Recording Guitar

[Pinny]

Hello! I am trying to record a demo at home for our band.
But when I record guitars with distortion, they sound really muddy.
Like a lot of noise, but it's not very clear what they are doing.
I'm using an Epiphone Les Paul Custom guitar, plugged into a RP50 modeling guitar processor by Digitech, plugged into an Edirol UA25 audio interface, plugged into my pc... hehe. So I'm wondering, is it just my crappy distortion effect on my guitar processor? Do I need to add some plugin on my DAW? (Using SONAR 7 by the way) Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[Richard Monroe]

You have 2 issues. One is just the fact that you are going direct, which in spite of what the purists will tell you, doesn't *always* suck. The other is possibly a mixing issue. Often when the mix is filled in, you have to use less distortion. Not unlike the fact that your voice sounds different to you when you hear it recorded (you're listening to yourself through this bag of water and smoked ham you call your head). what you hear when tracking with headphones is not what you hear in the final mix. Hint #1 - back off on the distortion. You'll likely need less when it's recorded. Go for what sounds good on the recording, not what sounds good to you when you're playing.

Now the weightier DI (direct insertion. injection, whatever) issue. Usable tracks have been made going DI, but the majority prefer to move air and use mics. You can find many, many threads on a search here on how to mic up a guitar amp. I often use modelers going out to a power amp and speakers, then mic'd up. I've gptten some very good sounds (and some awful ones) doing that. Whether you are going direct or using mics, go with what sounds good on the monitors after tracking, not what sounds good tracking with headphones. Conventional wisdom says- get an amp. Get a mic. Get a mic preamp. Close mic it. Good Luck-Richie

 

[Supercreep]

Richard is giving you good advice.


+1

 

[TimN]

Good advice to be sure (especially about cutting back on the distortion), but if I were you I'd keep trying (that is, experiment) with the direct in--skip the amps altogether, and with the money you're not going to spend on the often giant and unwieldy amps, buy good mics and extra computer stuff like, say, RAM. I haven't recorded with an outboard amp since the Porta One days, though the one time I did it it did sound quite good. You can get just the sound you want, but the "plug and play" simplicity of direct in causes us to think its a bit easier than it usually is.
Our band is currently playing in a small bedroom--about 13x13--with the drummer using sticks, myself on electric, and, incredibly, another guy about two feet to the drummer's left on 12 string acoustic. It works! I go direct in,
using a $70.00 Zoom G1; the whole thing goes through a 24-track mixer, and then into the computer. We listen through headphones. (The 12 is miked.)
The point here is that it took me a while to figure out the various output and input levels for the interfaces--I thought for sure that the Zoom wasn't going to work out (I used a Boss 532 before, and still use it for recording), but it turns out that the default output was way too high, and all the algorithms sounded like shit until I turned the thing down. Now, even with the drum outputs way too high (at least for last week), the mix sounds great.
The tweaked sounds that sounded so great over a pair of headphones on the G1 but were sludgy sounding on the recorder are now sounding the way I originally hoped they would.
I'm not saying to only go with DI. However, the convenience of DI, coupled
with the increasing sophistication of DI devices, means that sooner rather than later most recording (and of course live work) will be done with relatively small, powerful modeling devices. RM mentions the purists; of course any talk of pure DI is going to make the purists pine even more for the good old days of large, expensive, good-sounding amps (and, truthfully, small, expensive good sounding amps). All well and good, but I'll be throwing my little G1 into a kit bag and taking it where and when I'd like while the purists throw their backs out humping their gear. Watch out for the ice!

PS: Sorry about the long post . . .

 

[rayc]

Pinny,
I'll put this in brutally simple terms. Richard & Supercreep has gobloads of rep points and talk in reasoned tones about capturing a good sound you'd want to keep. Rep points can be worthless BUT lack of them can speak volumes as well - that is new to the place & an unknown or not too knowledgable - sometime outright wrong.
Go back through posts byTimN, Richard & Supercreep and, where possible listen to any tracks they have links to. That will give you an idea as to whether they have a grip on the topic. This is something you should always do until such time as you have a knowledge of who's talking.
TimN speaks with a lot of what appears to be knowledge and experience - so read his posts, listen to his stuff & decide. Similarly the others - me you can ignore so long as you look into the others.
I record clean guitar DI sometimes - but it stays clean. If I'm after other sounds I persist with the ongoing experiment that is amp & mic.
From my limited kowledge base (I don't really like much distortion on my guitar parts) pedal/in the box distortion is fizzy, muddy & disguises the actual guitar playing. Pedal to DI is probably the worst possible option as they are usually built to provide a signal to an amp not an interface. Sims can be better. Amps create the actual sound you believe you want whereas the others simulate/attempt to replicate/aproximate it.
& if you want to fill a live room with a good sound regardless of the quality of the house PA you'll end up luggin'.
Remember that quick & easier isn't always best - nor for that matter is laborious & difficult necessarily better.
How can I summarize this? - Sims are to amps what MP3s are to wave files - (that'd be: compromised) - it's all a matter of what you're prepared to accept.

 

[Dani Pace]

Muddy sounding guitar tracks are often caused by one of two things (just my observation.) The most common is too much distortion or other efx. The second it other instruments having too close a frequency range, they compete for "sonic space" and overlap which causes sounds to slur together and sound muddy. A little bit of EQing will often help, most of the time cutting (lowering) certain frequencies works better than raising them. I'm not an expert by any means, this is just a couple of things I've learned from the good old "trial and error" method, I hope it helps you sort out your problem or at least points you in the right dirrection.

 

[fatstrat]

Are you utilizing the speaker cabinet emulation on the RP50? I used to have one, and without the speaker emulation it sounded HORRIBLE running direct. Look in your manual for directions to turn the cabinet modeling on for all the presets. Hold down the drums button while powering it on until it says "CAbinET On" If you lost your manual, you can get it at the DigiTech web site. Go to www dot digitech dot com slash Downloads and use the Multi-effects dropdown in the center column.

Also, too much distortion sounds good "live" coming from an amp (to some) but I've noticed that too much is generally way too much when recording or micing live. I prefer much less, if any, distortion nowadays and I know that the sound engineers no longer despise my existence when I play live now.

Also, off topic but, using lots of distortion tends to cover up mistakes or sloppy playing, practicing completely clean and dry (no reverb) made me a better and more accurate player. Just a thought.

 

[89gtsleeper]

One more vote for rolling back the distortion a bit. I know that's hard to take in and actually do, but it is probably some of the most useful advice you'll ever get. Also, if you deice to apply some kind of EQ to the guitar track after recording it think in this way: LESS IS MORE. Instead of boosting frequencies where you think they need to be louder, just lower the frequencies on everything else. This will probably help also. One last thing, if you are recording multiple distorted guitars on the same song, make sure htey have at least some differing characteristics, or else they will make each other "muddy". More or less distortion, different panning, more lows, more highs, different amp, different guitar, different distortion pedal... these things will all help most of the time.

 

[jaz49]

I see you are using the RP50 effects processer. I used to use one of those and the distortion sounds can be pretty awful on that, IMO. You really have to experiment with it a lot to get a decent sound that doesn't suck all your tone. Once I got amplitube LE I stopped using it completely. Good luck. http://www.soundclick.com/lejaz