TO BENFAN (and anyone else starting up really):

tyhink long and hard about what your goals are. if you jsut want to record guitar tracks to show your bandmates, maybe a small multitrack (like a tascam or fostex) is the way to go. its simple, portable, and inexpensive considering it has built-in mic and onboard amp sims (crappy ones but for recording ideas it aint bad) its also good for creativity if youre sitting around jamming, and you get a great idea, u simply plug in, record, save, and turn it off. then later u can build on that.

if you want something more polished, but still only for basic guitar ideas, maybe go with a simple USB interface, like teh tascam us-144, which is pretty cheap, has 2 xlr ins, 2 line ins, phantom power (for condenser mics) acts as a soundcard (so u cna save some dough on that pc u might build) and comes with cubase for free.

if you eventually want to record your entire band, including drums, youre going to need an intereface with multiple inputs. presonus makes a firestudio (i think) with 8 simultaneous inputs for like $400. a bit pricier than that tascam 2-in, but cheaper than a digi002 or something, and a def MUST HAVE for recording serious drums. you CAN record drums with two inputs, but thats bush league.

without sounding like too much of a smart ***, it kinda comes down to money, aspiration, and discipline. i started with a fostex 8-track and decided to upgrade to the tascam us-144. the was a bad move on my part bc what i should have done was jsut save some more cash and got a presonus or something with 4 or more simultaneous inputs. i personally feel for just recording guitar the multi-track was awesome, it was spontaneous, and portable. with the computer intereface u have to sift thru menus, set things up, AND be near the computer. to me that is a huge pain in the ***. so much of a pain in the *** i just bought a tascam portastudio a lil bigger than my wallet bc i felt i needed it so much. now i realize it doesnt have XLR inputs and im back in the not having what i want/need boat.

Thanks for the info. I want to get into recording my full band. Now that paying to go into the studio is getting very pricey, i think it would be a good move. However, i dont have the space to at home to record a full drumkit (i have the use of a rehearsal space for free) so portability would be prefered.

i'll post a pic of my rig tonight when i get home, i basically built a mobile recording rig for a little under 3 grand

[QUOTE=TriggerNYC;17820396]without sounding like too much of a smart ***, it kinda comes down to money, aspiration, and discipline. i started with a fostex 8-track and decided to upgrade to the tascam us-144. the was a bad move on my part bc what i should have done was jsut save some more cash and got a presonus or something with 4 or more simultaneous inputst.[/QUOTE]
Minus the Fostex this was my exact experience. Presonus cannot be beaten for features and price. It's that simple.

I picked up a second hand Firepod (now called the FP10) for 550NZD. They're about 1kNZD brand new.

8 Class A discrete pre amps. MIDI in and out. S/PDIF out. Loads of line outs. A pre amp out. Monitor outs, headphone out on the front.

You really can't beat it for the price. Coupled with Cubase 5, Guitar Rig 3, a bunch of plug ins (Ez Drummer DKFH for drums), Sennheiser HD 280 Pro's and some Alesis monitors on the way this is my setup. I highly recommend it. You get a very clean sound with lots of awesome features for not a lot of cash.

But yeah upgrade your computer first.

Ok fella's i got a recording technique/mixing question for you all.
Atm im recording a song for my band, which involves alot of tight rhythms and intricate picking. Weve been playing around for about a week now but we can never get it sound great in the mix.
What tones/effects/recording techniques/EQ processes would you guys go through to get it sounding nice and tight. It is a metal song so think kind of Sylosis guitar sound, really tight but beafy and heavy.

Im using - EPI LP with EMGs - Peavey 5150 MK II - Tascam digital portastudio 2488 mk2 - Mixing on Cubase essential.

[QUOTE=benfan;17827009]It is a metal song so think kind of Sylosis guitar sound, really tight but beafy and heavy.[/QUOTE]

The tightness can be achieved with compression. The beefy/heavy part can be done with multi-tracking, panning (one each hard left/right at least) and EQ - I'd boost the lower mids a tad, as well as the treble (whatever you do, [I]do not[/I] max it) and bass. Remember though, nothing you do will matter if your basic, dry recorded sound isn't up to scratch.

