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My band is currently in the process of recording an album most of which is being done in a home studio.

What are your thoughts on the electric guitar sound in this track(beginning 44 seconds into the song)?

Does the sound have enough depth? What are some good techniques to get this sort of full "fuzz" sound (in terms of mic-ing) while maintaining some definition to the guitar sound?

out of a possible seventeen, i rate this a Q in depth of fuzz

does anyone have heart enough to help?

get a great-sounding amp and throw a great-sounding mic on it, maybe a beyer M88 or a shure SM7 or something like that. i like both of those. out of all the mics i have, i would try one of those two first.

if you don't have a great amp, maybe buy an ampeg V4 from the tmidgett?

or maybe you want to get a fuzz pedal that sounds good. i've enjoyed the sounds i've gotten out of a Snarling Dogs "Black Dog" pedal, as far as a more fuzzy sound goes. it works well with my amp, which can already fuzz out pretty well on its own. i think if you look around, you might see people recommending stuff more like a certain vintage of big muff, or a fuzzface, or a fuzztone or a fuzzy mcfuzz or whatever the kids use these days.

even try the search function and search this site for the word "fuzz". that would at least get you in the right direction and with better into than i've given you here.

good luck.

Just out of curiousity, what is the rest of the signal path? What mics and pre's are you using? What's the recording medium?
Not sure what this has to do with the guitar sound, but the snare is a little too prominent for my taste. I'd also bring the bass up a hair. Of course, I say this with disclaimer that I just listened to the track through the crappy, tiny speakers on my PowerBook, which don't have much of a low-end anyway....

thanks for those gear suggestions, toomanyhelicopters. Right now, I can get a decent sounding fuzz through my fulltone dp1 pedal and Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. However, I am not sure how to really capture the sound. So far I haven't been able to get a dynamic mic to be able to pick up the nuance of the fuzz.

The guitar sound we use is an amp simulator, well two amp simulators, one slightly panned left, one slightly panned right. At this point, it's easier for us to get a decent sound playing directly into a digital interface (and its preamp) and then using the amp sims. I am a little worried however, that the amp sims don't have the depth of sound you get from a correctly mic-ed amp. We've got a couple of condenser mics and a decent SM58-style vocal mic (which was used in conjunction with a decent condensor, not sure of hte model.

I guess, ideally, we'd like to capture the amp's true sound, but we're unsure how to go about micing the amp to get that fullness we're looking for.

that acoustic guitar is too hot in the mix, and the electric that's there from the beginning (not the fuzz one) is too thin and quiet.

get away from the idea of an amp simulator as fast as you can. a nice sounding, real amp, with a proper mic, plugged into a good mic pre or mixer channel... that's gonna sound better, even if you record *well* to a digital medium, than it's gonna sound if you're impersonating an amp.

don't ever underestimate the strength of a good room and a good (and properly mixed-in) room mic / pair of room mics.

the drums sound like they were recorded okay with some iffy mics maybe? SM57's or similar? drums don't sound horrible, but they don't sound so great. *production*-wise. performance-wise he/she seems pretty solid and spot-on for the context of the song.

vocals are really, really good for power-pop, as far as i'm concerned.

with the fuzz guitar especially (but also the drums as well) it sounds like you're clipping something in your signal chain. i can't say where for sure. but it just has a harshness to it.

here's my take on it... in the whole analog vs digital debate... there's a distinction to be made. analog *kills* digital when it comes to stuff like guitar electronics and amps and actual tones and stuff like that. modeling is not good. it is to be avoided. digital is to be avoided. use the real thing. if you want it to sound really good, you will not use "digital" stuff for anything much beyond the storage of the data. you will not use it to affect your tone in any way...

good digital rivals good analog in terms of fidelity with respect to the storage of the "data" or "information" or whatever the "signal" whatever you wanna call the recording itself. but digital or analog, either way, it's gonna sound like ass if you're not talking about a quality room, quality instrument sounds, proper mic'ing, good preamp/EQ/compression whatnot, all the signal-related electronics... basically avoid all digital other than data storage. and spend $1K on four good mics. that's my advice.

rad. so if i were to get two mics to record the guitar, which models should i use?

Also, where should I place the Mic's, and how loud should the amp be (vs. how much the preamp to use)?

why not try the DI paired up w/ a miced amp? i'm just guessing you are probably recording to some kind of computer system, so you can line up the phase manually or just add a few ms delay to the DI. this way you can get the depth and natural lows/highs of an amp with the edge of a DI.

things i would try:

-record the amp in as big of room possible and not a closet. a cardioid dynamic mic will reject most of the ambience anyway and you won't get the ugly standing waves of a closet.

-resist the urge to put the mic half an inch from the speaker, back it up about 6-12 inches and aim it at the center of the speaker, maybe a few degrees off axis.

-(when it is in phase) just barely mix in the DI. you really only 'need' it for a little fuzzy texture.

outside of the guitar sound on the chorus, i thought the song sounded fine. it reminds me of Adventures of Jet.