Without knowing what kind of tone you want this is pretty much shooting in the dark...

Easiest path when you are unable to mic up a good tube amp:

1. New Strings.
2. Intonate guitar
3. Split/direct in and whatever else you have
4. Play it right
5. Proper gain staging (absolutely the most critical tone issue for guitars I have found)
6. Cut 250 hz.
7. Clone track
8. Mix wide
9. EQ til it hurts
10. Compress the hell out of it.

Beyond that mic up a cabinet.

Ehh Some of these replies are some silly Sh@t! I am out, but bro if you need any more help PM me. I am not hear to argue with those who just seem to want to talk to try to sound knowledgeable... Good luck!

I remember my first experience in the studio back in the days, w/ my live rig - a '59 Fender Bassman and a Marshall. That thing sounded HUGE.

Long story short, we left the studio w/ a couple of finished songs ready for pressing and a few un-mixed ones - which I proceeded to finish back home.

Since I lived in an apartment, the only option was to go direct and use amp sims. I was actually quite surprised to hear that my home-recorded tracks sounded pretty much as good as the studio stuff. The tracks sit in the mix perfectly well. The Fender sim blended in absolutely fine. 

Granted we were a bit rushed in the studio, but what I'm trying to say is that people knocking down amp sims don't read the small characters for you. 

Yes, a real amp sounds better - if you play it loud enough and record it properly. And then know how to mix it (because that's a whole different ballgame).

I'm guessing that you wouldn't ask the question if you were recording other people and their rigs.

Anyway, if you happen to not only know how to do it but also have the place to do it AND also happen to be a great guitar player w/ a great tone that deserves the spotlight, a good recording engineer and a good mix engineer, then I say go for it.

But I have a feeling that you wouldn't be asking questions here if such was the case.

Welcome to the world of tone chasing.

vanceen


If you can afford a small (like 5 watt) tube amp and a microphone (even a $100 SM57), you'll get a good recorded sound by micing the speaker in the amp.

But remember that mic placement is everything. If you point it right at the speaker cone (center), it will be very trebly. Right at the edge of the speaker, it will probably be muddy.

Absolutely! Start with an Epiphone Valve Jr and an SM57 and work your way out from there. I used that combo for a while and you'll notice the difference from using in the box amp sims right away. 

16brae,
     Here's my nickel's worth of free advice from my experience.


     I've been mixing guitar tracks for the last 15 years.  My first pieces of equipment were a Tascam 8-track cassette porta-studio.  With that, I used a Tom Scholz Rockman direct and got a great sound for the equipment.


     Once I made the venture into the digital world, I was first using a DSP factory with the Rockman, again with pretty great results.


     After ditching the DSP factory (forcibly due to being disco'd by Yamaha), I switched to a EMU-1820m.  The guitars started to sound very shrill and tinny, but still usable with some extensive EQ.


     My troubles began when I dumped the EMU for some MOTU gear.  I've been finding that the better the A/D converters (only an assumption albeit an experienced one), the worse the guitar sounded going direct.  Especially the fact that the better the converters, the clearer the recording including the noise floor.  Because of this new noise-clarity, I had to start using de-noiser plugins that kind of worked though not without their own set of problems such as, causing an unwanted flange type effect.


    The guitars through the MOTU gear with the rockman just plain sucked and were unusable.  I then tried the BOSS GT-6 and got a little more stylish crap.  Sounds great live, sounds like a mess of noise direct.  I then tried a PODxt.  Sounded leaps and bounds better than the BOSS live, still an EQ nightmare direct.  After this, I broke down and bought a PODxtPro rack mount.  Still sounds great live or by itself, but trying to fit it into a mix has been the ultimate nightmare.  Either winds up being way too bright or way too muddy, way to wide or way too thin.  I won't even go into the buzz and AC noise issues.  And with all due respect to all the cab-sim guys, to me they just don't cut the mustard and really color the sound more than I would like.  I did have a few room problems, basically muddy-mix translations, which I incorrectly blamed on the bad sounding guitar tracks.  After fixing most of the room problems (I'll make another post about this later), the guitar tracks still didn't sound just right.


     Just a week ago, I broke down and decided to try the mic-the-cab approach.   I first tried my Jazz Chorus-120 amp with a pair of Shure condenser mics, one up on first speaker and one down on second speaker.  Got a pretty good sound though I really had to crank the amp for a good sound which being 120 watts was way too loud to be usable.

     My latest solution: a Peavey Classic 30 tube amp with an SM57 angled at the cone going into a MOTU 8pre preamp then digitally via lightpipe to a MOTU 2408mk3.  All I could say is "WOW".  I'm so sorry I wasted the last 4-5 years on all those other direct/fake-cab solutions.  That little Peavey/SM57 solution gave me a fantastic mono guitar track that is not only usable but truly sounds incredible.  I added a little compression and a few touches of EQ and widened it a little with Sonar's Channel-Tools and wound up with a big bad wall of guitars sound that sits in the mix just like I wanted.  For the lead guitars I recorded harmony parts and just panned them 50% left and right respectively and got some of the best sounding guitar tracks to ever come out of my little studio.   I'll post the tracks once they're completed.

     If you've got an amp, do yourself a favor and go get a new SM57 for $100 and try it.  My next two tests are going to be my Marshall for kicks and grins and I'm probably going to try and pick up a 15-wat 1x12 combo just to be able to get some more gain and sustain at a little lower volume than the 30-watt.

     Hope some of this helps and good luck with your tracks.



Best,
Guitardood

I'll have to disagree with some of the posters here. A 57 in front of whatever cab available IS NOT A MAGIC BULLET. Even with a decent cab you gotta experiment with mic placement and the tone ctrls of the amp, and even then it can be hit or miss. Getting a "real" guitar recording to sit in a mix can be just as much work as a digital emulation. 

Getting electric guitar to sound nice is hard work!

When I record an amp I always split the signal so I get both the mic and DI signals. Often I find that the "real" signal don't work in the mix so then I can dial in a tone that works with Guitar Rig or whatever.

Lastly, I will say that I hate the SM57 as well. Try the Sennheiser E906. Much more forgiving IMO! If you have to use a 57, at least set up a second mic (even if that too is a 57) in a different spot so you have some tonal options!

Sven

If you're mic'ing a real cab, I like using a pair of mics:

• An SM57 captures a nice aggressive mid-range tone (not a lot of lows/highs).
• A large diaphragm condenser captures a less aggressive more "hi-fi" tone (more highs/lows).

Mix these two mics to taste.

This works great on bass cab as well...

Another little amp that has been getting some great reviews is the Hughes & Kettner Tubemeister 5

Jim Roseberry-  Amen brother!

And I swear, sometimes I think the dad-gum weather makes a difference!  LOL...

Any of y'all ever have a great "tone day" in the studio, only to come back the next day and suck...even though ya didn't touch a single knob??