Also, if you're mic'ing up your amp, the placement is absolutely key. It's all personal preference really, but if I were you, I'd place the mic (I prefer dynamics) a couple of inches away from the grille, pointing about an inch inside the edge of the speaker cone. If you're using a 4x12, I'd use one mic on one of the upper speakers, and one on one of the lower ones. Maybe a room mic as well, a few feet away.

Ok so i edited my post with the recording desk im using.

jaklyons - Getting the tone out of my amp has been the biggest issue for me, i think im gonna have to overhaul my tone settings. Everything sounds too crunchy and brittle at the minute, and im trying to roll of as much gain as i can.
Im a noob with compression so any chance you can go into abit of detail with it, how to use it effectively on a song such as this.

EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKQYQ9sNWiE&feature=related
Heres a good example of the guitar tone im trying to achieve

for the tone: get a tube screamer or some kind of light distortion pedal (not the mt2) and turn up the output on the pedal, bring down all your channel volumes and turn that master volume past 12 to really open up that valve. If you want higher gain at a lower volume yank some of your power tubes

for micing, try using a condensor mic instead of a dynamic mic on your cab get it in closer than you normally would with a condensor and off axis it more towards the edge of the speaker, have someone play through the amp while you go in with headphones and move it around until you find the "sweet spot" if you add an other mic to the mix, make sure they're both at the same height, otherwise you'll get some phase issues. SOMETIMES i throw guitars a tiny tiny bit out of phase to give it a "wider" sound

Sylosis quadtracked their album, and Josh is seriously tight.
You can find lots of info on their blogs on myspace.

[quote=Xomblies;17827204]for the tone: get a tube screamer or some kind of light distortion pedal (not the mt2) and turn up the output on the pedal, bring down all your channel volumes and turn that master volume past 12 to really open up that valve. If you want higher gain at a lower volume yank some of your power tubes

for micing, try using a condensor mic instead of a dynamic mic on your cab get it in closer than you normally would with a condensor and off axis it more towards the edge of the speaker, have someone play through the amp while you go in with headphones and move it around until you find the "sweet spot" if you add an other mic to the mix, make sure they're both at the same height, otherwise you'll get some phase issues. SOMETIMES i throw guitars a tiny tiny bit out of phase to give it a "wider" sound[/quote]
If it's very high gain, I'd be a little dubious about putting a condenser microphone that close to a cab.

Personally I loooove Ribbon mics on overdriven guitars. Take the edge off them and makes them warm and yummy. Don't place one too close though, you'll get too much proximity effect (google it). But don't place one too far either otherwise it'll sound too thin.

well he said he wanted to roll back the gain as much as possible... TS, try what i said, if you don't like it, go back to the 57

[QUOTE=jaklyons;17827099]and EQ - I'd boost the lower mids a tad
[/QUOTE]

absolutely NOT!!!!
lower-mids are the prime culprit in muddyness.

tis tak of condensers and ribbons is starting to sound expensive. what u have to remember is this is AUDIO ENGINEERING. much like other engineering fields, things are scientific and precise. you dont just point a speaker click record and things sound great. its going to take patience and time just to get a good guitar sound, envermind recording solid takes. so here goes some advice.....

turn down the gain on your amp. set the amps eq settings to midnight. start turning up the volume. listen to your amp and hear when it starts to open up[. keep going. when it gets to sound almost shakey like its too much, pull the volume back till its good again. this will prob hurt your ears, so let your litlle brother do it. thats what they are for.

now move the mic around the speaker. figure out where it sounds most like what you hear with your ears, or where it sounds best. make a note and keep it there.

now fiddle with the EQs on the amp. this is different from your live settings. the settings on the EQ WILL be different than when you play live, bc youre catching the soundwaves at such a close proximity to the source, they dont have time to develop like when you are on stage, so forget about what you normally do, and just EQ o where it sounds best in the mic.

