Little help with recordin please?

[Fattitude632]

Ok, having trouble recording my distorted guitar.

My band and I are about to start recording a demo and we need some help getting the distorted guitars sounding good. First off, we have awful gear... here is what we have:

Peavey Predator Guitar
Peavey Heritage VTX amp (130 watt tube amp)
Digitech RP14d effects processor (which we may or may not use)
Tascam 414mkii 4 track
Nady Starpower 9 mic

The guitar, mic, and and 4track arent that happnin simply becaue we are 15 and literally have no money left.

Alright, we've tried a number of different ways of recording the guitar (mic'd, direct through pedal, direct through amp, direct through amp and pedal) and none of them come even close to the tones we're getting live. What are some good techniques or good tips for people in our situation? The problem is that they sound "fake" or "weak"... well its tough to decribe.

 

[norm55]

Well the first thing I would do is upgade your mic.Go with a shure 57 you can get them used for $50 dollars there like the standard for micing distorted amps.

 

[RSMITH123]

You've got to mic the cabinet/amp. What you hear live is what comes from a speaker and if you bypass the speaker, you have a totally different animal on tape. I second the opinion on the SM-57. I have a large band and I exclusively use sm57's on all amps and drums except for the kick.

The #1 technique is trial and error. Keep experimenting and don't give up until you get what you are looking for. I would suggest borrowing a SM-57 from a friend if you can't spring for one, although they are cheap.