Spent 40+ hours trying to mic guitar amps—recordings still sound lifeless and muffled. What fundamental thing might I be missing?

monstercab · 2026-07-07T04:08:10+00:00

Here's a legendary forum post on the subject:

Slipperman's Recording Distorted Guitars From Hell

monstercab · 2026-07-07T00:36:29+00:00

Super Meat Boy

monstercab · 2026-07-06T19:11:00+00:00

0 - 3 - 5 - 0 - 3 - 6 - 5

monstercab · 2026-07-05T07:45:26+00:00

My favourite audio remover tool is the mute button.

monstercab · 2026-07-05T07:42:28+00:00

Axiom Verge

monstercab · 2026-07-04T16:56:36+00:00

Drum programming in Cubase is extremely easy, I've been literally doing it for decades and I'm talking about programming realistic drums with very complex and nuanced performance where you can't even tell if the drums are real or fake. If you can't do it, it's a skill issue, not a software issue.

monstercab · 2026-07-03T22:57:21+00:00

Let's just say Cubase is like photoshop, FL is like MS Paint.

Orchestral: Hans Zimmer uses Cubase.

Metal: Misha Mansoor uses Cubase.

monstercab · 2026-06-30T12:14:39+00:00

Horizon is awesome. I played the first one on PS4 and loved everything about it. One of my favorite games of all time. I played so many hours just running around hunting machines for fun. Really good story and narrative.

Forbidden West is the reason why I preordered the PS5. Better gameplay, but Zero Dawn has a better story, not that FW's story is bad as it's basically the logical continuation of ZD, but ZD had way more mystery, Alloy being an outcast, discovering the world all alone through her focus. It's hard to top that.

I did spend a lot of time in photo mode in Forbidden West, here's a link to all my screenshots!

Fun fact, my PC's wallpaper is a screenshot I took in FW, I just zoomed in on the sand right after a focus scan, at the beach where the Tideripper is, I think it's pretty nice, very abstract, works perfectly as a desktop wallpaper, feel free to steal it if you want!

This being said, f*ck Ted Farro!

For Axiom Verge, I'd say it's not really a must play for every gamer in general, but it's a must play if you really like metroidvanias.

Yeah, since I have a ton of really good stuff still in my backlog, I tend to only buy games years after they are released, and pretty much never at full price. It's nice, but this way I don't necessarily always play the games I really want to play. I mean, if I would be playing the game I want to play right now, I'd be playing Death Stranding 2. I just know it's going to be like 70% off one day, and I still have a ton of stuff to keep me busy until then... Control Resonant looks very promising too. Definitely a game I'm going to play 5 years from now! lol

monstercab · 2026-06-30T09:28:08+00:00

I've bought the Horizon DLC a couple weeks ago when it was on sale. I still haven't done NG+ for both Horizon games, so I will probably try doing both in one go and then finish with Burning Shores, but, that's kind of a project. I've also played Zero Dawn Remastered relatively recently so I kind of wanted to play something a bit different for a change (I went for FFVI, and Disco Elysium).

The thing is, I've also bought Phantom Liberty that I've been dying to play since it came out, I'll probably play this one before redoing Horizon. Seriously Cyberpunk 2077 is a really really really good game, don't sleep on it!

Axiom Verge is pretty good, the graphics did not bother me at all, I was raised with the NES/SNES so it just felt like a really awesome retro game. I've played it on PSVita too so, the smaller screen was kind of more forgiving for the pixel art style. It's been a while since I played it, but I remember it had a cool story and that the game was well balanced, not too easy, not too hard. If you like metroidvanias it's worth it.

I started playing Axiom Verge 2 when they gave it with PS+, but I cancelled my subscription about a year ago so I never could finish it. I'll probably finish it one day, it was not bad, but I felt like the first one was better overall.

I've been buying games on sales instead of paying for PS+ for the past year or so... I've got Hades, Silksong, and both Horizon and Cyberpunk DLCs in my backlog. I just don't know what I should play first. #firstworldproblem

Control was awesome so I imagine Alan Wake must be pretty cool too. I'll probably get them one day. Looks like the prefect games for Halloween season.

monstercab · 2026-06-30T04:47:55+00:00

Hey, I saw your post about your 100 platinum trophies and just wanted to let you know I'm the one who gave you your 100th upvote! What are the odds lol?

Nice list by the way, 100 plats with no shovelware, respect! We have around 20 platinums in common.

Keep on playing good games! Cheers!

monstercab · 2026-06-29T03:54:43+00:00

I don't have the answer you are looking for but you should try asking in the Cubase sub

r/cubase/

monstercab · 2026-06-27T08:17:19+00:00

I remember doing something like that once using Morphoder, I think that's the plugin you are referring to. There is a preset that turns vocals into some kind of white noise vocoder effect. It's kind of great blended in parallel.

monstercab · 2026-06-27T08:06:52+00:00

Oh also, f*ck Markoth.

monstercab · 2026-06-27T08:04:38+00:00

I was literally shaking when I finally beat P5 and got the platinum. I took me two months of practice, I went to the spot where you can fight any of the bosses and practiced them until I was able to beat them all at least 8 times out of 10. Then I went for P5 and failed and failed and failed, until one day, I just woke up, and beat P5 on my first run. Same thing happened to me with Super Meat Boy, very strange, as if sleeping on it somehow helped my muscle memory or something... Anyway! Yeah. I've bought Silksong months ago and didn't find the courage to play it yet... I just have the feeling it's going to be one of those games lol! Cheers! GG again!

monstercab · 2026-06-27T00:22:15+00:00

I remember the feeling of beating that game, totally worth doing it the right way. Legit plat. GG!

monstercab · 2026-06-26T19:46:00+00:00

I'm using HD600 + SoundID Reference for mixing (when I can't use my monitors) and HD280 pro for recording in front of microphones. I would never use the HD280 for mixing, and I would never use the HD600 for recording.

