Well. Not the best recording I've ever done, but there were two very large issues I had.
I originally wanted to do Master of Puppets by (obviously) Metallica - but in order to do so, I would have had to use my my Ibanez GIO - which is in the shop.
Since I am only left with my Ibanez RG120 I am limited to songs that are written in 1-step-down.
For anyone who is not entirely sure why this is the case, the issue is this:
The RG120 has a floating tremelo system. The tremelo arm ("whammy bar" as people call it for some reason) is set at a very specific tension using three springs inside the guitar. Changing string size, brand, or tuning effectively ruins the balance between the pull of the strings on the tremelo block and the pull of the springs on the tremolo block. Having them set properly (equal pull from both springs and strings) lets you use the tremelo arm to both push down and pull up on the arm - it also makes the tremolo more responsive, and could even eliminate fret buzz in some circumstances. For me, I have two guitars so that I can change between the two different tunings by swapping guitars. Many inexperienced guitarists (or those who have the money to throw around) simply change tunings, but...I've found that a second guitar is worth the investment when you consider how much longer the strings lasted.
ANYWAYYYY....Point is, is that I'm only allowed songs in D standard (1 step down) or Drop C tunings. (1 step down with the E string dropped another step)
There. Thats one issue. (BUT WAIT! 2 FOR 1 RANTS!) It's a pretty easy situation to rectify - just don't play anything written in E standard (standard tuning).
One situation that is NOT easy to rectify is the clipping issue I had. and believe me, if you have half a musical ear - you WILL hear it in the recording below. My POD X3 Live, in comparison to most other equipment that I've used has a very low tolerance for extremely hot signals. My only answer is that the X3 was designed for budget guitarists (it's relatively cheap at five hundred dollars) and so wasn't designed to necessarily accept very hot signals. I'm assuming that once the signal from my guitar hit the distortion, the gain was simply too much for the signal to remain intact. I've always had this problem with the X3, but because I never used it in a recording environment, until now, it never bothered me - the thru-signal settings were fine, and sounded fucking fantastic.
Well. Now that I've begun attempting to record with it, it appears that the great sounds I could coax through my amp were just that....through my amp. I forgot that the amplifier is introducing its own tone layered onto the effect processing of my X3. I'll have to get a condenser mic and just forsake my USB connection.
To make it clearer for anyone who has NO idea what I'm talking about, these are the comparative signal chains - for clarification, I left out certain things I didn't use in this recording, like my looping pedal, tuner pedal, or noise gate.
(What you hear when I play by myself in a "live" situation) guitar ---> POD X3 Live (Effect Processing Unit) ---> Spider III amp
(What you hear when I play in a "studio" situation) guitar ---> PODX3 ---> Audacity (recording application)
It's important to note that the effect processor functions in a manner of providing up to 3 effects at once, as well as simulating a cab and speaker (amplifier) system. In the first scenario, on top of the simulated amplifier, my own amplifier adds it's own tone to the mix. When I record to the my computer, the second signal processor (the Spider amplifier) is gone, replaced with my direct recording. So you get the pure "simulated" amplifier - which of course, will never sound like the real thing.
What I'm trying to say is, that my guitar tone sounds a LOT better in person, because you get the sound of a real amplifier, rather than a simulated copycat. The best scenario possible would be to have a direct-out port on my amplifier and use THAT for recording, that way you get exactly what is heard as if it was played "live." The amp DOES have a direct-out, but I can't utilize it because my computer doesn't have a 1/4" input jack - only 1/8" (think the headphones for your iPod). If I ever become serious about recording anything - the cost isn't too extravagant, and I may just install one in my computer.
Also. One more gripe about why this is going to sound shitty: Audacity (my recording program) uses LAME encoders (thats the name of it, not an insult, it stands for: "LAME Ain't an Mp3 Encoder"). While Audacity itself can create as many tracks as you want, and all of my tracks are in stereo (so 2 channels per track), so it sounds accurate when played through speakers. When LAME is used to encode raw sound files into MP3, one of the pitfalls of the encoder is that it compresses all the channels down to one track of two channels. So essentially, it crams all the information of four channels playing (two from the original MP3 and two from my guitar signal) and pushes it into two tracks. Is that fun? No. but I don't plan on making some 5.1 stereo-quality track either. =P
So - bitching aside, here is my rendition of Gojira's "Toxic Garbage Island" - In Audacity (and this was the reason for my final complaint) the two tracks were a LOT more distinct, but now it sorta sounds like my guitar is PART of the song, and its not. I actually changed a whole verse cause I hated the chugging part of one of them.
Without further ado (or more paragraphs to write!) Here it is! If you would like to compare it to the original, it's above in my jukebox app. (It's arranged by artist name, so G for Gojira =D!)
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