Please help figure out whats missing in this tone.

[PreventThis]

I have been working on getting a guitar tone with my band for recording and the tone has came a long way I must say but it is still not there yet.

I have a Rectoverb Combo and my settings are as follows:
Gain: 11 oclock
Treble: 1 oclock
Mids: 1 oclock
Bass: 9 oclock
Presence: 1 oclock
Master: 9 oclock
Output: 9 oclock

The mic is an SM57 and is located around the right edge of the speaker and is about 30 degrees pointing towards the center of the cone.

The amp sounds good while im listening to it but something about it doesnt sound right and im not sure what it is or how to fix it. Im thinking it needs to be thickened up some but I dont know how to go about doing that. So here is a clip of what it sounds like and I would appreciate any feedback on how I should improve this sound. Thanks.

The song is called Tone Testing and here is the link: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=622812&songID=6151320

 

[kk]

Sounds decent... mix does not have much separation between chord riff and arpeggio...

The tones you have may sit well in a mix with drum, bass and vox... You can always double track to fatten things up - pan L and pan R for each track. Or copy and paste track on 2nd track and nudge pasted track 20 miliseconds...

 

[PreventThis]

Yeah. I forgot to add that it is quad tracked. I forget what they were panned. I think something like 70L/70R on the first two and 90L/90R on the other 2. Thanks for the response.

 

[Elpelotero]

it seems a little fizzy and lacking oomph as you said. I realize you want to keep it tight because you have your bass all the way down at 9. However, you need to get bass back in there. Consider getting a graphic eq pedal and put it in the loop. This would replicate the way people run a mark4. They keep the bass at 2 out of 10, but bring it back in with the graphic eq to get a fat sound.

 

[LnTh]

I would lower presence to about 10 o'clock. Play with mic position if it gets too dark. If you haven't already, try tube rectifier to warm up the mode. Don't set on getting your tone from modern mode (it sounds like you are on modern mode? might be fooled by the recording though). Try vintage mode too. Maybe get bass up to 10 o'clock if you use vintage mode. I didn't think the lowend was too low. I think it's pretty good considering in a full mix you'll have bass covering the lower frequencies.

Besides that, I think you're not off too much. Although this has nothing to do with tone, use headphones when you're tracking. I believe we perceive tone differently when double tracked guitars aren't timed correctly. It tends to sound looser although it isn't. So work on tracking. Headphones help a lot.

I tend to turn my headphones real loud for the playback track so that I hear my 1st track more than the current track I'm recording.

Hope that helps.

 

[PreventThis]

Thanks for the help. Im going to try your suggestions today. I am recording on modern mode. So I will try Vintage mode. I would use a tube rectifier but I dont have one with my rectoverb so I cant try that. I actually dont have a graphic eq pedal but I can get a hold of one sometime this week if I dont get good results after trying the other suggestions.

 

[JF Omalycat]

You didn't mention the kind of recording interface you're using?

Speaking from experience, the Shure 57, while being widely excepted as the prototypical guitar cab mic, and for good reason, it's also very sensitive to the type of pre-amp pushing it. (like most dynamic mics)
With the average, consumer-grade pre-amps most of us use, I don't think the 57 sounds much different from some of the other cheap dynamics I have. Run it through something like an RNP, P-Solo, or Grace 101, and the difference is staggering. Run it through a Neve, (if you're that rich or lucky) and it's gold.

I personally think that high-gain guitar sounds a lot better "tracked" to tape first, anyway. At least at the consumer level. That's a pretty old debate, though.

I thought your arpeggio parts sounded pretty meaty, myself. Seemed like the rhythm parts lacked "oomph".

Maybe try the 57 close miced, and a condenser a few feet back to add some thickness?

Best of luck.

 

[PreventThis]

Yeah. Im just running through my mixers pre amp. I dont have any other pre's. I have a condensor mic and I actually thought about micing with it too along with the 57 but I just havent had time to do it. Tommorrow I will though and I will try all of these suggestions as well when the band meets. Thanks for all of the responses and if anyone else has ideas please throw them at me I'm willing to try them all if I have access to them.

 

[MJ Slaughter]

I've never played a Rectoverb but have played and owned several other Boogies. I suggest bringing your output volumes up and drive the power amp tubes to get more balls. Instead of 9:00 try closer to 11:00 so you get that nice thick chunky tube sound in there. With mic position I prefer the mic off centered and angled towards the outside of the cone and not the center. Admittedly I don't have a lot of experience recording but that’s the way I like it in a live environment.

That's my 2 cents worth.

 

[Racerboy44]

Yeah, it sounds pretty dam good to me! The tone is definetly good. Maybe you need to just dial in a little more gain to fatten or compress the sound a touch. I agree that the rhythm could be slightly thicker but I wouldn't change much.

 

[PreventThis]

Again thanks for all of the responses. They have helped tremendously. Ive added a new clip that we worked on today.

This time we ran a graphic eq through the loop and boosted the low frequencies a slight bit to thicken up the sound. We cranked the output level this time which I think drove the power tubes which also thickened up the sound. After that we ran the SM57 into a ART Tube Preamp which seemed to work better than my onboard Pre's. We also added a Condensor microphone along with the SM57 which is mixed fairly low.

With all of that here we have a link to the sample clip now. Let me know what you guys think about it and what needs improvement. Thanks again.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=622812

EDIT: I forgot to mention that we also recorded using Vintage Mode this time and that the recording is called Vintage Mode Tone Test on my soundclick.