Amp inside an apartment

[silvermaples]

I want to know if anyone has had any success with recording guitar inside an apartment, I'm not looking for "good at low levels" or this "will get you by". I would like to see if anyone has actually recorded at full volume without the neighbors going crazy. I've heard of people building isolation boxes or booths, would this work or is it going to kill the tone of the amp since there won't be as much air to move?

How much room do you really need around an amp for it to not sound like its getting choked?

I'm just getting tired of the amp sim tones, they're great for demoing but I would like to start playing around with re-ampimg and mic postioning.

Cheers
-Cory

 

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

A power attenuator + maybe an isolation box would probably help you a lot

 

[-Noodles-]

If you have awesome neighbours, then it'll be no problem.
If you can do it during the day and everyone is out - that gives you working hours.

To be honest, 90% of the time - you'll probably end up doing it for a month, pissing them off and getting the police round your place.
Have a talk with them and explain the situation. Could be you get one of the above happen to you!

 

[guitarguru777]

I record my 5150 daily with the volume on 2 in my apartment. Its plenty loud to get the speakers moving, and my neighbors don't bitch.

 

[chrisrivalry]

apartments are real tricky since everything is connected, there's really not a whole lot you can do for absorption other than laying down heavy blankets and curtains and hope the cops don't get called. I live in a pretty small neighborhood and I've had the cops called twice now. It was never for guitar tracking though, what I noticed was that the majority of the time the only thing that is noticeably making a noise outside of the house and could potentially be heard by someone else inside of their house if they were really trying to listen would be the snare and cymbals. I know everyone says "talk to your neighbors" and yada yada but personally I don't really like the people around me and I like being to myself since I'm a young guy living on my own who has strange metal bands come over to his house frequently haha but if you live in a cool apartment building I guess go for it.

 

[digitaldeath]

An attenuator is your best bet IMO.

 

[guitarguru777]

No its not .... his issues is SPEAKER MOVEMENT not power amp distortion. 98% of todays modern metal tones are from using PREAMP distortion and not power amp distortion. Todays amps have MORE then enough gain at bedroom levels to sound great recorded. This isnt the old days where you had to push the power amp to even GET any kind of distortion at all.

Just turn the thing to a reasonable volume and record it. If it sounds like shit then you are doing it wrong. Go back to all the tutorials and start over again from scratch.

 

[silvermaples]

Thanks for all the replies, yeah I'm not really looking to use a hot box or attenuator, I really want to push the amp up to a normal studio recording level which I know is normally very loud. I've thought about an isolation box but I have read to many negative things about them. I'm actually thinking about building a vocal booth in my apt that could be broken down and moved from place to place. Maybe there would be enough air to move in there so it wouldn't sound as boxy.

If anyone has ever built anything like this please feel free to share your experiences.

I was thinking something along these lines:
Booth

 

[guitarguru777]

You know the amps in the studio really arent all that loud. At least not in my studio and I get praises for my guitar tones... Amps being loud is probably one of the biggest misconceptions in the world as far as the studio goes.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

No its not .... his issues is SPEAKER MOVEMENT not power amp distortion. 98% of todays modern metal tones are from using PREAMP distortion and not power amp distortion. Todays amps have MORE then enough gain at bedroom levels to sound great recorded. This isnt the old days where you had to push the power amp to even GET any kind of distortion at all.

Just turn the thing to a reasonable volume and record it. If it sounds like shit then you are doing it wrong. Go back to all the tutorials and start over again from scratch.

^ To guitarguru you listen! mind what you have learned, save you it can!

True though, the speaker movement is key. Don't quote me on this but I sware I get more woof out of my crap 16 ohm cab than my 8 ohm Mesa. Higher ohmage may help as well.

 

[RiF]

No its not .... his issues is SPEAKER MOVEMENT not power amp distortion. 98% of todays modern metal tones are from using PREAMP distortion and not power amp distortion. Todays amps have MORE then enough gain at bedroom levels to sound great recorded. This isnt the old days where you had to push the power amp to even GET any kind of distortion at all.

Just turn the thing to a reasonable volume and record it. If it sounds like shit then you are doing it wrong. Go back to all the tutorials and start over again from scratch.

+1
Unless you have a great sounding big room, I see no need to krank the amp to insane neighbor-killing levels.
In my room (20-25 m2), my miced guitar tones sound worse if I go far beyond "2" or "3" on the master volume (DualRec/Marshall/Bugera5150-clone via Mesa 4x12) and I think that my room is the restriction here. Mic choice and placement and amp settings should get you there using reasonable levels.
Isocabs color the sound in a bad way (boxy) and I'd rather turn down the volume than using them.
Reamping can help you finding the right time-slots (neighbors are not at sleep). You can record for hours at very low levels getting the perfect DI track and then reamp the final tracks quickly when the neighbors are out or after you talked to them, that the next hour will be hell on earth for them but just the next hour ;-).

 

[DocSauerkraut]

I remember that i read somwhere about a guy who made spectral analysis of guitar amps at different volume levels.
He found out that you get identical frequencies at 30% and 80% volume, meaning, you should be able to record the same signal at moderate (30%) levels.
Of course this depends strongly on the style of music. At 30% you can't expect power tube saturation. But if you want to recod high gain sounds (and this is the Sneap-forum) the effect of power tube saturation is negligible. On the other hand, depending on your amp/neighbors even 30% might be too loud.

In my personal opinion, you can obtain perfect results using a non-micing technique, either using a Palmer PDI03/PGA04 or using a combination of a power-amp and impulse responses. Especially when recording modern high-gain guitar sounds (e.g.[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQmMrB93vzM&feature=feedrec_grec_index[/ame])

Cheers!

 

[reneisgod]

Get yourself a 5 watt Blackstar HT 5!

 

[silvermaples]

^


Actually I have the Engl Gigmaster 15, I just don't have a cabinet yet..... everyone should check out my gear I have for sale/trade in the sale section so I can start aquiring more studio equipment


G-sysytem....ooooooooo.....aaaaahhhhhh and other pedals fs/ft

Cheers
-Cory

 

[sk8ersick666]

I live in a two family house and the family upstairs was getting annoyed at my late reamping sessions..so I had to look for an alternative...now I'm reamping with my Triple X directly into impulses, I can dial in the tone from my amp thats coming directly out of my speakers.

Is not the same as mic'ing but i get pretty good results.

...this was also because my cab is a piece of shit.