Blue Bear Sound
New member
Minimal signal path is usually a good rule to follow.... don't put anything in the chain unless it needs to be there...
M
Myx62
Member
Have you tried DI with your Digitech? I have a Digitech and get good results from DI and I play the heavy shit. Then I may Mic an Amp for a Double track and then clone a track and spread them out in the Mix. The Bass Mix can make a big difference. You can make a weak rhythm gtr sound Fat with the right Bass mix.
Just my 2 pennies worth.
Myx
Just my 2 pennies worth.
Myx
Disposable
New member
Yeah, I DI with the Digitech a lot... but it takes a lot of work to adjust the sounds to get the sound I want...
Blue Bear Sound
New member
er, yeah..... that's what sound engineering is all about! You think you can just slap a couple of mics up and call it a day?????Disposable said:
G
grinder
New member
Blue Bear Sound said:
Is the distortion buzz at around 4Khz?I thought guitars rolled off more around 7-8 khz but, I don't have an RTA.
P
PsyCoNo
New member
Buy a Fender Cyber Twin and plug that in. It provides stereo XLR outs which feature speaker simulators. IMO it sounds really good and you dont have to worry about miking it up!
Blue Bear Sound
New member
Mostly between 1.5KHz and 3KHz....grinder said:
F
Fusion2
New member
Blue Bear Sound said:
heh, at one time yeah, thanks BB...
Cyrokk
Farce of Nature
http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64239
The post from Pipelineaudio is where you need to look.
Also, if anything in your recording chain allows the use of batteries, then use them instead of an adapter.
Cy
The post from Pipelineaudio is where you need to look.
Also, if anything in your recording chain allows the use of batteries, then use them instead of an adapter.
Cy
C
coplinger
New member
Cyrokk said:
Thanks for that link. I had forgotten about that post. Has that one been posted in the mic FAQ yet?
S
slabrock
New member
Mic'ing an amp for a good distorted sound is not that difficult, making it sound good with all the other instruments is a can of worms. Usually these rules work:
Always use just one dynamic mic (i prefer an SM57 or UnidyneIII) and push it to the grille, about one-and-a-half inches from the edge of cone. Close as you get, because proximity=balls
Use less distortion than what you think sounds good on the guitar alone. It won't stay alone, and it will just sound fuzzy, muddy and eat space from anything else.
Adjust the amp so, that the guitar sounds little brighter than you'd like. Trust me, in the finished recording with bass guitar as its partner, it will sound good.
If guitar still eats up the drive of the mix, roll off everything below 200 Hz. Trust me, i know what i'm doing
Never record distorted guitar D.I. - never. There's an absolutely brilliant album by the Husker Du called 'Metal Circus' - listen to that for what i told you. Brilliant album - all guitars D.I.'d straight to the console thru a Distortion+ and it sounds unbelieveably bad. Brilliant record, though.
Leave out all reverbs, echoes, choruses, flangers... if you want to make a distortion thick, you can stereo spread it with 5-8 ms single repeat delay, though.
Compress the * out of a duplicate track, and place it well below in the mix.
Good luck,
Slabrock
Always use just one dynamic mic (i prefer an SM57 or UnidyneIII) and push it to the grille, about one-and-a-half inches from the edge of cone. Close as you get, because proximity=balls
Use less distortion than what you think sounds good on the guitar alone. It won't stay alone, and it will just sound fuzzy, muddy and eat space from anything else.
Adjust the amp so, that the guitar sounds little brighter than you'd like. Trust me, in the finished recording with bass guitar as its partner, it will sound good.
If guitar still eats up the drive of the mix, roll off everything below 200 Hz. Trust me, i know what i'm doing
Never record distorted guitar D.I. - never. There's an absolutely brilliant album by the Husker Du called 'Metal Circus' - listen to that for what i told you. Brilliant album - all guitars D.I.'d straight to the console thru a Distortion+ and it sounds unbelieveably bad. Brilliant record, though.
Leave out all reverbs, echoes, choruses, flangers... if you want to make a distortion thick, you can stereo spread it with 5-8 ms single repeat delay, though.
Compress the * out of a duplicate track, and place it well below in the mix.
Good luck,
Slabrock
Cyrokk
Farce of Nature
slabrock said:
I'm gonna hafta respectfully disagree on the above. Although I am with you that using all DI guitars sounds dreadful (I suspect Venom did this on Cast in Stone. All the tone is lost in a sea of juiced up gain), the combination of a mic'd guiitar and a guitar recorded through, say, an RP-100 tweaked to the proper degree can yield quite good results.
And coplinger: I don't think that thread is in the mic forum, but yeah it would make a good FAQ.
