[Scott Dorsey]

In article ,
James Price wrote:
When recording distorted guitars (eg. metal) that are heavily compressed, do you have any tips for achieving greater punch? Obviously it's a challenge if the wave form looks like a brick, so I'm guessing the remedy is to turn down the gain at the source?

The secret is in the amp and in the room. If it sounds big and full in
the room, that's half the struggle.

I like to put something like a 635A that has no low end on the amp, then
if possible (given leakage considerations) a mike five or ten feet away
so that you get some room sound. The room mike is going to be boomy, and
will have a sustain from the room sound. The amp mike will have a bright
but sharp sound that compensates for the boom.

The signal going into the amp transformer might look like a brick, but
once it comes out of the amp loudspeaker it doesn't look anything like
that... it has all kinds of weird overshoot and bouncing around and the
top end is severely rolled off. As always, if you move the mike toward
the center of the speaker it gets brighter and if you move it toward the
edge it gets duller so you can control the top end that way.

Then once you add the room into that (and the room adds a lot of reverb
even if it's all short time reverb) and you get the classic metal sound.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."