How to deal w/ guitar distortion?

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mferguson

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How do you deal w/ guitar distortion so that it still has that crunch, but the final recording doesn't sound like it's about to fry your speakers? I'm listening to stuff like Mastadon, & notice they have some kind of polished veneer on top of the guitar distortion (if that makes sense?). The best I can come up w/ sounds like something from the 60's (black sabbath-ish).

Any clues?
 
Mastodon and Sabbath's guitar sounds are most likely achieved during tracking.

One of Mastadon's albums, I think it's Leviathon, has very noticeable clipping, but the clipping isn't accentuated in the guitars themselves, which tells me that no additional effects were applied to bring out more of a sheen in the guitars.
 
1) Most close-up "crunchy" guitars aren't nearly as distorted as they seem. It doesn't take much.

2) Most good sounding "fuzzy" guitars are recorded at somewhat of a distance.
 
So you're saying I need to re-record & back way off the distortion when tracking?
 
"It depends."

When you put your ear right up next to the amp (as the mic will hear), does it sound wonderful - or does it sound like a giant goat pi$$ing in your ear?

If it sounds wonderful, there you go. If it sounds nice from a distance, there you go. If it sounds nice with less distortion, there you go.
 
Combination of layering and backing off on the gain. Layering adds a thickness to the sound, but the more distorted guitars you layer, the more fizzy and saturated the end result will sound, and this will cost you punch and clarity. The counter to this is backing off the gain a bit.
 
mferguson said:
So you're saying I need to re-record & back way off the distortion when tracking?
Click to expand...

Ime, it's all about the sound coming out of your amp. I think there's quite a few tricks to getting a huge sound as mentioned.

Also, Tony Iommi was known for, and tons of guitarist tune down quite a bit these days (sometimes a couple whole steps) to get a heavy sound.

Maybe with the mic sound, record, a di and to re- amp and blend/layer this in as well.
 
If you have different amps that you like, you could also layer with different amps. IF not layering with the same amp will do. You have to be spot-on the guitar playing to make it work.
 
gcapel said:
You have to be spot-on the guitar playing to make it work.
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...and tuning... sometimes with layering you can get it tighter if you don't listen to the guitar your doubling or quadripiling.
 
Waltz Mastering said:
...and tuning... sometimes with layering you can get it tighter if you don't listen to the guitar your doubling or quadripiling.
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Yep, hearing it all can get confusing to the ears and make doubling difficult. So when I'm doubling, I send the first track all the way to the left in my headphones, then play the doubled track while monitoring it on the right. (The room bleed from the amp will get in the headphones, but the separation holds.) Keeping one track in each ear really helps me play 'em tighter. When done, I pan them how I actually want them.

When doing 3 or (more likely) 4 tracks, I make the first one the "master" or template track. After recording it, I send it to the left (as above) and record the second. Then I mute the second and record the third. Then I mute the third and play the fourth. In case my tendency is to drift in any certain direction, that would only get worse if I kept playing along with the "drifted" takes. By always playing along with the first one, the whole set is that much tighter.
 
WhiteStrat said:
Yep, hearing it all can get confusing to the ears and make doubling difficult. So when I'm doubling, I send the first track all the way to the left in my headphones, then play the doubled track while monitoring it on the right. (The room bleed from the amp will get in the headphones, but the separation holds.) Keeping one track in each ear really helps me play 'em tighter. When done, I pan them how I actually want them.

When doing 3 or (more likely) 4 tracks, I make the first one the "master" or template track. After recording it, I send it to the left (as above) and record the second. Then I mute the second and record the third. Then I mute the third and play the fourth. In case my tendency is to drift in any certain direction, that would only get worse if I kept playing along with the "drifted" takes. By always playing along with the first one, the whole set is that much tighter.
Click to expand...

Me likey and use this same techique.
 
mferguson said:
How do you deal w/ guitar distortion so that it still has that crunch, but the final recording doesn't sound like it's about to fry your speakers? I'm listening to stuff like Mastadon, & notice they have some kind of polished veneer on top of the guitar distortion (if that makes sense?). The best I can come up w/ sounds like something from the 60's (black sabbath-ish).

Any clues?
Click to expand...

