill. One thing about micing a 4x12 you can always mic each speaker on the cab using a different position, recording all at the same time. Gives you four different sounds to work with.

Terry
 
Well....question #1 is did the guitar sound harsh in the room before you even recorded it? If you sound source is harsh, your recording will be harsh.

1st worry about having a good sounding guitar, then worry about making a good sounding recording of that guitar.
 
What Chibi asked plus.....

how are you distorting the guitar????

Is it a distortion pedal?????
If so....try another pedal and turn the distortion down.
Try an overdrive instead or a guitar compressor BEFORE going to the amp.

Are you using channel two of your amp????
Try setting the channel drive lower and adjusting with the master volume.

It doesnt look to me like your signal is clipped.
If it were clipping you would see the wave just chop off at the the tops of the peaks.

Also.....what are you using for your microphone preamp????

-mike
 
Channel 2

"Also.....what are you using for your microphone preamp????"

sm57 into a Behringer 802a, which may explain some of it.

It has been a little harsh lately, so much so that I sent it out to the shop. I just got it back and one of the tubes was microphonic and was replaced, it sounds liek a different amp, a million times smoother. The bad tube was a new tesla, I thought microphonic tubes just added a bit of noise and rattle. It's a different brand too (solvtech).

I aslo think I've been riding the treble a little hard, maybe because I usually play with the master set pretty hgih and/or haven't been micng the amp propery.

Thanks for all the reply
 
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