NOW start adding gain. remember, if u normally play with the gain on 8, play with the gain on 4. maybe less. the power tubes (volume) on your amp is going to give you break up, so you dont need to push the preamp section so hard. once u have the perfect amount of gain, lower it two notches. doesnt sound as dirty. shut the **** up and do it anyway. youre a noob and have no goddam say. thanks.

time to record. you want a big wall of tight metal guitars? here we go. play your part CLEANLY, goddam it play it PERFECT! make sure to label the track appropriately (rhyhtm guitar 1L maybe) now start a new track, label it rhyhtm guitar 1R, start from the begining, and record THE EXACT SAME THING over again. and i mean play it EXACTLY the same. if you do something different, itll sound like a sloppy mess. do it exactly the same. the nuance in your picking and the sound waves etc will give the track enough variation to sound different than the first. but if you suck and your sloppy dont bother.
-if you have a second guitarist, have him do that also with his guitar and his fingers. label appriopriately. dont forget to PAN (l for left R for right)

are you thinking "why dont i just copy and paste" oh man why didnt i thin kof that! bc it wont be different, it wont beef up your guitars, itll just make them louder bc its the same exact track. sure you can "cheat" and add reverb or chorus or some **** to one track, but wtf do u wanna do that for just play the goddam track again.

youll notice since u turned down the gain, and each track sounded a little less in ur facer than youd like it to, now that u have 4 tracks, it sounds awesome. youre welcome.

also some hints, if your mic has a low-pass filter, engage it. you dont need the low rumbly bass frequencies. if your mic does not have this, do it manually thru EQ. usually helps. if your amp is on the floor, pick it up and put it on a crate or chair or something. if your mic has a dB pad, engage it. its better to have less input than blow your mic or interface. if it sounds a little too muddy take the low-mids down a bit and raise the high mids a cunt hair if that. also remember, you cannot ADD frequencies that dont exist. you can boost frequencies that are there, aka highlighting these frequencies, but if you didnt record them in the first place, u cannot add them later. same goes for harmonics. this is why line6 suck dick.

[QUOTE=benfan;17827009]Ok fella's i got a recording technique/mixing question for you all.
Atm im recording a song for my band, which involves alot of tight rhythms and intricate picking. Weve been playing around for about a week now but we can never get it sound great in the mix.
What tones/effects/recording techniques/EQ processes would you guys go through to get it sounding nice and tight. It is a metal song so think kind of Sylosis guitar sound, really tight but beafy and heavy.

Im using - EPI LP with EMGs - Peavey 5150 MK II - Tascam digital portastudio 2488 mk2 - Mixing on Cubase essential.[/QUOTE]

personally i have very little experience micing cabs, i always ended up getting a better tone out of a modeler of some sort. they may sound like **** by themselves, doubletracked or quadtracked with a bass and in a full mix, they can sound pretty good, theres lots of free ones out there that sound much better than line6 stuff, such as soloC, and nick crows 7170, and 8505. all three of those are 5150/6505 models if i remember correctly.

anywho, i wouldn't bother with compression this early, just mess around with the eq. when recording, turn down the gain to where you think its less than you need... then turn it down a little bit more. one big problem with recordings sounding muddy/mushy and not clear and tight is too much gain. as the gain goes down, it gets tigher and clearer, even if you're not using an overdrive pedal.

make sure you dont overdo it with the bass, when you layer those tracks, it will sound thicker and heavier, and when you add a bass in there (assuming its mixed right, i'll talk about that in a bit) it will sound awesome.

i usually use a low pass at like 10k or 11k to get rid of the high end hiss you get from nearly all high gain amps, and then a high pass at like 80hz or so to kill off all the useless rumbly low end thats just going to get in the way of the bass and kick drum when you get to that stuff. guitars probably will sound thin by themselves at this point. usually i'll add in a bit of subtle EQ to tweak the mids and high end to whatever i want, kinda hard to explain this stuff, i just mess with it until it sounds right to me. i rarely use any compression on heavy guitars, unless the playing is uneven or something.

when it comes to bass, i usually use a clean bass tone, maybe a bit of overdrive in it. theres a trick to getting a nice distorted bass tone is thick, but i've always been too lazy to bother. something about getting a bass DI, copying it into two seperate tracks, high passing the crap out of one of them and applying some guitar modeler to get a distorted top end, then low passing the crap out of the other so all you're left with is the fat bottom end.
what I do with bass is just chop off everything above about 4k with a low pass filter, and cut off everything below like 30hz or something with a high pass filter (dont remember where exactly, i havent recorded anything in a bit but i'm fairly certain i do have a high pass on my bass). then i take my compressor and flatten the bass track, because its bass and as far as i'm concerned, its only there to support the rhythm guitars and make them sound hueg. (then again, i'm left handed and all the bass recording i do is with a right handed bass, so i have to do it upside down, probably the reason i never got any more imaginative about it)

then i set levels and i'm done with the rough mixing of the guitars and bass. next do drums, but thats alot of **** and i dont really want to talk about it now, theres tons of links online about that stuff. after that, play with the guitars/bass some more so it all sounds nice and pretty.

the last two recordings on my soundclick are using this exact method, the previous stuff is pretty garbage, imo.

