Recording help and tips please

Laserspeed

Hi all
I'm about to do a rythm guitar recording for demo purposes and I'd really appreciate your inputs on this: I'm going to be recording with a 40w Line 6 spidervalve and probably a sm57 or a condencer mic. Still need to figure out which would work best (hint hint). The stuff i'm going to be recordig is probaby best described as nu-metal, the music is very chunky and sort of staccato, also I use quite a lot of gain.
Anyway so here goes - The first couple of recordings we did was a screws up because the signal that was captured by cubase coming from the interface was too loud. So then we realized we were monkeys and changed the input volumes to be more civilized and have since had great success with the drum take we did. Brilliant(he didn't even open them lol). So obviously we have to do the same with the guitars??
Then whats also bugging me is the fact that my amp supposedly only really starts getting nice tone at higher volumes. Normal band practice volume is with channel volume at about 50% and Master at about half a ballhair below 25%. At this volume I'm pretty much as loud as the drums. So I guess the question is can I turn up my amp a bit to try and get the valves working their magic (or is that just a myth with the spidervalves?) or should I bring my amp volume down a bit too because I actually have a suspicion that one might get a less distorted signal from the microphone. What is the optimum volume an sm 57 records at? So many variables!!! I guess I just realized that what I want to know is how on earth do I make the recorded sample's playback sound exactly like the panty-melting sound from my amp? Because I just haven't been able to capture that.
Furthermore - with regards to effects and EQ. Is it better to just record everything dry ie. switch all reverb and mod and delay effects off and then let the engineer who's gonna mix the song add that? Or should I record with a bit of reverb/delay to fatten up the sound a bit? What EQ should one use to give the engineer the most to work with?
All of this sometimes just makes me want to go stay in the Knysna woods and live off the people that live off the land and act as though music never existed in the first place.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated dooders!
Peace

DrGonzo

HI Dude!

what interface or recording chain are you running?

How is your input/ preamp gain on your interface/mixer ? You should be turning that down as you turn your guitar amp up?

depending on the the type of interface or recording chain you have, with most even prosumer interfaces you should still be able to get your guitar amp fairly loud, you just have to compensate with lowering the preamp gain?

If you have already turned that completely down and it is still clipping, then see if there is a -db pad on your interface or on a software mixer it came with and activate that?
If not, in Cubase, in the mixer, on the input side (far left) you should be able to lower the input gain at the top of the channel strip? (i think that might be only with cubase 5 full version and later but not sure - what Cubase version are you running?

Cool let me know if you come right!

Gearhead

You would be hard pressed to put too much volume into an SM57 with a Spidervalve. The other questions are really a matter of taste and habit, good results can be gotten either way.

AlanRatcliffe

Agree with the other posters. Hard to damage a 57 with a guitar amp - they can take a huge amount of punishment without flinching. Use the pad (if you have one) and the input trim on interface (or mic pre/mixer mic input if that's what you are using) to tame the signal into your PC.

Also record with your condenser mic a couple of metres back from the amp to get more of the room sound and fully developed sound from your amp. I usually time align the second (or in my case third and fourth mic) to avoid phase issues. Then mix with the 57 sound to get the best possible representation of your amp in the mix. Also note that what works best in the mix may not sound very natural or real when the track is soloed.

Don't record effects (especially delays and reverbs) unless they are an integral part of the playing and sound - usually much better to do it at the mix stage.

Laserspeed

Woah

Cool thanks guys. I'll take your advice for toight's session.
@ drGonzo we use an alesis liquid saffire and cubase 5. So basically I just mic up the amp - goes to interface - goes to laptop. I reckon we have the input gain/level set right, we keep that pretty low nowadays. What worried me was the amp volume but my lawyer informed me you can turn that quite high and the other posts tend to second the high power mutant. Cowabunga dude!

Thanks for the replies - now just to figure out what in the tarnation time aligning is.
Anyway I'll experiment a bit and let you guys know!

AlanRatcliffe

Laserspeed wrote now just to figure out what in the tarnation time aligning is.

Sorry! Meant to mention that, but my gadfly brain flitted elsewhere. :-[

If you record the same source with more than one mic, then the more distant mics pick up the sound with a short delay (about 1 ms per foot, or 3 ms a metre), which causes phase shifts and frequency response peaks and troughs. For live sound or live recording we mess with mic placements and phase switches to come up with the best sounding combination.

In recording you can sidestep the whole issue with time alignment. This is taking the recorded track for a room or distant mic in your DAW software and manually dragging it so the peaks and troughs of the waves align with those from the close mics.

If your DAW doesn't show the waves, you can just offset the track backwards in time by the number of ms that correspond with the distance.