recording distorted guitars?

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tylerxxx

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maybe it will actually let me post this for once...

i can get a good tone out of practically everything i record...vocals, bass, clean or acoustic guitars, drums... whatever. but for the life of me, i can't get distorted guitars to sound good recorded. i've tried mic placement, changed as many settings as possible, no dice.

i'm temporarily using a yamaha aw16g. not the best, i know. but i can get good tones from everything else, so i should at LEAST be able to get a DECENT tone from my amp.

i've tried my shure sm57 and my studio projects B1. at first i just had my marshall vs30r combo, and i figured that it was just shitty so thats why the recording was shitty. yesterday, i bought a jcm900 and a lee jackson 4x12... sounds a lot better but still not as good as i want it to sound.

any advice would be wonderful. save your "use the search, dipshit" comments, please. the search doesn't work for me, i get a little pop up asking me to download something. so please, helppppppp me out.
 
one thing ive learned is that gain is the enemy. just have the gain lower, because it will just naturally become more distorted when you have 3 tracks going at once.
 
what if i'm just recording one guitar? should i record multiple takes anyways?
 
Post some examples of what you are getting, and maybe a sample of what you personally consider to be a good sounding distorted guitar tone....
 
Sounding "shitty" is not a real good description for getting recomendations.

What exactly is wrong with the sound?

If the amp is sounding good in the room, then you record it and it sounds like shit, what is so different about it?
 
let me play with it real quick and try to put into words how it sounds.
 
amra said:
Post some examples of what you are getting, and maybe a sample of what you personally consider to be a good sounding distorted guitar tone....
Click to expand...

+1


..........................
 
argh, i have no blank cd's to burn off of the aw16g and put the stuff on my computer...

i don't know if you guys are familiar with the band NIGHTRAGE, but i really love their tone.

anyways. when recorded - sounds kind of... fake. sounds crunchy (not gainy, just like... crackly) and has no body.muddy. i think muddy might be the best term to describe it. i will buy blank cds ASAP so i can post some clips.
 
Turn the mids up. If it is crackly and muddy, you are missing the mids.
 
I too have had a lot of trouble in the past getting a "good" sound out of my distorted guitar recordings.....

I've finally come up with a pretty reliable formula that seems to be easy enough and gives consistant results.

I use two mics (SM57 at mid cone and 45deg. off axis and an Original Senn. e609 blackface - mid cone, straight on) both are in close proximity to the speaker cab (about 2" away from the grill)

Here's a couple samples of the sounds I'm getting:

These are just short clips demo'ing a few amps of mine....

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=410286&songID=3717011

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=410286&songID=3686877

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=410286&songID=3227060

The first two have a panning technique that I just learned, and which I really like. The Last one is more of a dryer sounding clip, but still pretty decent I thought (??)

Rick
 
Have you tried pulling the mic off the grill cloth a little bit? Sometimes you need to not close mic stuff.
 
I just tracked this for this post.

High Gain Clip

Check my Signature for others. If you find something you like let me know and we can discuss how it was tracked. Otherwise our likes in tone are probably not very similar.

Cheers,
Keith-
 
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First thing... do you have a really happening sound in the room? If you play it live, not recorded, does it sound the way you want it to sound? You can't polish a turd, y'know.

Second thing... do you regularly listen to music you like and want to sound like through THE EXACT SAME MONITORS? Listening to music you love and know well through your recording monitors is how you tune your ears to their foibles.

Third thing... remember you're listening to fully mastered professional recordings on those cds. Raw recordings sound... well, raw. Don't expect completely polished sound at this point.

But if you have all that in mind and it STILL sounds bad, the problem is with the recording technique. Then you can start moving mics, playing with gain, etc. Remember too that guitars sound a lot more distorted through the limited dynamics of a stereo than they do live. On a record, you're not listening to a Marshall stack - you're listening to a Marshall stack being squeezed out of a 5" speaker with a 20 watt solid-state amp made by the low bidder!
 
without trying to get all super in-depth, here's what i would look to first...

1)try backing off the mics a little - proximity effect with cardioid mics will emphasize the low-end a lot more, giving your tracks a muddy tone

2)what's up with the amp/volume relationship? i've noticed that sometimes, the only thing that needs to be done to get a completely different tone is to turn up the gain on the amp, and turn down the gain on the mic's preamp...or vice versa. it seems as thought some mics pick up certain frequencies better at different SPL's, and everyone knows that amps playback different frequencies at different volume levels.

3)i think someone else mentioned this, but give the amp more mids. even better, crank up the presence knob if there is one. i've noticed on a number of occasions that the midrange that one hears from the speakers doesn't always translate well to recordings, and filling out the mids can often help
 
Turn down the gain, turn up the mids, use multiple mics, and record multiple takes (2 or more).

Those things helped me get guitar tones that I like. YMMV.
 
Scottgman said:
Turn down the gain, turn up the mids, use multiple mics, and record multiple takes (2 or more).

Those things helped me get guitar tones that I like. YMMV.
Click to expand...


Without first hearing an example of the tone your getting but don't like, this is great general purpose advice.
 
I just listened to some Nightrage just to get an idea of what you're looking for. Sounds good, as almost everything recorded in Studio Fredman. You know, that's probably an ENGL Savage 120 or a Peavey 5150, or possibly both. The Marshall won't get you close, but you can still get it to sound decent.

I can also tell you that the rhythm guitars on Nightrage are layered at least four times, and the tracks are panned to create a wider image. You can not record just one track and expect it to be in the same ballpark.

To get that signature Fredman-sound you should experiment with two SM57's, one dead on the center of one speaker and one in a 45 degrees angle right besides the first one. They should be close, like half an inch from the grill. It would also help if your cab has V30 speakers. Make sure the signals are in phase, and mix them together before recording. (the two mics should be recorded onto a mono track) You might need to keep the "dead on" mic 20-25% lower to make it sound good.

As someone mentioned; too much gain is the key to a shitty sound. Lower the gain more than you think. If you need a tighter sound; try a Tube Screamer before the amp, low drive/high level, and lower the gain of the amp even more.

Good luck! (And before someone starts to throw shit; YES I've recorded several albums in Studio Fredman and know how things are done there.)
 
yeah, nightrage used engl savages to record, and i'm pretty sure friedman has an engl of his own, which darkest hour recorded their latest album with(also a tone i love).

thanks for the advice, man. i'll try everything i can.
 
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