[url]http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8047343[/url]
[url]http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8485597[/url]

you may think those mixes are trash, but whatever, i dont claim to be good at mixing, just something i do in my spare time, all this stuff i just said is stuff i've picked up from doing this for fun, so take it as you will.



well it seems i've written a book, i meant to be more concise, but whatever.


on an unrelated note, is that you in your avatar?

Thanks for all the advice guys. Really helpfull stuff. Ill do some more takes on when i have the desk back on monday and post some clips up.

And mnemonic the guy in my avatar is Gregg Valentino aka The Man Whos Arms Exploded.

ah ok cool, i was kinda scared at the thought of someone that muscular playing heavy metals

I dont think that guy has enough flexibility in his arms to play a guitar. The roided up lunatic.

The recordings are sweet man, did you use a modeler for the guitars?

yep, line6 toneport with the 5150 model

bass was the roland jazz chorus model. probably cant hear the bass much, but you'd notice it was gone if i turned it off.

[quote=benfan;17827132]Ok so i edited my post with the recording desk im using.

jaklyons - Getting the tone out of my amp has been the biggest issue for me, i think im gonna have to overhaul my tone settings. Everything sounds too crunchy and brittle at the minute, and im trying to roll of as much gain as i can.
Im a noob with compression so any chance you can go into abit of detail with it, how to use it effectively on a song such as this.

EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKQYQ9sNWiE&feature=related
Heres a good example of the guitar tone im trying to achieve[/quote]



I am a big fan of a "brute force" method of getting suitable guitar tone when recording.

Basically, get the tone that sounds best to you when playing in the room. Take note of your settings, to give you a guide. Now turn the amp all the way down and neutralize your settings. Try to replicate that tone [I]as quietly as possible[/I] in the room. If you need a little bit of volume to get tube break-up or whatever, that's okay, but try to get "your" sound without using any more volume than is absolutely necessary. The idea here is that you want the amp to be doing most of the work, and to minimize the influence of the room on the near- and mid-range sound of the amp.

Got that figured out? Good. Now go get two mics. Different mics. You want one to be something that'll have a relatively bright tone. The Shure SM57 is the "classic" used here. There are plenty of similar sounding "clone" mics as well: Audix i5 is popular, and Audio-Technica releases something new every 5-8 years or so to compete with the 57 (I have a mid-90s AT63HE that I use the other 50% of the time). The "clones" will sound a little different, but will have similar transient response characteristics.

You want your second mic to be a warmer sound. The "classic" options here are bit pricier, but I see a lot of Sennheiser MD421s, Electro-Voice RE-20s, Audio-Technica D25s, and Royer R-121s. You probably want something less expensive when you're just starting out. Lower end "tom" mics work pretty well for this, I've used the Shure PG56 with decent results, and Audio-Technica also puts out lower-end versions of the D25 every 5-8 years again (I use a mid-00s PRO25 sometimes). Consider also a warm-sounding condenser for this mic.

Now find the spot on the speakers where you get a nice bright, biting tone. I'm less a fan of the headphones method and more a fan of the "stick your actual head in the soundfield and place the mic where your ear is happy" method. This does mean you'll have to work quickly to prevent ear fatigue (or hearing damage if you're loud).

Start there with your "bright" mic. You might want to point it off-axis or move a little bit to avoid an overly harsh tone, but don't worry too much if it sounds a little thin. You'll probably have the mic within 6" of the grill for this mic. Next find a spot a little further away (8-24" of the grill) where you get a good warm sound out of your amp. Something that has good sustain and lots of "beef" in the tone. Don't worry so much about if the attack is a little dull on this mic. Definitely try to maintain the "punch" of the amp in both mics, but it's probably more important on the bright mic if you need to compromise.

