I need to pick your recording brains...

Myrddin

Ok if anyone can send me in the right direction I'll be eternally grateful, as I'm now lost with how to proceed.

The goal - To record my electric guitar, at home bedroom levels, in order to lay my recording over a bcking track. The tone & sound I have is very important, & at all costs my ultimate goal is to record as close to exactly what I'm hearing in the room as possible. It's a small room, but volume levels are appropriate.

My equiptment - I've an Epiphone electric guitar, a 50w Marshall amp, and some effects box's etc, nothing over the top. I've a pc with an integrated sound card on the motherboard, a Sennheiser e835-S dynamic mic, & a T.Bone mic plug (usb to xlr adapter with tiny pre-amp/gain controls/& headphone monitoring options). Audacity for basic recording.

The problem - My recordings sound like they were recorded through a mic from a pound shop The sound is incredibly washed out & 'tinny', a lot of hiss/fuzz is carried over, none of the tone is preserved, the volume is quite low on playback, in summary, it's dreadful!

The solution - I'm baffled from here on out. I'm not sure if it's my mic, maybe I need a condensor mic? But even at that, a dynamic mic should be giving me reasonable quality... Is it my audion interface? The T.Bone usb is quite cheap, but again, the quality is so poor I find it hard to believe it could be this alone. Is it my pc hardware? From my understanding, an external audio interface bypasses the internal hardware of the pc...but I may be wrong. It's hardly the software at this level is it? Audacity while free & cheerful, generally seems to be a good starting point?

The type of music will be distorted guitar, Guns N Roses mainly. I fully appreciate that this isn't everyone's cup of tea...but I'm really stuck & don't want to throw good money after bad as it were. If I can give you an example of what I'm looking for below, perhaps those of you with more clued in ears than my own can give their thoughts on how this chap might be recording. He's guitar player on youtube, & while everyone is going on about which guitar he's using, I at least have the where-for-all to realise there's much more going on than what make his guitar is.

Do you guys reckon he's recording via an amp & mic with a daw? Or direct to his computer from his guitar with a daw?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC0xu7v-O9o

judas101

Get yourself a decent interface.

You can get great pieces of kit for little money.

I'd recommend a Focusrite saffire 6. Good preamps ect.
Can be bought for less than 200 quid.

Id also recommende you read the getting started stickies.
Good luck

Myrddin

judas101 wrote: »

Get yourself a decent interface.

You can get great pieces of kit for little money.

I'd recommend a Focusrite saffire 6. Good preamps ect.
Can be bought for less than 200 quid.

Id also recommende you read the getting started stickies.
Good luck

So you reckon my problem lies in the interface end of things rather than the mic itself? Sorry I'm prob coming across as looking for all the easy answers, but I've been reading for days and it's not becoming any clearer to me I just need a boot in the right direction :pac:

i57dwun4yb1pt8

id recocomend getting a pod xt or a digitech gsp1101 and forget miking it
for what you are doing-

way to much hassle when all you want to do it make music.

DamagedTrax

try turning your gain down aswell. you'd be surprised how little gain is actually used when recording, even for heavy rock. remember that what your ears are hearing isnt what your mic is hearing.

Myrddin

DaDumTish wrote: »

id recocomend getting a pod xt or a digitech gsp1101 and forget miking it
for what you are doing-

way to much hassle when all you want to do it make music.

That would be ideal really, however I used to have a Pod XT Live & was never really happy with the tone from it. The reason I'm looking at going the mic route is to preserve exactly what I'm hearing from my own amp, I guess I prefer the voicing from it over amp model effects etc.

DamagedTrax wrote: »

try turning your gain down aswell. you'd be surprised how little gain is actually used when recording, even for heavy rock. remember that what your ears are hearing isnt what your mic is hearing.

Oh really? I'll try that tomorrow cheers. Perhaps a combination of gain tweaking & mic positioning will improve things. From what I've heard so far I'm not confident though. Maybe I really need to look at a better interface as has been mentioned above...cash then becomes the issue, not tone

Dravokivich

I'd agree with the suggestion above of getting a dedicated audio interface.

If you wanted to play extensive games on your pc, you'd get a dedicated graffics card to process it.

Same thing with Audio. An onboard card is going to have very little ability to process for recording.

madtheory

Assuming it's not actually broken, the gear you have is OK. The problem is how you're using it. Without hearing what you've recorded it's next to impossible to diagnose. I suggest you post an audio example, and maybe a photo or two.

Which mic are you using, where are you positioning it, where are its switches set, what's the reading on the meter in Audacity?

Myrddin

madtheory wrote: »

I suggest you post an audio example, and maybe a photo or two

Ok, sorry about the delay. I've attatched two audio recordings (I've zipped them to allow uploading of them here), one clean & one distorted. They were recorded at a volume that's far higher than bedroom levels should be, as anything less means the gain on the T.Bone mic adapter has to be pushed higher, meaning more hiss.

They've still come out quite low, given the input volume they were recorded with. The mic (Senheisser E835-S) is about three feet away from the amp, head on with the speaker cone (if I put it closer, the mic is being minced by the distorted guitar).

