Trying to record heavily distorted guitars

[pribb1]

I'm trying to record heavily distorted guitars, but I keep getting a static-y sound in my recordings. Any idea why or how to fix this?

I have Pro Tools LE, an Shure SM57, an Apogee conveter, Les Paul, Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier. I put the mic about 3 inches from the speaker.

[norman_nomad]

1. Are you clipping your converters? (going into the red)
2. Do you have protools slaved to your apogee converter?
3. Have you tried a different SM57 (could be a bad mic)?

This is where I'd start.

[pribb1]

what do you mean "pro tools slaved to apogee converter"?

[Aussie169]

He means, do you have the Apogee set as the master clock, and PTLE set to sync externally via S/Pdif?

[cruisemates]

This is a problem I hear on a lot of demo or semi-pro recordings. Getting a great lead guitar sound takes a long time and working very carefully with your equipment.

I am guessing that you need to start with the tone of your amp. I personally feel most amps have way too much inherent "static" type noise that is really just the sound of over-driven electronics going into nasty square-wave distortion. It sounds like the crackle of bacon frying, and you don't really need that anywhere in your recording. Worst of all, once you get it on the track you can forget about eliminating it.

Mesa Boogie are some of the best amps out there, but I was test-driving one the other night and I found it to be too "static" sounding as well.

Usually, for me, the best way to avoid this is to record with the treble turned down on the amp. There is usually a point where that crackle sound kicks in - get below that. It is also rare that you can have the pre-gain turned all the way up and not get that sound, you have to roll that back as well. You can always add the amp sound back in with Amplitube and other modelers.
If you have to record with eq to taper the sound then also try that. I often need to roll off the highest freqs on an overdrive lead guitar, there isn't much above 5k needed for the basic sound. I also often look for a freq to notch out in the low mids which adds clarity to the overall sound. Best of all, if you avoid RECORDING the noise the amp makes at those freqs, then if you need to brighten the tone you can do it in the mix by adding highs back in to the sound.

You might also be getting some speaker distortion. If the amp has been used for a lot of live gigs it might also have some speaker fatigue. Try turning the amp down, and moving the mic 1/2 way between the center of the cone and the edge and point it at an angle away from the center. Also add a distance mic and experiment with blending the two.

Please let us know what you end up doing.