Got your spots figured out? Good. Record them individually. You can then sit and play with panning and relative levels on them to get a blended tone that can be more bright/warm as you need for a better mix. With more experience, you can do this live pre-recording using a mixer, but generally it's nice to make that decision later, when your monitoring isn't being challenged by the loud amp in the room.

I don't generally worry about phasing issues with this method unless the mics happen to be very close to each other or I hear a definite comb filter problem. I also don't tend to feel the need for double-tracking, since I already have two independent tracks and I can pan them as I need to fill out the mix image. I might do it for very guitar-oriented recordings, but generally if I'm looking for a bigger sound, I'll use a 3rd "halfway" mic instead of a double track. This is faster than double-tracking most of the time and time/budget is often important in my situations. You could also use additional mics at more of a distance to provide a more ambient sound to reinforce the more "in-your-face" work of the close mics.

If you've got the inputs, I generally will also take a DI feed straight off the pickups (using the amp out of the DI to feed the rest of the chain). You can use this signal for re-amping or amp simulators to provide more backing tracks.

[QUOTE=Moseph;17828986]Royer R-121[/QUOTE]

trust me when i say that mic is no good on electric guitars. It's possible that the one i used needed some work, but it wasn't good at all when i tried it :/

This is for everyone recording guitars:

e609's are good i LOVE the audix i5 moseph mentioned...

besides the obvious choices i'd HIGHLY reccomend everyone check out a heilsound pr-20 it's like an sm57 on roids... almost as much roids as TS's avatar

here's an other neat trick try a senheiser md421, a lot of people use em on toms, i love them on guitars.

i think that's what greg gordon was using on guitars when he was doing this belgian metal band and the guitars sounded freakin huuuge good low end without the woof crisp top end, with a tiny mid scoop which is what most metal heads like.

my ideal combo at the moment is a heilsound pr-20 (close mic'd) and a senheiser md421 (far mic'd off axis) make sure both are at the same altitude or your tone will be out of phase resulting in a not so huge sound

if you can only afford one mic i'd spend 150 and get the pr-20, it's great for an all around GOOD thick and warm guitar tone and you can use it on snares and it's phenomenal for live vocals

PR-20:
[img]http://www.micsdirect.com/heilpr20pic5.jpg[/img]
[url]http://www.heilsound.com/pro/products/pr20/[/url]

MDR421
[img]http://www.americanmusical.com/ProductImages/Large/p2429.jpg[/img]
[url]http://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-SEN-MD421II-LIST?SRC=A0809AFCHAMS0000&utm_source=amsaffiliatecj&utm_medium=feed&src=A0807AFLHAMS0000[/url]

[QUOTE=Xomblies;17829135]trust me when i say that mic is no good on electric guitars. It's possible that the one i used needed some work, but it wasn't good at all when i tried it :/[/QUOTE]

I think Jens Bogren got a quite good tone on Watershed with a 57 and r-121...

[quote=Xomblies;17829135]trust me when i say that mic is no good on electric guitars. It's possible that the one i used needed some work, but it wasn't good at all when i tried it :/[/quote]

Just to clarify, I wasn't trying to give an explicit/implicit endorsement of the mics I mentioned in that passage, I was just mentioning the R-121 because I've seen it popping up a lot in recording literature, including with respect to guitar amps.

In my setup, I will generally use one or more of the following on guitar amps: Shure SM57, Audio-Technica ATM63HE, Sennhesier MD421, Electro-Voice RE-20, Audio-Technica PRO25, Shure PG56, MXL 990, Shure SM81, Shure PG81. That list is roughly in order of how frequently I'll try a mic on a guitar amp (though oftentimes my selection is based on what mics I also use elsewhere in the same session). I also have a few Shure Beta 58a's that I think would work pretty well, but haven't actually used them on guitar cabs yet (either I've needed them elsewhere or I've gone after a different sound for a given session).

[QUOTE=TriggerNYC;17827990]absolutely NOT!!!!
lower-mids are the prime culprit in muddyness.[/QUOTE]

I dunno man, it's worked pretty well for me before. I'm not saying turn them up high, just a little higher than normal....say, the equivalent of 3.5/4 on an amp.

