What's it take to get pro-sounding guitar results?

[WRX07]

I have: a good guitar, good amp, good room, vintech x73i, rosetta 800, royer-r121, different dynamic mics(md421,e609,57), into my digidesign 002. But still the quality of the sound isn't quite good enough to satisfy me. What am I missing? I know micing positioning/technique play a huge part, but just the QUALITY of the sounds I'm getting aren't there. It lacks the timbre and fullness of professional recordings. Please feel free to offer feedback

[superpenguin79]

one trick that you may want to try is layering the guitars. This works to fatten up the sound a bit for what you're looking for if you have the tone you want coming out of your amp already. What type of style are you going for? Also, is it just a song that has only guitar, or other instruments also? If you can, please post a sample and I could probably help you a little further. I also have some mic techniques on my site that work well for phattening up sounds that I have used for a while now. Goodluck

[uptheoctave]

I have: a good guitar, good amp, good room, vintech x73i, rosetta 800, royer-r121, different dynamic mics(md421,e609,57), into my digidesign 002. But still the quality of the sound isn't quite good enough to satisfy me. What am I missing? I know micing positioning/technique play a huge part, but just the QUALITY of the sounds I'm getting aren't there. It lacks the timbre and fullness of professional recordings. Please feel free to offer feedback

Dont take this the wrong waym but often it is down to the player- are you the guitarist and being objective about yourself... are you good?
Advice for young players is too much distortion/compression going to disk.
Also too many/too wet on the effects.
What amp are you using? What guitar?

A classic mistake is getting a kiler guitar tone 'by itself' (can anyone say Pod?) that doesn't sit in the track.
If it is a tube amp then you might wanna look at the tubes.

JR

[WRX07]

I play a lot of indie/rock stuff(fueled by ramen, victory, vagrant, tooth and nail, epitaph). The tone I'm going for is a mix of The Get Up Kids and Copeland. Crunchy but not overly distorted. They're all full band songs and we're recording tonight so I'll post clips on soundclick as soon as I can. I think I'm an alright guitar player. I'm not much of a lead player but play rhythm well and have been playing for five years. I don't use a lot of distortion and I compress very little going into Pro Tools. Crushing a room mic on an acoustic guitar yielded very good results though. I record with a Vox AC30 CC2X, Orange AD30TC, and a Marshall JCM2000 thru a Marshall 1960AX. I have a Fender Fat Strat Texas Special and Gibson Les Paul Standard. When recording I don't use pedals(well, sometimes I use a Boss tuner) and go straight from input to guitar. I know layering and panning will thicken up the guitars and make it sound more agressive but even single tracks are lacking the sonic richness of pro-stuff. Tubes are fine, too. Thanks for the help though guys, keep it comin . I know it's hard to offer advice soley by my descriptions so I"ll post clips ASAP.

[IntelDoc]

WRX,
Couple words.....

DISTRESSORS

LAYERS

PATIENCE

It takes time to get it. The X73i is a great pre.. I know, I own 2 of them, but it is not my go to pre for guitars all the time. The 1272 sometimes gets a better sound, the Trident gets a brit flare that is common in todys radio tunes. The distressors are a beast for guitars, vox, hell anything really. I am not sure how long you dial in the sounds, mic placement etc, but it takes time. YOu would be shocked how it sounds to get a guitarist to double his parts, then pan them hard left and right. It gives just enough charateristics to really effect the tone and usually result in a HUGE guitar sound. Alot of studios do it... I do it alot too with great results.

Agreed that you need thebest results going in before pressing on. The Rosetta should capture all the highs and accents that you put through it easily. I also agree that the player makes the diff too. Sloppy in, sloppy out. You can only polish a turd so much ya know. Poor performance and poor sound....

I had a band in and am still working with them and they literally have 3 double mic'd guitar tracks. The Royer may not be the right mic for the job? I use a 421/57 combo all the time and love it. Usually through the distressors and then into the Apogee and it is killer....

Keep messing with it. Also, a lot of the PRO sounds you hear have been sent through high end mastering compressors, Eq's and such. Polished with high end conversion, and a nice outboard L2. Just brings it up a notch in mastering. Not out of reach, but budgets are designed for a reason for bands ya know. 50K goes a long way with production.

Keep it up, it will come...

- Doc

[Ryan Young]

I don't remember where I got this trick from, but it works pretty nicely. Get 2 cabs (with amps) and face them back to back. If your processor has a stereo output, plug one into one amp, and one into the other. If no stereo processor, plug your guitar into a processor or straight into one of the amps, then use an output from that amp into the other. Ok... so you've got one channel going out of one amp, the other channel going out of the other amp. Place a mic on each side, about 3 feet away from each cab. You'll get a nice, yet subtle room sound, and a crazy stereo effect that will fatten up the guitar sound. You can change how hard the pans are set in the mix. Try it for yourself, you may or may not like it.

[superpenguin79]

I might add two things that I forgot in my original post.... 1. A lot of patience 2. A lot of practice. How is everything coming along?

[WRX07]

Mediocre at best

[Matt Whritenour]

Experimentation

[F.J.]

Have you tried placing a mic close up on the cab and then another mic about 8-10 feet away from the speaker and sending it to another track? This ususally helps to fatten up the sound.