How to record distortion guitar...?

The easiest way to change the sound of the guitar is to move the mic. A Shure SM57 is a good mic for guitar. You can change the placement and angle of the mic to accentuate the frequencies you like. Usually I would suggest something off axis (this means you tilt to mic so it is at an angle to the plane of the grill cloth) maybe near the edge of the speaker. But the key is to listen to the result. Even if you move the mic 2 inches you might notice a HUGE difference.

Listen to bands you like. Check out the guitar sound. Try to isloate the guitar. See if you can find a place where only guitar is playing. What are the dominant frequencies? That's what you want to try to get with just the mic. You will EQ, but that's not where you get the bulk of the tone. The bulk comes from the amp and the mic. You don't need lots of bass most likely. Throw away your preconceptions and listen.

Having brought up EQ... are you doing something kind of extreme to the guitar tracks? I think you are not satisfied with the sound, and are trying to compensate with tons of EQ. It will be better to try to get the sound right before you EQ. The is the amp settings and the mic placement.

As to the drums... man... this is a whole 'nother thread. But from the music, I hear lots of EQ. I think you are not satisfied with the sound, and are trying to compensate with tons of EQ. Am I right?

The key to a good drum sound is to get the actual drums sounding how you want first. I know this is a lame answer. But it's just true. The snare and kick sound interesting, but way processed. Overheads are very missing.

Hopefully something in this has helped.

ditto what cAPSLOCK and mixman 22000 said.

In addition to them I use following technique:
I have a splitter before my amp. I record the amp with a mic, and I record the clean guitar from the splitter. Then I crank up the clean guitar with amplitube. That way I get 4 tracks by playing only twice. Sounds huge!
And remember to use less gain!


have fun
m11

Everyone is offering great advice toward your situation. I might as well state that I too am a metalhead and appreciate a great guitar sound. I'll re-emphisize what was said earlier; First, choose an amp and record a guitar track but try cutting back on the amount of gain you typically use but do emphisize the low-end frequencies you prefer. Secondly, choose a different amp, emphisize the higher-end frequencies, and record the same guitar line recorded with the first amp and it's settings. Essentially what your doing is doubling your guitar track with two distinctly different guitar tracks to create a thick wall of guitar. One needs to be sure and play doubled lines as close as possible with each other or the effect is not a desireable one. I hope this has helped.

- John

All these responses are great! Thanks so much...

Let me tell you what I'm using to help you understand what exactly I'm doing, since I don't mic the amp per se.

I have direct XLR out's from my Line 6 Vetta II and those are going into a Tascam FW 1802 which is going into my VAIO computer, in which I have Sonar 5 Producer Edition installed. I think I have the gain up way too much and yes I am trying to get the desired sound with EQ. It sounds great live...but recorded, just doesn't sound the same.

The drums are off, I know. Is there a way in SONAR to adjust the drums so that they match up with the timing of the metronome...or can that only be done with MIDI? And if it can only be done with MIDI, I need to learn a lot more about MIDI. I want to get the BFD software for drums.

Anyhow...thanks again and I look forward to any other suggestions anyone might have.

one thing i think needs to me mentioned is that a good mic pre makes a world of difference. different mics (57, R121, e609, sennheiser, etc) colour the mics nicely for each use, but the mic preamp is critical in getting a solid usable track.

my 2-cents

Are you using an amp and a microphone?

Otherwise you'll never be able to get a decent distorted guitar.

I think it was Yep who posted this link in the techniques forum:

Slipperman's Recording Distorted Guitars Thread From Hell

Its a long strange read, but informative if you're trying to capture....well...distorted guitars from hell i guess.

Warning for the easily offended: explicit language is used throughout the article, and he tends to go off track at times.

C

Oh forgot to tell you he has a pretty low opinion of guitar players so go in with thick skin.

It has however been formatted to fit this screen. +2 Score points for you.

I think I'm the board slacker, been on here for over a year I didn't want big post number 4 to catch heat for pushing profane linkage... yeah I'm a freak.

