Suggestions for this guitar sound?

[silverwulf]

Using my very low budget gear (haven't bought the studio gear yet), what are some recommendations that everyone would make for improving this guitar sound? It's just some modern riffing without overdubs or keyboards or anything, so it may seem sparse in some parts. I'd probably scale back the low end (up to 60hz or so) if bass was added. So, opinions and thoughts for this low budget sound?



http://www.jbeard.ho8.com/sample.mp3

 

[dreamcatcher]

First tell us what you did/used to get that sound.

 

[EtherForBreakfast]

either a MEGA low volume solid state, or the poddage berry. hard to say.

it lacks MANY things, silverwulf. i'm leaning toward it being mic'd, but it sounds and feels to me like it was mega low volume and trying to make it as quiet as possible... "bill o'reilly... tell me where i'm wrong... tell me where im wrong.. not buyin' it....."

 

[silverwulf]

Oh, it's going to lack many things. It's not like I was recording my Recto at high volumes through a decent recording set-up. I stated from the outset that this was just a cheap home recording on low budget gear, so it's not like it's some secret or the like. This is basically the same deal as before...mic on a $30, 15W combo amp directly into my computer with a cheap soundcard. Until I get my home studio set up in early '06, I'm just looking for usable tones, not studio quality. It was a Crate GFX-15 practice amp (with a Maxon OD-808 in front). Mic used was a 57.

Now, are we gonna keep talking about what it's lacking, or can we get to some suggestions to improve it?

 

[martyfireball]

Now, are we gonna keep talking about what it's lacking, or can we get to some suggestions to improve it?

oh. attitude!
Easy tiger, not so demanding.

BTW, i've got decent results by miking up small practice amps at reasonably low volumes. Try diffrent mike positions, both on and off axis, and double/quad track it with different tones.

 

[Flat Fifth Fury]

It's a very "small" and brittle sound. I've actually played some Crate SS amps that sounded pretty good. I think that your micing was too close to the cone and it picked up loads of highs. As a result your sound lacks both low end and low mids. It's has a lot of presence and upper mids. That and it has a granular sound that even Dime would call harsh. There is a big spike at 4640hz that is about 6db higher than anything else. I put your sample through my Cubase analyser and then changed the eq to compensate. It sounded much better to my ears, for what it's worth. It looks like this:

So I dialed in the eq roughly to fill in the gaps in the low and some of the highs. It sounds like this now: http://home.comcast.net/~flatfifthfury/eq.mp3

It's still thin in terms of harmonics/fullness but now it's not as thin/brittle eq wise.

 

[KeithRT99]

I thought it sounded ok, it sounds just like my friend's crate gfx212 recordings.