Recording Rock guitar with Fostex Mr-8

E

electricdread

New member
This is my first time doing home recordings so please bare with me.
I am trying to record my song with the fostex mr-8. I am using the zoom mrt-3 drum machine. The drum machine sounds great, but the guitar are REAL LOW. On the track level display the drum machine is showing twice as much as the guitar. I have the amp on a chair and mic and mic stand about 4 inches in fron of the amp. I am using a unidirectional mic. I have a sneaking suspicion That the mic is the problem. It is a dynamic that was given to me a a friend. I am asking here, just in case anyone who has had similar problems with the fostex mr-8 may have a solution.
Is it the microphone? Any suggestions?
Thanks
 
Not TOO loud. But I can hear it over the headphones, so maybe it is a little on the loud side. The trim setting is at '3 o' clock' on the clock face, there are no numbers on the fostex mr-8 there.
Do you have some advise for me?
The guitar tones really sound like crap. Harsh,scratchy, like sand paper.
HELP!
 
mr8

here is the problem with the mr8 the preamps suck, you want a good recording, you really need to incorporate a mixer into you system, the added gain from the mixers preamps, and the ability to eq the sound(you have none with the mr8) will make the difference, 50.00 behringer mixer has great preamps, plus phantom power if you ever want to use condensor mics,

many people here just buy a preamp and that helps, but you will still have no eq control, the mixer is just as cheap as the stand alone preamps with no eq

ill bet you a stack of cdr's it makes your recording s sound a whole lot better
 
Thanks for your input dave, can you please explain to me what a pre amp is, what it is used for and suggest a few models that will not tear a hole in my MEAGER budget but will still give me some sort of quality (if those exist!).
I have a small 60 watt mixer amplifier, which I have been using for small jams, vocals, with friends. Will that be of any help?
please forgive my ignorance, of things which I guess are fairly standard, I am here to learn!
 
The preamp is a huge part of the audio chain. What do you think powers the microphone? The built-in preamps in the mr8 are not very strong as dave said. The little behringer ub series mixers have built-in preamps, and they are what I use. A lot of people are against behringer gear in general, but I haven't had any trouble with mine. You can get a behringer ub802 or 1002 for 50 or 60 dollars from www.musiciansfriend.com or any of the gear sites. You can even get a cheap preamp, an ART Tube mp studio V3 is around 100 bucks, and a lot of people recommend it. An m-audio audio buddy is around 60 bucks, and if you want to go even lower, a regular ART tube mp can be had for around 50. Also, I read in the mic forum that you were using an old realistic highball 7, which is an old mic from radio shack, and is pretty crappy. You might want to look into a shure sm57 which is a standard workhorse mic, or an SP B1 (condenser, so you'd need phantom power, a budget mic that gets a lot of rave reviews and is new at 79.99. My personal favorite mic to throw on an amp is an EV 635a omni, which you can get on ebay for about 40 or 50 bucks. I like it better than an sm57, especially on dirty guitar. One last thing to consider is mic placement. Placement makes a huge different. There are different schools of though on placement. Some people like an sm57 practically on the grille, about 45 degrees off axis near the center of the cone. Some like it 3" to 6" back from the speaker, and so on and so forth. It is best to test out different placements and see what sound you like the best. Chances are though, you aren't gonna like anything you capture with the realistic.
 
Thanks Waitingroom. I am beginning to understand. I am gonna try and take a look at some mics tomorrow. I will also see about using my small mixer along with the Fostex and seeing what tones I can get WITH THE NEW MIC of course!
Thanks again.
 
Have you tried using the internal mic? At least until you get a mixer. And always check recording levels before a take. But a mixer with pre amp will help. The behringer UB802 is only $50.00. And if you have a pc to mix down with, there's decent software that's reasonably priced. Fostex has a downloadable program called wav manager that enables you to send tracks between the MR8 and pc. Ntrack is about $50.00 and Power Tracks by Pro Audio is around $25.00. Importing and exporting tracks between pc and MR8 will give you much more freedom and control than the MR8 alone. Good Luck
 
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