What causes wave to be flattened above zero only?

 
http://stabilitynetwork.blob.core.windows.net/g-tunes/20141010_Susan_08_SteveGuitar.mp3
 
I recorded a guy Friday night who had some kind of FX processor in his Amp. I think the Amp was Fender. I can't remember. And it had two 3pin plug outs for left and right. I took one and it sounded just awful. I did mic the amp directly, and in some cases for some sounds the wave form is normally distributed above and below zero but in others, it looks like this.
 
Is this a standard sort of effect of some kind, or ... I just can't remember seeing a wave form like this and it puzzles me. It doesn't sound bad, just looks funny. It does sound bad direct though.
 
It's like it was limited above 0 only. Why would you do that? It has to introduce limiting distortion.

When you did the direct connection, did you have phantom power turned on (48v)?

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Btw this was Mic recorded with a guitar cube condenser using phantom power.

It is only now occurring to me to compare it with the direct wave. This might explain why the direct sounds so bad. It needs to be routed through an amp simulator.

I have seen this before.  The problem I saw was from using a preamp and a microphone.  the preamp was a very cheap Audio Buddy M-audio preamp.  the preamp was clipping the signal on the top rail, my guess was that the opamps were dual power +/- 15V and that the top rail was likely geting less than 15V causing the signal to clip on the top side only.
 
It is likely that he has a problem either with input power or more likely with regulated power inside the FX box he is using.  I would suggest removing that FX box from the signal chain and use something else.

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+1 to Beagle. I assume you have not manually adjusted DC offset, so there is some weird imbalance going on with that signal (your screenshot has a significant offset in it).

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Any possibility that the basement just didn't haven't juice for the band? Could that do it? I've used all my gear for years and years without this issue before.

True, I rarely record sixteen tracks.

Here is a track...

http://stabilitynetwork.b...10_Susan_04_Joleen.mp3

^exactly.
 
let the GAS rip! 

There is no way I could have identified this during recording without interrogating the wave forms. That is a huge bummer.

This is the best argument for monitoring wave forms during sessions I've seen yet

Yeah, I totally thought it was guitar amp before this thread started. I'm totally planning to run it down. Especially since the problem was song consistent. He would pick a sound and maybe yes maybe no for weird clipping thing.

I was using the TASCAM 2488 for this on input 3 of 8.
[Edit: The problem happened on the MXL mic I used before the Guitar Cube as well, but it wasn't as extreme.]
It looks like the issue was related to power and the MXL Guitar Cube Microphone.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/condenser-microphones/mxl-guitar-cube-pro
 
The problem started before I changed Microphones (1 song before) and was limiting the + values to -6dB. Then after changing Mics it limited to -12dB.
 
I haven't been able to replicate the issue.
 
Further, it occurs to me that when I used the Tascam a lot for recording, I would use 2 Art Tube Pres with it. Maybe this reduced the likelihood of me bumping into this particular problem. I also have a tube mic with it's own power supply. Still, there were only 3 Mics plugged in that needed phantom power. 2 were my KM184s which recorded fine and one was the guitar cube.
 
I wonder if I had toggled the Phantom power after plugging in the Guitar Mic if that would have fixed it, or if the unit were simply underpowered to handle this particular mic plus the 3 others with phantom and the 4 drum mics without phantom.
 
If I had brought along my Art Tube Pre, this could have been avoided, probably.