Fat low end guitar Tone

[Steve Honest]

HI Chaps
I dot see to be able to get all the low end when recording an electric guitar thru a amp with distortion.

I have tried in the past dynamics , valve nuemman, but i dont seem to get the low end defined , i can get it boomy and soupy , i have tried absorbent rooms and live rooms.
any tips?
steve

[lwr]

Royer 121 will solve your prob

[Sptz]

Good Guitar > Good Pickups > Good Player > Appropriate strings for tuning > appropriate plectrum for strings gauge and style > amp settings > good cab > and SPECIALLY, Mic position.

But seriously, I always get excellent results with one 57... it's all about position really.

[Steve Honest]

yes odd, i have a great set of guitars , cleans strings and amps of Legend, i will go thru some of the new mics , in coles 4040 and see what happens , i dont kn0w why but i never seem to get ay fat low end down on distorted , clean im ok , fuzz no way
steve

[nbrecording]

Where are the mics and the speaker cab positioned?
and where are they in the room?

Nick

[David-Morpheus]

to get a deep fat tone you'll need

good guitar with an EMG 81 (at least I prefer). a player with a proper right hand technique and attack. a tubescreamer type of pedal (ts-9,od808,od820) - the latest one from maxon is especially good. It will scoop out the mud from the tone. not too much gain on the amp. a good cabinet with big low-end response - like the oversized recto cab - and preferably without the grill cloth. one sm57 pointing where the dustcap meats the cone. distance can be anywhere from near touching the cloth to as far as 20-30 cm. the nearer the mic is to the speker the more you'll get an in your face tone. if you back it off you will have more of a creamy balanced tone. you must crank the amp quite a lot to get rid of the fizz. as far as micpre - anything with a trannie will work, 1073 and clones (i am using a LTD-1), API 512/312 ...

[Steve Honest]

But if you read my post Again you will read
Gibson Les paul
Robert Keely Tube Screamer
Fender Deluxe,
Liquid channel set to 1073
Dynamic mic
Distorted tone, IN a booth,

so all the elements are there, just a mystery why i never get the low end down
steve

[David-Morpheus]

it's not in the lows, it's in the mids. you must have a solid midrange + a proper bass sound that will complement the guitars. that's where the low end feel of the guitars comes from.

[nbrecording]

Originally Posted by Steve Honest

But if you read my post Again you will read
Gibson Les paul
Robert Keely Tube Screamer
Fender Deluxe,
Liquid channel set to 1073
Dynamic mic
Distorted tone, IN a booth,

so all the elements are there, just a mystery why i never get the low end down
steve

have you tried moving this Dynamic mic around to find the sweet spot?

[Jason Poulin]

closed cabs my friend, then make sure you're micing the outside edge of the speaker along with a few mics on the inside.

I usually use a couple mics for this...

121's
R84's
and 57's


Good luck

[binarymilton]

Try a good ribbon mic.

Coles 4038, for instance.

[Steve Honest]

I have moved the mic around a good bit , in this and the live room, im worried its my rig ?
but i have a matched pair of Coles 4040 being delivered today i will break them out and give em a go
steve

[nbrecording]

Originally Posted by Steve Honest

I have moved the mic around a good bit , in this and the live room, im worried its my rig ?
but i have a matched pair of Coles 4040 being delivered today i will break them out and give em a go
steve

So what does the rig sound like standing next to it?

How's your mains supply?

[jsaliba]

what genre of music are you playing? if you're playing blues, your fender deluxe will be perfect. if you are playing hard rock or metal, this will be a problem.

[David-Morpheus]

Originally Posted by jsaliba

what genre of music are you playing? if you're playing blues, your fender deluxe will be perfect. if you are playing hard rock or metal, this will be a problem.

exactly. not really amp for heavier tones. what style/genre is the song ?

[Steve Honest]

Main s is lovely, ups so lots of the same 240 volts al the time , the amp sounds big in the room , lots of low , just not capturing it,,
i dont think the typ of music matters a lot of classic big Rock songs , hard and soft were recored on Deluxe s and other small amps, like the CHamp
steve

[BeK$]

Toss the 1073 setting on the liquid mix, your compressing your signal, your going to loose any dynamics on the low end. Just use it as a standard preamp without any "colour" or compression, eq etc. Do that afterwards. Also I was just reading a tip in one of the Q & A's, keep the amp plugged in, unplug the guitar, hit the tip of the guitar cable so it buzzes. Move your ears around down at the amp and see where the buzz sounds the best. It saves your ears and gets you the right mic position.

[BeK$]

Oh yea the Fairchild 660 plug in can very much be your friend after tracking to get some dynamic low end happening. Just take some time fiddling around with it and you will be very pleased.

[Retinal]

Mh, if the amp sounds as big as you like in the room (just a note: use guitars with alnico pu, not ceramic, they're flat sounding and the bass response is plastic-y and and and.. go for alnico, I use only baritone guitars so, lotsa low end) it could be yes wrong mic placement or you could have a bass null in the spot you have the amp.

Try to move the amp around in the room and see.