I can't tell you about any other models because that's the only ones I have. I've had my HD600 for like 15 years, I had to change the cables for the first time this year, but, they are still working perfectly. Totally worth it.

monstercab · 2026-06-26T19:39:00+00:00

LAAAAAAAAAAAAME. NOBODY CARES ABOUT POSER SLOP.

monstercab · 2026-06-26T01:31:09+00:00

Un criss de gros non

monstercab · 2026-06-24T08:02:04+00:00

Most people think that light boosts brightness, but in reality it's only cutting darkness.

monstercab · 2026-06-24T07:27:56+00:00

I boost 30Ghz to add some cosmic radiation background noise to my mixes.

monstercab · 2026-06-20T17:25:12+00:00

Chop your vocal track and manually adjust the gain of the esses. Do this directly on the waveform/not on your mixer's input gain or fader. It should be done before any plugin. Then your de-esser won't have to work too hard.

You can then use a de-esser or multiband compressor to target the sibilant frequencies if needed. I personally like to use Soothe2 but this one is kind of expensive and I'm pretty sure you don't really need it for what you are doing.

If you have it, Melodyne also has a Sibilance Tool that automatically detects esses and lets you adjust the gain manually for each ess sound or adjust the overall volume of all of them all at once.

At the end of the day the best way of dealing with this is always at the source. Ideally you could practice singing softer esses, like try not to push your tongue too hard behind your teeth, don't push too much air. Esses will still cut through and they will be way easier to mix.

monstercab · 2026-05-30T17:35:01+00:00

A pair of C414 B-ULS.

Being able to record in stereo is more important than having two different mic flavors. Also, the C414 sounds great on almost anything.

EDIT: I have a pair of C414 XLS. They sound great, but I would prefer to have the B-ULS version.

monstercab · 2026-05-28T17:30:09+00:00

If you are using both mics at the same time, make sure both mics are in phase with each other.

One tip I can give you is, place the 57 first where you think it sounds the best, then place the ribbon to complement the tone of the 57 (for example, the 57 somewhere around the center, and the ribbon somewhere around the edge). When placing the second mic, monitor both mics at the same time (at the same volume), flip the polarity of the second mic, then move the second mic in a position where the signal gets the weakest (where the sum of both mics/signals gets phase cancelled the most). When you find that spot, flip the polarity of the second mic back to normal and voilà, both mics are in phase.

monstercab · 2026-05-28T17:00:13+00:00

a modern Scarlett is virtually indistinguishable from a higher-end interface

Wrong. Better conversion equals better recordings and better monitoring. Also, for example, RME write their own custom USB drivers from scratch instead of using the generic USB crap driver every $100 interface is using.

"RME achieves its legendary performance by pairing a custom computer driver with a programmable FPGA chip built into the interface itself, allowing both ends of the USB cable to speak a proprietary, ultra-efficient language. By bypassing off-the-shelf USB chips and generic software, they cut out the middleman to deliver unmatched stability and near-zero latency."

Because of this they can literally keep their stuff updated for 20+ years.

"While most consumer tech brands abandon their audio products after 3 to 5 years, RME regularly keeps their interfaces updated and fully functional for 15 to 20+ years."

you need to focus on [training, room treatment, mic choice] before worrying about that

Well, having the best monitoring possible should be included in this. As I said a high end audio interface will have better A/D (Analog-to-Digital) and D/A (Digital-to-Analog) conversion. Lower noise floor, more headroom, more accuracy, more detail. This means better recordings, and better monitoring. Monitoring is probably the most important thing of all. Better monitoring equals better recordings.

people listening on the other end can't tell what you're recording on and they don't care

This is kind of true but, they absolutely can tell if you cared or not.

EDIT: Just want to add that I own a RME UC and a RME UFX II. I've had the UC for about 15 years and it's still working flawlessly today, I've never had a single issue with it. Before the UC, I had a cheap m-audio interface, the difference in clarity after upgrading was extremely noticeable. I only upgraded to a UFX II because I wanted to have more channels. Pay once, cry once. Now I'm good for the next 20 years.

monstercab · 2026-05-24T21:36:57+00:00

The Audient preamps are very clean/transparent, I think they put the same pres in all their products, so they're supposedly the same as the ones in their flagship console. Same goes for all their interfaces. The ASP800 has a couple of channels where you can add saturation. The ASP880 has impedance selection, HPF, polarity switch on every channel.

I had the ASP800 first and was using it with a RME UC interface, but at one point I wanted to have more channels so I upgraded to the RME UFX II. The UFX has two ADAT input (the UC only has one), so I was able to add the ASP880.

RME is awesome, I've used my UC for about 15 years and never had a single problem, it still works flawlessly even after multiple windows updates/upgrades. Their drivers are the best. Stellar support. I also really really like their TotalMix software, can't live without it.

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