Cy
P
PsyCoNo
New member
Out of curiosity, how would you guys feel about using a DI with speaker modeling? I suspect you probably dont use it/never will... just an idea. However, I agree with Cy, use both
Cyrokk
Farce of Nature
The RP-100 that I spoke of is a DI with speaker modelling. I assumed that DI was taking something like that and putting it directly into the recorder, with maybe a preamp in between.
Typically, my best sounds are from blending the DI just described with another track using the RP-100 as an effects pedal into a miked tube amp.
Cy
Typically, my best sounds are from blending the DI just described with another track using the RP-100 as an effects pedal into a miked tube amp.
Cy
S
slabrock
New member
Cyrokk said:
Yes, you're right, especially in the field of metal it is a good way to shape those articulate distortions. But D.I.'d distorted guitar, however thru speaker emulation it is drawn, tends to be less aggressive, somewhat 'more housebroken' than mic'd guitar.
And i'm not sure, 'politeness' is an aspect of distorted guitar we'd like. Might as well work the track on nylon-strung acoustic, then
- distortions's got to be mean, sinister and sound loud without swamping the mix, eh?Then again, i have used a Pod Pro in studio several times and probably will again. It was after a sound engineer explained me for the tenth time, that i was a fool to come for a 2 hour session, and spend 3 hours setting up a 1967 plexi-marshall for distortion, a 1970 Fender Princeton for clean etc. etc.
Actually, there's a great way of bringing 'acoustic' back to overdistorted sound, which i love and learned from a Buddy Holly documentary (!). Set up a condenser mic in front of your electric guitar when you play, and record the plectrum hit the strings. Mix in as needed.
There's also couple of great devices, which can be ill-used to bring the grain back to distortion. One is Boss Acoustic Simulator, another is Electro-Harmonix Attack Equalizer. Use sparingly.
Distorted guitars are a serious business for me
Happy exploring,
Slabrock
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PsyCoNo
New member
Cy, I am having difficulty finding an RP-100... do you know where I can locate one? thanks
Disposable
New member
Good luck finding an RP100 that isn't used. U would get an RP300
Or an RP400. I think that those are the newest versions of the Digitech Muti-effects Processors.
Or an RP400. I think that those are the newest versions of the Digitech Muti-effects Processors.
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PsyCoNo
New member
Ahhh, Digitech, I see now. Was the RP-100 a good model? I've dealt with other comparable multi-effects units with only so-so results.
Cyrokk
Farce of Nature
True slab, perhaps thats why I always accompany a DI track with a miked track: the miked track does indeed provide more warmth and attack. Best of both worlds to me.
I've also heard the Buddy Holley technique before. Apparently it is quite common to add the dead but apparent tones of the electric's strings up close. I haven't tried it (yet) but it's supposed to bring back some of the punch.
And yeah, the RP-100 is a great little box for getting some basic tones to work with, but it's not the be-all-end-all of amp modelers, particularly if you are looking for a large number of effects. In fact, I took out all the effects from the programmable presets just so I can get a better handle on the tones. IMO, the presets sound better than the Line 6 Pod presets, but they are still not good enough to stand on their own in direct recording. They sound quite adequate coming out of a real speaker though.
Each newer version (RP-200, 400, etc.) is essentially the same thing as the original with just a few more bells and whistles. I think the RP-200 is the first to come with a volume pedal.
Cy
I've also heard the Buddy Holley technique before. Apparently it is quite common to add the dead but apparent tones of the electric's strings up close. I haven't tried it (yet) but it's supposed to bring back some of the punch.
And yeah, the RP-100 is a great little box for getting some basic tones to work with, but it's not the be-all-end-all of amp modelers, particularly if you are looking for a large number of effects. In fact, I took out all the effects from the programmable presets just so I can get a better handle on the tones. IMO, the presets sound better than the Line 6 Pod presets, but they are still not good enough to stand on their own in direct recording. They sound quite adequate coming out of a real speaker though.
Each newer version (RP-200, 400, etc.) is essentially the same thing as the original with just a few more bells and whistles. I think the RP-200 is the first to come with a volume pedal.
Cy
bongolation
New member
I said the same thing about modelers a year or two ago. Above all else, they're devices for saving time and money in production, and they do that remarkably well. If you look at them that way and spend some serious time at home doinking around with profiles in a computerized editing program (such as J-Station's "J-Edit"), you can eventually catalogue a number of useable basic sounds for your specific personal instruments and really fly when you're in a situation where time=money.slabrock said:
Ideal? Probably not, but it's a reasonable compromise when you don't have an unlimited budget for studio time.