single mic recording

  • Thread starter Thread starter GoK
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GoK

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Hi everyone. I have a feeling there's going to be some cringing when I explain my situation. It's a sound engineer's nightmare.

I bought a microphone a few months ago and have been messing around with audacity to record some of my songs. I've gotten the drums down to a tolerable quality, but I've been stuck on how to record distorted guitar. When I say "distorted", I mean metal distortion. Heavy. So far, the fruits of my labor regarding both mic placement and post-processing have been a muddy sound.

My amp is a "Transchorus 210". Don't know what the guitar is called but it sounds decent. Not high-end quality, but not a crappy guitar. The mic I use is the "Snowball", made by Blue. It's a odd looking USB mic with 3 different settings - a cardioid capsule, a cardioid capsule with a -10db pad, and an omni capsule. My recording space is my large, open, unfinished basement: cement floors and walls. There really isn't much of an echo though.

Does anybody have any tips on mic placement or post-processing?
 
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Use the search engine on this forum. There is a shitload of helpful stuff to be found.
 
HUGE question, dude, and there are way too many variables for me to give you much in the way of advice without asking a ton of questions first. And, I'm having a shitty week at work, so I don't have that kind of time. Let me just make two comments, then.

1.) Read this. http://www.badmuckingfastard.com/sound/slipperman.html More info than you want, probably, but if you can make heads or tails of it that'll help you get your feet wet.

2.) Experiment. A LOT. Recording is one of those things where the more you do it the better you get. Try lots of shit, and listen to what works and what doesn't.

Also, the Snowball is a nice mic I'm sure, but if you're starting to learn how to record distorted guitars, you should probably start with a SM57. If you want to go USB, I believe Shure sells an adaptor... Everyone has their favorite guitar mic, and a lot of people will tell you something is "better," but so many classic recordings have been done with a single SM57 that if you want to learn it's probably where you should start.
 
Thanks Drew, that site looks helpful.

Don't get me wrong guys - I've already done quite a bit of research and tried many different setups and techniques. But I still get mud. I think that it's my particular plethora of bad variables; not exactly something that a search engine will solve.
 
Turn down your distortion level.Turning it down will clean up the mudiness.It may sound great when you're playing with a higher distortion level but it's been suggested many times here that when recording guitar less is more.I've tried it and was pleasently suprised how much it cleaned up the mudiness.I normally have my gain set at 85 but when recording i turn it down to 68.More than likely you'll want to record more than one guitar track and this is when it really makes a huge difference.
 
GoK said:
Thanks Drew, that site looks helpful.

Don't get me wrong guys - I've already done quite a bit of research and tried many different setups and techniques. But I still get mud. I think that it's my particular plethora of bad variables; not exactly something that a search engine will solve.
Click to expand...

See, that's the thing - there's about a MILLION reasons you could ge betting mud, and with what you've given us, I couldn't even begin to guess.

Is your guitar or your guitars pickups just not that appropriate for metal? Does your amp not really do metal, or not give you the sound you're after? How's your mic position, would playing around with how you've positioned it help? What's your room like, could that be an issue, and where in the room are you micing up? How's the setup on your guitar, are there any playing-related issues that are stopping you from getting a good tone? Are there any effects you're using? What do you mean by "mud," anyway? What sort of a tone are you after? Are you recording bass as well, and is maybe that the issue? I'm just typing as fast as I can and spouting off questions here, and really I'm stopping not because this is it, but because again I really should be working and not shooting the shit here.
 
Start with the amp, turn the Bass down to 5 or less and eliminate the sub harmonics (woof).

Cheers

Alan.
 
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