Recording distortion guitar

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kikling

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I'm having big trouble recording distortion guitar from my grunge pedal, into a fender frontman amp (i know its small, but hey, i heard that practice amps are the best to record) then into a sm57 that goes into a behringer 802a, and out to my computers soundcard. Well i record very succesfully without distortion, just a clean sound. the waves are nice and wavey. But when i turn that pedal on, the wave ends up as a big block that sounds like poop (can't say s-word, my parents are in the room, hey, im 14). Well i tried truning down volume levels, but its nt good because i got to trun down to the point where it records quietly and doesn't give that strong sound that I want. I also tried using that distortion effect on CEP, but doesnt work good. Any suggestion? oh yah, I use a DOD grunge pedal.
Thanks

the kik-miester!
 
my idea.

what ive learned from the past is... once when i was all about the most distortion possible that when recording it sounded like shit, im not 14 nor are my parents in the room. So through trial and error i figure you turn the distorion, whether that be gain, or just "distortion" on some stomp boxes, well anyway turn that down. it will sound way distorted going to tape, or magnetic cylinders if you use computers. that first. then next to do is placement. first remember though, enough lack of distortion to where you will hear the individual nots in the chord, not a muddy "ggrrrcchhaaangg" or whatever.
 
Well i believe its gain and not just flat distortion, because it is a grunge pedal, and not a fuzz box. But maybe, its that im so used to distortion guitar, i could just hear clarity out of my amp with actual distortion on.
PLease more help

and an extra question for dragon:
Why before you updated this board, i was called Senior member. Now I'm a junior member. It's not like I'm in Diapers. I think I earned the right to be a Senior Member, or at least a regular member.
And i dont think i could access you're site by typing
http://www.homerecording.com/bbs maybe its just my comp.
Cool thats all.
 
here's a method that results in a luscious thick stereo sound, but doesn't converge to mono very well.

double track with two mics, one dynamic up close and off-axis and one condenser back a bit, not to far selectively placed for overall tone (check mono here and balance for minimal nasal quality). check with a lot of sample takes before committing. you can use two dynamics, but the condenser gives the diversity in tone.

now track the same part again. treat each take as a stereo pair.

now, on the second stereo take, swap the L<>R and invert the phase for both channels. you can also swap the L<>R by swapping the channels before recording but still invert the phase.

good luck …

Regards,
-kPreston :)
 
Well, i'm recording distorted guitar using a grunge pedal quite a bit.. then again i have a marshall head and a crate cab, so my experiences are of course gunna be a little different (by the way, i've never heard that small practice amps are better to record... high quality combo amps are used often, but that's more because of the high quality sound than the size)... first off, make sure you like the tone before even playing with the mic... playing with the eq on your amp and grunge pedal to get the right sound will save you time in the long run... also, turn that amp up!... you don't have to be at 10 or anything, but i've always gotten better results (in my opinion) when the amp was slightly loud... less distortion than you think is a general rule of thumb... i have no idea why it works, but try cutting down on the 'grunge' control on the grunge pedal (gain) and/or the gain control on your amp... make sure you still like the tone though, just a little less distorted than you expect to need... the sm57 just needs practice and trial and error to get it placed, i usually put it a little bit off center and pointed in at one of the speaker cones to start, and then move it around from there...

good luck,
nosebleed
 
Thanks for the responses. But theres two problems.
sonixx, I don't have a condensor, only one mic, the 57
and skweeks, I use the pedal in the middle of my songs so I need a setuo fir the mic that will work good with distortion and clean sound alike. Thanks. More relpies please.

the kik-miester
 
everything i wrote should work distorted as well as clean... also, you could punch in
 
Not like this is much help, but everything I've heard points to the fact that the DOD Grunge pedal is junk...I've played one myself and I too believe it. It sounds too...fake...and cheesy. Not much warmth, which leads to such a "poop" sound.
 
i don't mind it actually.. it feeds back really easy which can be a problem, but if you play with it you can get some decent sounds out of it
 
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