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Thread Help with distortion

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1 Help with distortion
I record local bands around my area. I dont go insane on my equipment, I do it mostly for the love of recording and being around bands. I play a little bass myself, but not well enough to honestly play in any band. My problem is that when I record the distortion, it doesnt turn out so well. Is it ok to listen to, yes definatly, is it as good as it could be definatly not. I had a band tell me that everything was beautiful til the guitarists hit their distortion pedals, then it sounded poor. So I was wondering what I could do to make it better. How I had it setup was I had their guitars hooked into their effects pedals, then I had a cable running from the switch to my fostex vf160 digital multitracker. The band I recorded normally ran their foot pedals straight to their PA system, without any amps. The only person who was amped was the bass, which turned out well, for it I hookd its DI Outport on the head to my recorder directly and recorded it that way.

My question is, how can I make the distortion sound better. I've heard that micing the amp works better, but I tried it on my bass amp with my dynamic mic (which I will admit isnt the greatest mic its a lil old, but it works fine for vocals) Also, for bands with multiple guitars and a bass player it takes far less time and hassle to hook it directly to the recorder. I cant exactly have them record without the distortion and then try to distort it on my computer, because I dont know exactly how they want it distorted, I dont make the music, just record it.

Any help is appreciated.
2
turn the distortion down. when you record useing distortion the recording process maxamizs the crunch. so turn the dist down a lttle and it will blend a little better. also try messing with the eq even tho you think it sound good comming out of the amp most of the time your mixer or your interface will add a little more bass and mid to the recoding.

~mikey~
3
BTW to hear the distortion go to www.myspace.com/hotsaucerecords listen to the song 11:59 by The Luv, thats one of the ones that has distortion on it, the other is an acoustic.
4
plugging directly a guitar is always a BAD idea. why? because input feeds of a multitrack recorder expect a line level input, but instead you feed a much lower signal, causing a MASSIVE loss of quality and sound. (11.59 is a nice song, but the guitars are really terrible)

your solution optons are:
1) get a reamp device, like a POD 2.0 or a V-Amp. they are not the best thing out there, but they are cheap and do a much better job then a direct connection.
2) mic an amp. a good amp always is the best choice for guitars. use 2 mics, one on axis at the center of the cone, the other off axis.

the ultimate tip is always the same: to get good sound, first you need good instruments. no effect is going to save a 50$ guitar.