I tried doing a search for it, i promise!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Juggs
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J

Juggs

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But i think my interwhinge is borked. or something to that effect.

I've got a simple setup here, behringer mini mixer running into my pc. i've got my guitar running from line out into the mixer, then into the line in.

when recording guitar parts with distortion, i've been told to record clean then apply the distortion after the event. i tried that, but didnt like the sounds that come forth as the generated distortion sounded pretty shitty.

but when i do record using my pedals, i end up with a stack of noise in it, like its constnatly clipping.

i've tried pulling back the gain and seeing how that works, and it does to some degree, but the sound is still there.

anyone have any suggestions on how i should be recording my guitar? i'm fairly new to the whole home recording bit of this, and figured now would be as good a time as any to start asking questions.

thanx
j
 
As far as distorted guitars go, there's really no great alternative to mic'ing a real amp. A dedicated DI box will give you some improvement, and some of the plugins (like Native Instruments Guitar Rig) will sound ok, but never great imho. Recording through your pedals is going to sound like crap, I promise

My experience is that you don't necessarily need an expensive mic for distortion. I'm a newb myself, so don't put too much faith in my judgement, but I've had pretty good results in the past with a $30 mic.
 
Actually...to elaborate....I think you positively cannot beat a microphone and a good amplifier. However, If for some reason you are forced to record direct, you would be better served with some sort of modeler or modeling software. A regular old distortion pedal is not going to sound good direct.
 
well that was another possibility i'm aware of, i just wanted to see if there was any suggestions i could use that involved running direct from teh amp to the mixer.

my only problem with micing my amp, is the excess background noise i've gotta put up with (not quite a studio setup here :P )
 
i think i'll do some of that tonight, when my woman is at work. she's sleeping atm.

tho she reckons she can sleep thru anything - i'm sure mr jim marshall would be happy to help me test that claim ;)
 
There's definetely no alternative to micing an amp,however you can still get decent results using other methods. I record via my Korg AX1500G multi-effects with the various cabinet sims. At first I thought it would sound crappy, but I gave it a try and I'm really happy with it. It's not really practical for me to have an amp mic'd up at the moment so I'm having to do things this way for now. All the guitars in this were recorded in this way. Still needs a bit of mixing, but I hope it can give you encouragement that a decent-ish guitar sound is achievable without the traditional micing an amp setup. For the rhythm guitars I actually ran them through Simulanalog which is some very good free amp modelling/stomp box software. Give it a shot. Like everyone, I acknowledge there is no substitute for amp + mic, however good results are still achievable IMO. :)
 
I too have a reasonable amount of success (well debatable I know but beauty is in the ear of the heholder) going through my own pedal. But I reckon it's pretty much down to the pedal you are using. Some of the stomp boxes, in my limited experience, don't DI very well and perhaps a DI box would be a very good idea. Personally, I use a Boss GT5 for my own guitar and another guy who I record uses one of the Zooms (can't remember which one).

Strictly speaking though, I've got to agree with all those who say "amp + mic" if you can possibly get away with it.

Mind you... even some amps can let you down when it comes to the noise department... again, in my limited experience... may have been my lack of experience when mic'ing the cab. And when there's more than one speaker in your cab... which one do you mic?


andy
 
Synkrotron said:
And when there's more than one speaker in your cab... which one do you mic?
Click to expand...

The best one! :D

There is always a "best one"...if there's not...just mic any of them! :p
 
metalhead28 said:
The best one! :D

There is always a "best one"...if there's not...just mic any of them! :p
Click to expand...

aye... I guess that's where "experience" comes in ;)
 
Google the slipperman diaries. He'll tell you how to find you speaker you need to record.
 
Actually I don't think it's too hard. If there is a better speaker, it's usually more obvious than you might think. At a reasonable volume level that won't deafen you you can put your ear close to each speaker and hear the differences pretty easily. On my cab for instance, there is one speaker that is brighter than the others. It's obvious even from about a foot or so away from the speaker at a fairly low volume. That's the one I mic.

I second the Slipperman suggestion...here's a link to the thread in it's entirety

http://www.badmuckingfastard.com/sound/slipperman.html
 
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