recording and eq'ing

D

Dubickisbro

Member
So I have recorded a couple guitar tracks with my sm57s through my line 6 toneport and so far every thing I record sounds like absolute trash, If i eq the tracks heavily I can get decent sounds. but is this normal? am I messing something up with my mic placement or my equipment or is it supposed to sound like trash pre eq?
 
eq and other tools are great to have, but no, it shouldn't sound like trash before you get to them.

In fact, you should really aim not to need them.

What gear are you using, from start to finish?

If any one piece of your chain is crap, then the outcome will probably be crap.
That chain includes the room, guitar, strings, pickups, amp, mic, amp position, mic position, amp settings, preamp, converters, interface, and of course, monitoring.
 
Steenamaroo said:
eq and other tools are great to have, but no, it shouldn't sound like trash before you get to them.

In fact, you should really aim not to need them.

What gear are you using, from start to finish?

If any one piece of your chain is crap, then the outcome will probably be crap.
That chain includes the room, guitar, strings, pickups, amp, mic, amp position, mic position, amp settings, preamp, converters, interface, and of course, monitoring.
Click to expand...


to answer your question I am recording with my epiphone Les paul, Ernie ball medium gauge strings, gibson 490r 498t pickups, Fender frontman 65r, sm57 mic, on axis mic position up against the amp, treble and mids on 6 or 7 and the bass around 4 or 5, no extra preamps or converters, line 6 toneport ux8 interface, and im listening to it through my audio technica studio headphones, my peavy pa cabs or my bose computer speakers. and of course doing all my mixing through the headphones
 
Tell us also about the room you're recording in, the exact position and orientation of the amp in that room, and how loud you're playing whilst recording... and also, what you mean by "trash"?

What is it about your recorded sounds that you don't like?

Can you post a clip?
 
Armistice said:
Tell us also about the room you're recording in, the exact position and orientation of the amp in that room, and how loud you're playing whilst recording... and also, what you mean by "trash"?

What is it about your recorded sounds that you don't like?

Can you post a clip?
Click to expand...

im recording at almost 2 volume but if youve ever use a 65 watt fender you'd know that that is more than enough and 3 starts to break things.
I can upload clips but not now due to the fact that its almost midnight where I live, as for where it is in my room heres a picIMG_0105.JPG
 
Define what you mean by 'trash'. When recording electric guitar with distortion, 'less is better', Turn down the Drive/Gain.

Next thing to do is move the mic around. Usually a slight angle partway between speaker center and edge works.
 
Just to echo here, post a clip. Trash is in the ear of the beholder. As stated, I try to get the sound I'm going for at the source and aim at NO EQ. Not that I don't use it now and then but for the most part, I never need it. Let's hear your "trash".
 
OK, there are some things you can do.

First off, the recording sounds bad, we know that.

The amp may or may not sound good in the room, but that almost doesn't matter because your ears are about five foot higher and further away than the mic.

So, don't deafen yourself, but either angle the amp like the top of a 4x12 so you can hear it directly, or get down on it's level and listen.

I don't know if you're recording clean or distortion, but one classic mistake is to set the gain so it sounds great in the room, which is almost always waaaaay too high.
Even as a test, literally half the gain. Even if you think it wont work, do it, record it and listen. See if it gets you closer.

Other than that, just experiment. Keep your recordings each time and label them for reference.
Even have a little drum+bass riff to record over, so your tone is in context.

For example, try
Bridge pickup, mic @ 45degrees, 1inch
neck pickup, mic @ 45 degrees , 1inch
Bridge pickup, mic @ 45 degrees, 2inch
neck pickup, mic @ 45 degrees , 2inch
Bridge pickup, mic @ 90degrees, 1inch
neck pickup, mic @ 90 degrees , 1inch
Bridge pickup, mic @ 90 degrees, 2inch
neck pickup, mic @ 90 degrees , 2inch
There's a lot more stuff to vary than that, but you get the idea.

Also, if you get your post count up, you can post us an mp3 so we really know what's going on, ok?
 
Ok so here's a quick clip I recorded this morning its sounding alot better than it did last night so maybe my mic placement just sucks but it is still no ware near what is coming out of the amp (at least to my ears)
 

Attachments

  • MixTest.mp3
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Track Rat said:
That's trash? Tuff crowd. What don't you like about it?
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no when I was recording last night it sounded like trash, but this sound im far from a fan of, it sounds "tinny" to me, and the bass is going crazy. so i guess it needs more mids? and again the tone I hear doesn't sound like the one coming out of my DAW
 
A bit uncontrolled in level, but that is what compression is for. Trash?, not hearing that at all either. Keep working on it man. :)
 
Sounds more like too midrangey for me.
I loaded up your file in my daw and ended up cutting around 130hz and 2khz.

Add some compression and reverb and voila :D
 
Track Rat said:
That's trash? Tuff crowd. What don't you like about it?
Click to expand...

I dont know if you saw this but its not showing up so im re-posting it.
last night I was hearing trash but I am far from a fan of this, this sounds (to me atleast) "tinny" and the bass sounds too heavy. so it needs more mids i guess? also it sounds no ware near how it did to my ears.

edit:
oh now I see it woops
 
I'd look towards your monitoring situation, that sounds fine to me, but if I had to nit pick anything it would be anything EXCEPT "the bass sounds too heavy" it's also far from tinny
 
A little compression, reverb and Eq boost around 200 and a high shelf for "air" but honestly it didn't need a lot here's what I came up with...



Oh also some widening but only because it was a single track, in a mix it wouldn't need it.
 
Keep in mind that you will also have a bass guitar (hopefully) in a song that will fill the low end, I fell into the trap of trying to make my guitar pull double duty when I first started as well, not sure if that's what you're referring too, but definitely didn't have too much bass in this clip.
 
Pahtcub said:
Keep in mind that you will also have a bass guitar (hopefully) in a song that will fill the low end, I fell into the trap of trying to make my guitar pull double duty when I first started as well, not sure if that's what you're referring too, but definitely didn't have too much bass in this clip.
Click to expand...

Maybe I should take a look at the output settings on my interface, because listing to it (the original) in my "studio" it sounded the bass sounded ridiculous almost like I was playing with a bass player. having just listened to it on my laptop (and the same headphones) it sounds far closer to what I want
 
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