Troubleshooting the recording chain

[Tanten]

Hi!

Me and my band wants to do a demo. We have been trying for four days straight to get an at least decent guitar sound, but nothing in the mixing room sounds even remotely close to the actual amplifier (listened to with the ear at the same position as the mics, with earplugs that does not alter frequencies). I can upload clips if you want me to, my old rage 158 competes with them at times.


I am using:

Schecter Damien 6 (Alder body, EMGhz H4/H4A passive pickups and .010 strings)
Approximately 2 months old Peavey 6505 + 6505 Cabinet surrounded by a brigade of mattresses
sm57 on axis pointed at the edge of the dustcap
toneport ux2
Reaper

I HAVE to be doing something wrong! The amp itself sounds awesome!

Does anyone know what to do? Is it the toneport?

 

[Metaltastic]

From what I understand, the toneport has mic preamp modeling, so you might wanna experiment with that (though turning off all the modeling, at least at first, would be the best bet, I think). Those 6505 cabs are not too well regarded for how they sound under a mic, but because it's what your working with, you gotta deal - my recommendation would be to get some big poofy headphones (Audio Technica ATH-M40 would be recommendation for the price), put 'em on and plug 'em into the headphone out on the toneport (you'll probably need a massive extension cable), then squat in front of the cab while your friend plays rhythm stuff through it, turn the volume low enough on the amp so all you hear is what the mic is picking up through your 'phones, then move the mic around on each cone (they all do sound different) until you find a tone you like best.

And if you have another (good) mic, I really think you'd have better results incorporating it - sweep the 57 (with the other mic muted) around the cone until you've got the best tone as before, and then unmute the other mic (BUT DON'T MUTE THE 57, you wanna hear them both together one you've got your 57 spot decided to check for phasing) and move it around until it sounds good (usually a good idea to put 'em both on the same speaker). Good luck man!

 

[Tanten]

Thank you for the quick response!

I have not tried using gearbox, i will look into that.

I tried that headphone thing, but my friend moved the microphone while i listened. All the tones we got were trebly and dry sounding. This lifelessnes is something i have a hard time getting rid of! We tried using a second mic, an "opus 69", which i think is designed for vocals originally. It were a bit more bassy than the sm57, but other than that it was not much different. When we used both mics, the mid/high mid range got quite muddy.

Can you reccomend any cabinets that would be better suited than the one i have at the moment?


EDIT: Feel free to reccomend microphones too

 

[Metaltastic]

For cabs, anything with Vintage 30's is hard to go wrong with (Mesa, though I'm told they're really expensive in Europe, Engl PRO, I've heard the Harley Benton 4x12's are great for the money, etc.), and for mics, I used a Sennheiser MD421 with a 57 recently and it was INCREDIBLE, but expensive - another SM57 or an Audix i5 would work great too and be more affordable.

Also, don't forget that sometimes amp settings that sound good in a room don't sound so good mic'ed up - try getting the best mic position you can with the headphone technique, then changing the amp settings until it sounds best through the 'phones (or better yet, your monitors).