[comp.music] Guitar distortion sounds for your ears.

swanee@megadata.mega.oz.au (Geoff Swan) (06/07/91)

Here's one way that works really well.
Firstly a tube amp is a must. Preferrably a Marshall. Also a reasonable
stack (I've found Celestions quite good). Chuck out your DI box and
mic the stack from about 2 feet off in front of one of the drivers,
off axis from the centre. Some acoustic insulation behind the stack and
behind the microphone helps. By the way, an SM58 mic works well here.
Now that you've got the signal into the mixer, EQ it to suit your
tastes but be a little careful about adding too much top as it can
be really annoying and scratchy after a while. Compress the signal
at around 2:1 and add a 300msec delay to the whole lot (about 2 repeats 
is all you need). Of course you'll need to overdrive the input stage
of the guitar amp and pickups, guitars and playing style make a big 
difference to the final sound.

I hope this is of some use to you,
                                     Geoff Swan.