Then, ribbon mics help but is not that they are *necessary*, plus you can get a great ribbon mic sound with Apex 205 or Fathead or Nady RMS4/5 as well..

With that said, try also a modded 57, that could help

Lately I'm loving the Kel HM2D on guitars *a lot*, sometimes I used the AE2500, it's easy having the two capsules (dynamic/condenser) because you have 'em in phase no matter what, just find the sweet spot (in order to do that you can put headphone's on unplug the cable from the guitar, touch it and move the mic(s) around the cab till you hear.. mh, the sweet spot :D it's easy to recognize, once you found it you slightly move from there to taste, most likely that'll be also the brighter spot, moving a bit to the side will give you more bass and so on..

In the end if you really can't capture the low end well or if you just want more just throw a Yamaha Subkick in front of one of the speakers, trust me you will have all the low end anyone can possibly want from a guitar and more.

But remember that 50% of the guitar sound is the BASS guitar, you need to work them together, oh and don't scoop the mids in the guitar just 'cuz, there is where the sound lays

Preamp, API 512 first choice, then SH MonoGama (the two together are killer) and Chandler Germ is pretty good for the task as well

[David-Morpheus]

one more trick regardnig the low-mids - use a multiband compressor to compress just the low mids 60-250 region of the guitars. this way you will have a fat sound without the mud. it has to play nicely with the bass. also taking the DI track from the bass, HP at around 300-400, distort and blend with the original track might help. this way it will glue more to the guitars thus making a more unified and huge sound.

if you take any records where you hear strong and full guitar tones it's not the guitar. find a passage in the song where the guitars play alone and you will see that the guitar itself has almost next to none lowend. it's all about the interaction of the guitars and bass. you have to view them as one instrument.

[DarkSky Media]

Originally Posted by Jason Poulin

closed cabs my friend, then make sure you're micing the outside edge of the speaker along with a few mics on the inside.

I usually use a couple mics for this...

Good advice, Jason.

Lows come from the edge and bite and fizz from the center of the cone. Too much fizz, try angling the mic out towards the edge so the center of the cone 'sees' the side of the mic (with a cardioid mic). That will take even more of the top fuzz off.

[12ax7]

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Psssst......

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[Waltz Mastering]

I take it you've tried tuning down? 1/2 step - whole step - drop D/C, - heavy strings, stacking etc?

[Syncamorea]

Originally Posted by Jason Poulin

closed cabs my friend

I also prefer this approach - but then you often get a guy that has HIS combo and won't let you plug his amp into a closed cab. I often have to avoid placing the cab near a corner, maybe because there's too much phase cancellation going on there. I like to use two or three mics, including a condensor set back a ways, then time align them during mixing to taste. Getting the balance right in the 500 to 2.5KHz range is the key and like others have said, that's not bass.

[Fezzle]

Yo, I use a valve amp with great low end and have a maxon obverdrive (tubescreamer), I actually find that if i want big low end... lose the pedal ..simple. That thing puts a HPF around 180Hz in order to get that cutting mid range..
So maybe try aother distortion pedal that doesnt cut the bass, also Ive found sometimes that having the cab on the floor messes with the way the bass is projected.. try putting it a couple a feet off the ground on a chair or something, I think youll be pleasantly suprised. Aside from that if you are getting big low end and the sound your after in the room.. the rest is easy

[Ron Vogel]

Deep bottom end on guitars is best done with the arrangement, the bass guitar takes over where the guitar hands off.

My opinion anyway...

[andychamp]

I think this one got lost in the static (boldface by me):

Originally Posted by morpheuzrecords

it's not in the lows, it's in the mids. you must have a solid midrange + a proper bass sound that will complement the guitars. that's where the low end feel of the guitars comes from.

[vernier]

There's no lows with a Deluxe.

You need 4x12 closed-back cab.

Also, A mic (or eq) won't put something there that isn't there in the first place.

[Bill@WelcomeHome]

You say that you are hearing the sound in the room.

That leaves a finite set of variables.

The room, mic and speakers will interact. (Personally I would not use a booth unless it was quite large, but that is my own 'thing'.)

The choice of mic and preamp.

To find the problem I would default to the most basic clean preamp setting, remove any effects, and start moving things around within the space. Because if you can hear it in the room, you should be able to put a mic where you can capture it (unless you have been playing so loud that you've blown out your reference, and your mind/ears are compressing, and you are not really hearing what you think that you are hearing..)

[12ax7]

Originally Posted by andychamp

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I think this one got lost in the static (boldface by me):

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Actually, that is a VERY good point!

...Sometimes the sound we are looking for does NOT reside in the frequency range in which we may initially think it does!

That ballsy "low end" you are seeking may be imparted by harmonics at more than a couple of octaves above or below (in the right proportions).

The first time I caught onto this was when I was a DJ for an AM radio station, and played Sun King from Abbey Road on the air. Now, I KNEW that there was not a damn thing above about 8khz making its way back to me from the on-air monitors, and yet those crickets in the intro were pretty damn sparkly-sounding (and yet the "air" from the vocals and hi-hat were GONE!).

A lot of times, the character of the "bass" or "treble" attributed to an instrument is elsewhere!
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