It's the main riff from the above song I linked to, but you'll hear what I'm talking about when I say 'tinny'. It sounds like an old transistor radio for the want of a better description, the treble end is squared off, and the bottom end is lost a lot. In reality, it's very very close to the above tone, but I can't seem to capture that

Crasp

TBH that doesn't sound that bad to me? You wouldn't even notice that hum in a mix (on the distortion part anyway). The clean one is another matter...

What level is the amp at? I'd say for a start try turning the amp up to about 75% and turn the gain on the mic down a bit.... That should reduce the signal to noise ratio.


As someone said, what the mic hears isn't what you hear.... It often happens that the track recorded through the mic has lots of high signal, but not all of it is necessarily audible signal! So your guitar will sound quiet but the track itself can have a very high signal on it... So by the time you have it turned up to peak levels, your guitar will still be too quiet but the noise on the track will cause peaking.

TelePaul

A three foot gap between the grille and a dynamic mic seems like an awful lot to me. I like to run my dynamics a couple of inches off the grill, perpendicular to it and around about the rim of the cone. I'm not sure what you mean by 'minced', but I'm guessing when you move the mic closer, your signal is clipping/overloading, right? At the same time, backing off your mic and turning up the pre-amp gain is likely to raise your noise floor - your mic is more sensitive, sure, but you're picking up more of the room and less of the source. I have found dynamic mics to be more forgiving in this sense, but it might explain why your first sample sounds so wet to me - maybe you've some reverb going on there, I'm not sure. You haven't said what you're monitoring with, but as you can imagine, your laptop speakers or i-pod buds wont sound like a Celestion GT 75.

So a couple of things you might like to try: get the mic right up close and dial down the pre-amp gain (mic sensitivity). As mentioned, cut back on the gain at the source or try double-tracking rhythm parts, varying the gain each time. I've found that the bridge pickups on LP/SG types can be a little harsh - try rolling back on the tone pot for leads, or switching to the middle position for rhythm. In my experience, the presentation of mid-range frequencies will have the biggest effect on how an instrument is perceived, so you can also experiment in this regard with your amps on board EQ. I have a Boss GE7 which I love, it makes tweaking the EQ curve a breeze.

I wouldn't worry so much about the chap on the video, there's obviously the backing track to fill things out a bit and I just hear tons of wah.

trackmixstudio

Micing an amp discussed extensively here
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055559204

Myrddin

trackmixstudio wrote: »

Micing an amp discussed extensively here
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055559204

It's not necessarily advice of micing techniques I'm after, it's advice on how to preserve my tone & the difficulties I'm having with my equiptment. The way I look at it, I can experiment with mic positioning around the cone, once I've sufficiently captured the sound at a reasonable level, listen to my Demo1 above & you'll see hear my problem

Crasp & TelePaul, fantastic info & advice guys, really appreciated. I'm aware this is basic nuts & bolts stuff to most guys on this forum so I appreciate the time & help :cool: I'll try what you've both suggested later on, & post my results. If I get sorted, I owe you all a beer

madtheory

Just listened to them. Bring the mic right up to the grille, and don't use any reverb on the amp. There's no distinct verb on the clip you're trying to emulate. You need to get in close so you get the warmth of the proximity effect. GOod playing BTW!

Myrddin

Crasp wrote: »

TBH that doesn't sound that bad to me? You wouldn't even notice that hum in a mix (on the distortion part anyway). The clean one is another matter...

What level is the amp at? I'd say for a start try turning the amp up to about 75% and turn the gain on the mic down a bit.... That should reduce the signal to noise ratio.


As someone said, what the mic hears isn't what you hear.... It often happens that the track recorded through the mic has lots of high signal, but not all of it is necessarily audible signal! So your guitar will sound quiet but the track itself can have a very high signal on it... So by the time you have it turned up to peak levels, your guitar will still be too quiet but the noise on the track will cause peaking.

Ok updated demos with the advice so far. My amp has a gain & a volume setting. In these new clips my gain is at 3, and my volume is at 6.5. I'm using an effects board with is outputting at about 15% of capable output. I've also turned reverb etc off completely for these new demos. It's basic clean, & an overdriven/distorted effect, nothing more.

When recording via Windows 7 & Audacity, the total output volume of the sound is tied to the input volume of the mic it seems (slider bars move together, however you can lower the mic gain slider independant of sound output slider). In these clips, my master slider is at 65/100 (quite high in the context of daily use).

The gain on the T.Bone mic adapter is set at about 60% now, where it was 100% in the previous clips. But as I now have the mic in a perpendicular position to the center of the cone, & placed about an inch from the grille, I was able to lower the amp to more reasonable levels. I realise this wasn't necessarily the right thing to do (lowering the amp volume), but at the previous volume, recording would simply not be viable. I have a bit of lee-way still though, so it can go higher if needs be.