[QUOTE=Moseph;17829209]Just to clarify, I wasn't trying to give an explicit/implicit endorsement of the mics I mentioned in that passage, I was just mentioning the R-121 because I've seen it popping up a lot in recording literature, including with respect to guitar amps.

In my setup, I will generally use one or more of the following on guitar amps: Shure SM57, Audio-Technica ATM63HE, Sennhesier MD421, Electro-Voice RE-20, Audio-Technica PRO25, Shure PG56, MXL 990, Shure SM81, Shure PG81. That list is roughly in order of how frequently I'll try a mic on a guitar amp (though oftentimes my selection is based on what mics I also use elsewhere in the same session). I also have a few Shure Beta 58a's that I think would work pretty well, but haven't actually used them on guitar cabs yet (either I've needed them elsewhere or I've gone after a different sound for a given session).[/QUOTE]

i wasn't trying to call you out on it either, using a royer on a guitar is entirely taste, i didn't like it, some people do. If you like the mxl990 on a guitar try the mxl9000, i have one and i'm probably going to get an other one so i can track two guitars at the same time with that mic (maybe change up the dynamic mics for each setup), if no matter what i try with my pr-20 is working with the musician, or me for that matter, it's my go to mic for the token "boston" tone :)

what's the pg81 do to guitar that ya like? i'm always curious about odd ball mics to throw on guitars...

[QUOTE=Plankis;17829177]I think Jens Bogren got a quite good tone on Watershed with a 57 and r-121...[/QUOTE]

well he knows how to work it then, the mic you use is only part of the sound jens has some skill above me to say the least

hey, since you lost your keyboard player, how you do all your synth/piano parts now? what vstis you use?

we used all the session data from the ep in a pro tools project, our drummer plays to a click, our entire set is on a timeline, we play to him the synths go to the PA along with backing tracks and the Di track i recorded goes to the other mesa on stage. i made a couple changes for live to make things a bit moar mettle. the vsts we use are symphonic orchestra, absynth, and the vienna orchestral pack... oh and xpand2. Synthogy ivory for keys... can't remember everything off the top of my head, when i was working on synths i kinda just picked whatever sounded good with the music and moved on to the next track

also, i was gonna say earlier but i forgot, never record a tone that is 'good enough' and try to fix it in post, you want to use the best input signal you can, that way you dont have to change much in post.

someone once said, "sh[size=2]it in, sh[/size]it out" and its totally true. i'm sure you've heard recordings where someone recorded something with a shitty mic or a bad positions, bad settings, etc, and then tried to fix it with eq and comp. always sounds overprocessed and shitty.

Jeff Loomis' tone in 'Dead Heart in a Dead World' was nearly raw, just some light compressor and some high and low pass filters and thats it, and thats one of my favorite recorded guitar tones of all time.

[QUOTE=Xomblies;17829135] (Royer R-121) trust me when i say that mic is no good on electric guitars. It's possible that the one i used needed some work, but it wasn't good at all when i tried it :/
[/QUOTE]


you might not have been using it "correctly" fopr guitar cabs. u kinda have to have it like, facing up kinda, and not i nthe middle of the cone. its actually kinda silly about where to put that mic, but it soudns awesome.

[QUOTE=jaklyons;17829286]I dunno man, it's worked pretty well for me before. I'm not saying turn them up high, just a little higher than normal....say, the equivalent of 3.5/4 on an amp.[/QUOTE]

i've done it before, and it usually ends up making my guitars a boomy mess on certain notes, i guess it really depends. I try to avoid it, however.

[quote=Xomblies;17829344]what's the pg81 do to guitar that ya like? i'm always curious about odd ball mics to throw on guitars...[/quote]


I was using it as the "bright" mic on the amps before my mic locker got expanded to where it is now. I also used it a bit on jazz guitar, and I was a big fan of the way it picked up the spring reverb. It had a kind of "retro" sound to it (think late '50s pop songs). I probably won't use it much on amps in the future (I have a lot more mics I like better for that purpose now), but it's not a terrible mic if you happen to have it (it comes in the 6-mic Shure PG Drum Kit, so I reckon people have it).