Is there any way you could post a clip of what you're getting now? "still has that crunch but doesn't sound like it's going to fry your speakers" could be as simple as poor mic position - say, being way too close to the cone, so the signal is all treble-y and spiky.

How are you tracking now? At least two takes, panned left and right?
 
dialing the amp

mic placement

amp choice

speaker choice

mic choice

there's no one thing, it's the combination of all of them.
 
How many amps do you own/can you borrow?

You might try backing off the gain (or 'drive' on your od or distortion pedal) a little and then re-amping through your various amps. It's an easy way to get lots of 'fatness' and layers out of only one performance.
 
Here's probably the SIMPLEST answer yet:

Keep the mics right up on the grill, have the amp Gain down to around a 4.5 for metal and 3-3.5 for rock/indie/pop etc.

Also, turn your Treble/Highs down to around a 3, 3.5 and your mids up to a 7 or 8.

Bass down to around a 4.

<33
 
Grape said:
Here's probably the SIMPLEST answer yet:

Keep the mics right up on the grill, have the amp Gain down to around a 4.5 for metal and 3-3.5 for rock/indie/pop etc.

Also, turn your Treble/Highs down to around a 3, 3.5 and your mids up to a 7 or 8.

Bass down to around a 4.

<33
Click to expand...

Not really. Where right up on the grill? Over the cap, edge of the cone, somewhere in between? What kind of a guitar are we talking? Single coils? Humbuckers? Which position? And I'm sure that works pretty well with your amp, but gain on 4.5 for a Fender Twin is WAY different than gain on 4.5 for a Peavey XXX. And as for EQ, fuck - I've got a Mesa Roadster head in my bedroom right now and a Rectoverb combo in the hallway. They're from the same maker and both Rectifiers, so they share the same fundamental preamp/poweramp design, yet even then the settings I use on one are completely different then the settings I use for the other (the Roadster is way darker than the Rectoverb). Treble on 3-4 might not be bad for the Rectoverb, but would be too dark on the Roadster unless I was using a very bright mic/mic position.

You can't distill anything down to a series of amp settings that "always work" unless you know what amp, what mic, where that mic is, and what pre the guy is using, and even then what works for you or what you may go for may not be the tone he's after, or might sound totally inappropriate in the mix he's working on.

EDIT - not coming after you to be a prick or anything so let me apologize if it seemed that way, but there's nothing "simple" about getting a good guitar tone, if nothing else because odds are any two guitarists chosen at random will disagree on what "good tone" means. Hell, I never dug Clapton's "woman tone," yet thousands of players need to change their undies whenever they hear it. I love the smooth upper-mid saturation of a Mesa for leads; plenty of guys loathe that. It's really personal, and this is even before we get into discussions of what gear the guy has to work with and what else the guitar needs to work with in a mix.
 
the OP posting a gtr only clip example would go a long ways.
 
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1st off, right now I have a Peavey VK100 w/ cab, a Marshall MG250DFX, & a little Line 6.

Guitar - mainly a squier strat.

2nd, another prob is to get the input loud enough through the mic, the sound gets really distorted (and I have probs w/ feedback, etc). I'm thinking now (after reading this thread) that what's normally done is each track is done at a low input level? And after combining 2 or more takes it gets the overall guitar track level up to the right place?

I was just doing line in from amp because I didn't know how to fix those issues. It actually sounded ok when I was playing fairly clean guitar.

Thx for the replies, btw, I really wish I knew a recording junkie irl I could have show me a few things... :confused:


BTW, what's the easiest way to upload a clip for u guys? <-- NM I found a place: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=2053d99cd8bef482d0d290dca69ceb5ce04e75f6e8ebb871
 
hum, that sure leaves a lot to be desired.

did I understand correctly... the gtr is the Amp's line out?

how about an example that's more related to your OP.
 
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Yes, I know. I need help. That's why I'm here.

Yes, the guitar was done from the amp's line out.

That's not me on guitar (I don't play hardcore), so I can't re-record w/out getting someone else back over here to do it, which will take a few days. I can fiddle w/ recording guitar sounds on another project, just playing chords... which is what I'm doing now, but I can't do those technical runs & such to see what they'd sound like.

That was the example I was talking about.
 
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