TelePaul wrote: »

So a couple of things you might like to try: get the mic right up close and dial down the pre-amp gain (mic sensitivity). As mentioned, cut back on the gain at the source or try double-tracking rhythm parts, varying the gain each time. I've found that the bridge pickups on LP/SG types can be a little harsh - try rolling back on the tone pot for leads, or switching to the middle position for rhythm. In my experience, the presentation of mid-range frequencies will have the biggest effect on how an instrument is perceived, so you can also experiment in this regard with your amps on board EQ. I have a Boss GE7 which I love, it makes tweaking the EQ curve a breeze.

I wouldn't worry so much about the chap on the video, there's obviously the backing track to fill things out a bit and I just hear tons of wah.

Ok as I mentioned above, I've taken your advice & moved the mic right up the amp, so it's lying horizontally at the center of the cone. I've dropped the gain on the adapter also.

When your mentioning tone above, I think I follow what your saying. Could it be that to record my guitar's tone the way I hear it, I may need to adjust the tone so that it doesn't sound like my tone anymore, in order to compensate for the way the mic picks it up?

And with regards the above youtube chappie, there's plenty going on alright I'm not looking to emulate him as such, it's there more as a proof of concept that he's somehow able to capture that tone via a mic...something I'm not yet able to achieve. But I think I'm getting there with the education from you guys, thanks again, you can't beat a bit of one to one when your really well and trully befuddled.

madtheory wrote: »

Just listened to them. Bring the mic right up to the grille, and don't use any reverb on the amp. There's no distinct verb on the clip you're trying to emulate. You need to get in close so you get the warmth of the proximity effect. GOod playing BTW!

Done, & reverb now off entirely. Lol, it's like all the majority of Slash's guitar work, sounds fantastic, but actually pretty easy. What I recorded is just hammer on's & pull off's really.

Anyhow guys, because I've no idea how these sound on other systems, I'd appreciate you have a listen to the new clips & let me know if I'm heading in the right direction at all...I think the tone might be improving, but the clean recording is still so weak.

Edit - Actually guys, to my ear the distorted demo has actually gotten worse, losing tone! Ugh, this is frustrating me to no end.

madtheory

The level settings on the amp are how you get a good tone. Put the amp back to the same settings you had for the first demo, without the reverb obviously.

If you use a dynamic mic designed for vocals you will get a harsh sound because they all have an upper mid boost for vocal clarity. Ya, I know, the SM57 is apparently the standard guitar mic. Bollocks. Use a condenser, or even better, a ribbon. The lollipop shaped Thomann ones are very good, and very cheap. Suddenly, guitar tone without eq!

Myrddin

madtheory wrote: »

The level settings on the amp are how you get a good tone. Put the amp back to the same settings you had for the first demo, without the reverb obviously.

If you use a dynamic mic designed for vocals you will get a harsh sound because they all have an upper mid boost for vocal clarity. Ya, I know, the SM57 is apparently the standard guitar mic. Bollocks. Use a condenser, or even better, a ribbon. The lollipop shaped Thomann ones are very good, and very cheap. Suddenly, guitar tone without eq!

Ok, I'll boost the volume back up today & try again. So you reckon go the condensor or ribbon route for a recorded guitar tone? I was going to maybe buy an SM57 as everyone seems to mention it, but maybe it would be money better spent on a good condensor or ribbon type mic? Cheers for the input!

Myrddin

Ok I think I've solved it (well you guys solved it collectively ).

I have the mic positioned dead on with the center of the cone, lying perpendicular. It's also right up to the grill.

I've removed all reverb etc.

I've boosted the volume, and found a good trade-off in the mic adapters gain settings.

The result is attatched as normal. You guys will be sick of listening to this riff I'm sure, but I've not varied it to allow for proper analysis of all the different things I've tried. The actual music doesn't matter.

I think now I can experiment with fine tuning the gain & volume settings, and mic positioning in & around the cone for tonal adjustments.

The difference between demo 4 & demo 5 is huge I feel.

Myrddin

I've made progress, more than I could have thought possible when I started the thread, so thank you all. And in particular to the mods, as it would have been easy to say this kind of cr@p is covered in the stickies, but thanks to everyone for bearing with my lack of knowledge in this matter.

The rest is up to me, daw programmes and trial & error from here on out really.

To conclude the thread, I just thought I'd add a clip to show how I've progressed from a bearly audible echo, to a newbly balanced (very raw) sound. The clip is fraught with mistakes etc, but I've more or less captured that tone I wanted, and the focus was on monitoring levels etc while playing so disregard the mistakes.

I'd be interested to hear any thoughts on it, but I can't really ask much more of you lot

Link

madtheory

Very much improved possibly a little harsh, but it's impossible to really tell with a 128k bit rate. 320k please, AAC if poss.

Myrddin

madtheory wrote: »

Very much improved possibly a little harsh, but it's impossible to really tell with a 128k bit rate. 320k please, AAC if poss.

By that I assume the bitrate capture settings in Audacity?

Adyx

EnterNow wrote: »

By that I assume the bitrate capture settings in Audacity?

When you click on export in Audacity, there should be an options button underneath the Save & Cancel buttons in the Save As dialogue. This allows to set the bit rate for the exported file.

If you do want to use AAC, you'll have to install the FFmpeg Library for Audacity.