Question from a guitarist

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Taiyed

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I'm having trouble recording my guitar with distortion. I've tried plugging in from my guitar to my effects processor to my sound card and my guitar to my amp head to my effects processor to my sound card. This gives me a real cheesy, staticy, buzzing distortion instead of the rippin distortion i'd get from my amp head and cab. I've tried going from my guitar to my amp head to my sound card and using the amp head's distortion but that sounds even worse. My guitar sounds fine on the computer in all of the above ways if it is clean even with weird effects from my processor. When I mic my amp from the sound card it doesn't really sound that great either. It's as if in all cases there is some low end missing. I was wondering what could be wrong? Is it my sound card? I have a Sound Blaster Live! sound card and maybe that could be the problem. If someone could help me out that would be great.

Thanks
 
If you are basically happy with the clean sound as it is played back on the computer, then you should probably look more to how you are getting the distorted guitar sound into the soundcard.

That cheezy quality you hear is the hallmark of recording directly from an amp head to a recording device. You will never get as good a sound as you would with a mic because the mic is capturing the soundwaves in the air.

What kind of room are you recording the amp head in? Is it a closet or a more open room? What kind of mic are you using and how are you pointing it to the amp? What kind of amp are you using? What kind of guitar?

Cy
 
Here are my too suggestions..

1) When you are running directly out of the amp into the card your going to need some sort of balanced out such as a preamp out on the amp or a direct out.

2)If your micing it and your soundcard doesn't have preamps whichi doubt that one does, then you need to run into and out board pre before running into the sound card.

Hope this helps...
 
what software are you using?

what software/multitracker etc.. are you recording with? is you processor maxing out? is the distortion causing the levels to "peak"?
also, ive notice that cutting back the distortion for recordings brings out a closer sound to my live(not recording) sound.
 
The most important part of a guitar sound is the speaker.

Guitar speakers drop off in frequency response very quickly at about 4 khz. The best guitar amp in the world will sound like pure shit going through a full range speaker, ESPECIALLY when distorted. That's what speaker/cabinet simulators are all about. The simplest ones are just EQs that give a little bump in the mids and roll of the highs severely. Also, when speakers are driven hard, they add their own distortion and compression which is very important to the sound of a lot of good amps. Speakers are an inductive load which means they respond to signal from the amp, and also affect the amp, differently at different frequencies.
A Gorrila amp driving an old jensen well worn P12n will sound better than the best Marshall,Fender, whatever driving a crap speaker anyday. If you are going to record direct, you need some sort of speaker simulation or EQ unless you're going for an odd sound. Also, if you didn't already know, if your amp's a tube amp, it's very bad for it to play it without a speaker or dummy load hooked up. It can blow the output transformer or tubes.

Ptron
 
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<<What kind of room are you recording the amp head in? Is it a closet or a more open room? What kind of mic are you using and how are you pointing it to the amp? What kind of amp are you using? What kind of guitar?>>

I'm recording it in a generally open room...but i do have a closet available if that would be better. I'm using a pretty shady mic from my closet (that could be a big problem). I have the mic pointed directly at the top left speaker of the cab. I use a crate excalibur head, a general crate 4x12 cab, Boss effects processor and a PRS Custom 24 Guitar. That rig sounds fantastic live. I play mostly prog metal, so I'm crazy about my distortion sound. I have never found a way to get it decently recorded.

I've tried using the amp simulator on my Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 and had fairly decent results. I may have to fool around with it more once I get back from work. My problem with that is that it's an after effect in that I have to apply it to the shitty sounding recording. I was wondering if there was possibly a better amp simulator plugin that i could for cakewalk or if there is one that would work in realtime as I'm recording. Or possibly that is not a good way to go at this at all. I'm confused hehe
 
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