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anonymous 31 March 2009

hi, i've tried to record my band but on overdrived guitar tracks i get a lot of annoying noise, i can work it arround a bit with EQ but the sound is just crappy

I run a guitar into my pedals and then to a solid state fender FM65 i mic it with a condenser RODE M3 and then into my tapco usb then i record it with my DAW
note that i use the attenuator on the mic and i check the input gain so it dont clip

my question is what is the problem?

on the clean parts of guitar it sounds fine but when i step on my mxr OD the mix just sound noizy...

i've thought about some possible problems; I need a tube amp or i need to use a dinamic mic but i have a cheap AKG wirelless dinamic mic, and it sound worse than the M3.
do i would get a better sound with the amp mic'ed with both mic simultaneously?

also we are two guitarrists so i pan one guitar left and the other right and the mix dont have a lot of "room" and the sound is "thin" i guess is the best word to describe it. but only on distorted/OD parts

so can somebody help me on how to get a nicer guitar sound and more fat mix, in other words, how the F*** do i get a decent sound?

greetings
c.miguel

Comments

Guitarfreak Tue, 03/31/2009 - 21:24

My mixes for two guitar parts started to sound fatter when I stopped panning them hard. Just pan them about halfway or a little more to either side and lower the level a bit. They will still reach the far edges of the mix, that's just how sound works, but it will sound empty if you pan them hard. And about the sound/noise, we can really only speculate without a sound clip of some sort.

anonymous Wed, 04/01/2009 - 06:05

for that part i run a ibanez rg470 japan made, cheap but pretty good(mid range) into a mxr custom shop GT-OD (have a warm tone) and a couple of boss pedals bypassed, so the only active effect is the overdrive.

i plug it into a "Solid State" (transistors) Fender FM65 amp, i mic'it with a rode m3 small diafragm condenser mic (i have a dinamic mic but it sounds crappy) then i plug the mic into a tapco link usb (it has mackie pre-amps built in) and plug the tapco device into my macbook running logic 8

i cant find the problem :?

Guitarfreak Wed, 04/01/2009 - 07:31

I can't see a clip LED on the unit, without one you need to be careful how you set your levels. Try lowering the in level that the mic is set to. Also monitor from your DAW. I too use Logic! Isn't it great? You want your levels to dance in the yellow but not go towards the high end of the spectrum. This is fine as long as you are recording in 24 bit as the noise floor is lower. You change to 24 bit in logic audio preferences just in case you were wondering.

Guitarfreak Wed, 04/01/2009 - 09:38

I only mentioned noise floor because most people when they start out put the levels too high. Since you record in 24 bit and don't set your levels too high, then what's up? Have you tried to clean up your guitar signal chain? You say your signal goes through 4 or 5 pedals and only one is used? Those pedals, even though they aren't engaged they could color the sound or even add unwanted artifacts. You could gain more high end and clarity from not using so much cable and connectors as well. The key to good recording is less is more, use only that which you need.

Record again paying more attention to tracking level and maybe clean up your signal chain and let us know what happens.

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