I've always found that my live settings on my mesa mark IV that sound great live just sound wrong recorded. When recording I immediately do two things:

1) turn the gain down...sometimes way more than you think. Lower gain settings can offer more dynamic harmonics instead of full clipping which will sound very harsh when mic'd up...or lined in (the Weber MASS is killer for line in out of a tube amp, you get the power tube distortion, but you do have to place a speaker emulator or proper EQ curve on the track)
2) turn the bass down...high bass settings will make the low frequencies of distorted guitar "flubby."

If you want a thick sound, try 2 or even 3 takes of the same thing on different tracks and blend them to taste. (just like someone else suggested) Of course, you'll need to be a fairly consistent and accurate player to pull this off, but hey, it's good practice. Panning then hard left and right might sound good by itself, but the guitar will lose its place in the mix and you'll end up turning it up and fighting the other instruments. Keep them realistically panned...unless youare going for the gues guitar sound by itself for a passsage or two.

Think of what will sound good in the context of the mix. If the guitar is huge and full spectrum, there will be way less room for other instruments. Turn the bass on the guitar tracks down and that will allow you to bring up the bass guitar without mud. Placing the kick drum frequencies lower than the bass guitar will have the same effect.

A guitar that sound great in a good mix might sound terrible by itself.

FWIW

interesting thought on the panning idea tubeydude.
ive always panned hard right and hard left.
how do some of you guys pan your guitar parts just curious?

Like all the other blokes say + it´s always good to have an idea of what you want to achieve soundwise before you record it.

ORIGINAL: tubeydude
1) turn the gain down..

Cleaner is meaner!

you need to get a jcm800 and a 4x12 cab and turn all the knobs to 10 - that's where the tone is

Yeah - weird alot of folks are saying turn it down.

If you've got a tube amp you NEED to push the tubes to get all those loverly harmonics.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

ORIGINAL: DoverC

I think it was Yep who posted this link in the techniques forum:

Slipperman's Recording Distorted Guitars Thread From Hell

Its a long strange read, but informative if you're trying to capture....well...distorted guitars from hell i guess.

Warning for the easily offended: explicit language is used throughout the article, and he tends to go off track at times.

C

Oh forgot to tell you he has a pretty low opinion of guitar players so go in with thick skin.

It is an interesting read. The material for some can become boring but his verbal shock and awe attitude keeps one reading.

Nonetheless, There is yet another school of thought. And this by no means in any manner invalidates this interesting article or its genuine usefulness.

Attempting to create the killer sound in real life and then capturing it in a recording is only one side of the task. There is also the art of taking something that sounds useless live but turning it into something useful. Now I am not talking about something truly useless, just something that does not have the desirable feel.

In reality there are two reasons why something sounds good. 1) it possesses certain characteristics that we find pleasant. 2) It is loud and the experience of it being in your face creates the illusion that the sound is fantastic. Capturing sounds from number 1 can be challenging but, hey this the art of recording and we can find a way to meet this challenge. But situation 2 will prove to be a miserable failure. Sometimes that fantastic sound is actually in your ears - NOT in the air. Nothing on god's green earth will make it awesome.

But this allows for the third possibility, a sound that has pleasant characteristics and yet is not in your face awesome loud. This sort of sound gets overlooked. Once it is recorded and its level placed into the mix, it can be a killer sound at any volume. I do not suggest this be our major focus, but it is definitely a part of the recording arsenal of techniques that one should include in their quest for a great guitar sound.

1. too much gain on the front end is always a problem i fight with when recording those with less experience. let those power tubes sing. 2. i've never had much luck with line 6 gear but if that's your weapon of choice, stick with a patch that has some midrange (in other words, avoid the recto patch) and mic it. let the speakers do their job, if possible. 3. if the guitar and bass are playing the same part, try this old kings x trick. copy a bass track and put it through an amp simulator with a little distortion ( and i mean a little, just barely crunchy). then cut out all the low end in the effected track. experiment, but basically what you want is just the highest end of the bass coming through with a nice crunchy attack. works wonders. listen to some soundgarden as well. you get the idea.