guitars, and mics.... recording death metal...

Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2005 10:01 pm

Let me start off by saying that I actualy know almost nothing about mics, or micing..... so I came here to learn....

I'm trying to record some stuff in my room, on a fostex mr-8, mainly death metal, and a little grind.... the drums are all set, I got a drum machine, and plugged right in. I'm still not sure on the set up of how I should record my guitars.... first off, I take it, I should mic my amp, and not just plug right in.... I have a marshal half stack, a boss metal zone distortion pedal, a schecter c-1 classic guitar, (and soon, I will spring for a noise reduction pedal... more than likely boss, as I like their pedals), so the sound I get is pretty good. I have a few mics, but don't realy know how to use them well... I have an AKG d112 bass drum mic, and 2 akg ot 100 mics.... the only things I know about recording are little things that I knwo from trying to do it for like the past few years...

I guess my question is should I use the mics I have, or should I spring out, and buy some other ones that would do a better job.... as far as money goes, well, I'm willing to spend a little bit... probably no more than $300, depending... also, I've heard talk of this baringer v-amp thing.... could this help me in my quest of cheap ass recording perfection? I mean, could I just plug into that, and ust the amp modeling, and such, and just plug directly into the recorder, and get a good sound?

Other than that I think I can get recording on my own, I've been messing with random stuff for quite a while now, and figured I'd just ask around, to see if anyone else was a little better with this stuff, and could help little old me..

I ramble a little.... sorry...

Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 6:41 pm

Get a shure SM57 to mic the guitar cab. It's a cheap mic and is used on cabs 9 out of ten times.

The amp modelers like the Behringer won't get the Death Metal sound you are looking for.

Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 7:16 pm

Try the D112 on the amp .... you will be surprised .... Metal especially, uses a lot of lows in the guitar tones .... the D112 is very well suited for this application.

A lot of people think of the D112 as a kick drum and bass cab mic only but the truth is it's a decendent of the D12 which was intended as a voice over mic ...

The D112 is good out to 15kHz. and that's plenty high for almost anything except cymbals and perhaps acoustic instruments ... I use the D112 for vocals somtimes, guitar cabs bass amps and it' a favorite of mine for kick drum.

Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 10:24 pm

I can't agree more as a kick mic. I took everybodys advice and scrapped my beta52 for a D112. It was brainless to get a good kick sound. We tuned the bass drum like crap, duct taped a quarter to the head, and man did that puppy sound awesome.

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2005 2:17 pm

"I can't agree more as a kick mic. I took everybodys advice and scrapped my beta52 for a D112. It was brainless to get a good kick sound. We tuned the bass drum like crap, duct taped a quarter to the head, and man did that puppy sound awesome."

You duct taped a quarter to the head? Is this an actual trick or one of those "Let's have fun with the newbies" things? I've played drums for about 20 years, and have never heard of such a thing, either in recording or playing live, but my experience is limited compared to people on this forum.

Also, what is a "Good" price to pick up one of those D112's? They are talked about more than most other mics from what I've seen, well, that and the elusive Neuman u87... (what is a "good" price for one of those anyways? hehe) I am looking to pic up a mic set in this mext month or so, metal/rock project, for playing live and trying to do the home recording thing. Thanks in advance.

Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2005 4:39 pm

The whole duct tape a quarter to the head where the beater hits the head isn't something new. It's a cheap/easy way to get more click and almost a punchy high end out of the kick. It's really cheesy to do, but it works when you have a metal band that wants the extreme clicky sound, but they don't have triggers or a clicky kick drum.

They make plastic pads that do the same thing....but you get your money back every time you use quarters.

Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:06 am

Ok.

I have recorded a whole lot of death metal songs along with "regular" songs.

What I find is that first of all, you need to get a great sound out of that marshall. You said it was a half stack? Like a 4x12"? Pushed by a 50w head? Perfect. Crank that up to a good volume so the speakers are pushing some air and you're making some noise.

Take all 3 of your mics, and put them directly in front of the middle of 3 speakers of your choice. you might want to stick your head in front of each speaker to see what they sound like individually. If they are older, one might sound shitty because it's blown or something and you haven't even noticed.

Record 3 simultaneous tracks like that. Listen back. Solo each track. Try listening to a combination of all 3, varying the volumes of each mic to "tweak' them to where it sounds right. You can also try panning all 3....maybe the 112 up the center and the other two hard left and right. Or, maybe try a combination of listening to just 2 mics at a time and panning/mixing them.

Did you find a sound you liked? Too muddy? Clean up your amp sound a bit and give it some more high end..maybe even move your mics closer to the speaker. Maybe a bit of eq will help. Too high endy? Exact opposite. Move the mics away from the speaker an inch and turn down the high end on the amp a bit. Try recording another take. Keep repeating until you get a recorded sound that you are happy with.

Whoever said that amp modeller won't help is partially wrong.

What I like to do is put down one take with my Marshall like that, and then I will put down another identical take with a complimentary sound on my V-Amp. Using a touch of eq if necessary, using the 2 sounds WILL give me a great guitar tone. The V-Amp, I feel, IS PERFECT for recording a second death metal take because you can set a noise gate and have the cleanest, most professional guitar sound found on major label recordings especially when doubled with a solidly mic'ed live cabinet.

I usually both a Shure 57 and a Shure 58 when recording live guitar, however the choice of mic is endless and all depends on your ear.

If you are not happy with the sound that you achieved with my technique, but you are happy with the sound of your amp, you should definitely try a Shure 57. They seem to be quite transparent with guitar, but I find that they lack a lot of nice bottom end which is why I also use the 58...I think the shape of the grill lets some bottom in from the sides but I am not an expert in matters like that.

Assuming that you now have a great recorded guitar sound, you will now be confronted with many other dilemma's in making great sounding death metal. You need a great noise gate. You will likely need to eq each track into the mix so your instruments aren't clouding each other out. You can use classic tracking/mixing eq theory for this.

Drum machine...you are going to have to tweak the HECK out of that to make it sound good. Once you record your instruments over it, I guarrantee you it will sound like crap and you are going to have to go back and set the sounds differently to fit into your mix better. If you can, what I like to do is export each drum individually (snare, kick, each tom, hat, crash) etc and mix them into the final mix like you would with real drums. The kick drum is going to need eq. The snare is going to need a lot of stuff. The crashes are going to need reverb. Etc.

That's about all I have to say for now.

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