Help with bad DI's

[TheIllusionist]

I'm mixing an album at the moment which is recorded on a budget. The drums are MIDI, bass is okay, vocals are really well recorded, but the guitars are recorded through the "LINE IN" or "MIC" port on the back of a standard home PC.

As you can imagine, the DI signal isn't great. It lacks power and tends to have a lot of annoying frequencies especially around 2 - 4.5 k which makes EQ'ing incredibly difficult.

Has anybody had a similar experience? This isn't an incredibly high profile album, but it does feature members of Soilwork and Threat Signal on vocals so it will get some attention and I don't want people looking at me when the guitars sounds substandard. I've literally had to tone the drum down a bit so they don't rip the guitars apart in the mix.

 

[Siguros]

Is it not possible to get them to re-record? You're not really going to get a great tone if it's simply plugged into the line in of a standard PC since it isn't using HI-Z. If you could upload like 30 seconds of a raw guitar, maybe someone could have a look at it in their DAW and see if anything can be done.

 

[Fox Mulder]

Re-record, seriously.

Other options may include re-amping through an mt-2 and a marshall power amp + cab, working towards a super/muddy/weak yet old-school/cult tone. Tons of acceptable stuff out there. You should be fine as long as the drums and bass gel along. Just my 2cents. However, it's hard to judge without hearing a clip.

Was a DI-box used while recording through the line in/mic input?

 

[TheIllusionist]

There was no DI box used so you can imagine the issues. I'm re-amping them again right now and they just sound "whiney". I think i'm going to try and persuade him to re-record them. I've brought it up a few times but he doesn't seem that interested in doing them again. I'll upload a small clip in a few minutes of what I have so far.

 

[TheIllusionist]

Here's what I have so far. I can't actually re-amp using real amps at the moment much to my annoyance, but this is using Revalver MKIII.V

This must be the 20th version i've done and re-done the tones. There's as little processing here as possible as I find the more processing I do, the worse it sounds in places.

Different style, but compared to these DI's:

 

[TheIllusionist]

In fact, this new tone is much better than the one i've been using. It's not as bad as I thought. Just doesn't have that "Power" about it

 

[TheIllusionist]

Good news, he's going to re-record it. Can any of you recommend a decent interface with an instrument input for around/under $100?

I use the focusrite saffire pro 40 and I love the instrument in, but he doesn't need that much gear

 

[Carnivorouschrysalis]

Tascam US144mkll has been working well for me, and it's around 100$ more or less

 

[Terminus]

Man, some of those open chords lead me to believe either he needs to tune his guitar better or buy bigger strings. Just a heads up...I would be tuning the fuck out of my guitar for hours if Speed Strid was singing on my song.

 

[TheIllusionist]

I agree, we had a good chat so he's going to make sure he nails it now. It was just a small project he started when he first put the guitars down and now it's much bigger.

I'll check out that tascam now. Really appreciate the info!

 

[Fox Mulder]

Whatever interface you use, please use a decent DI Box. Preferably Countryman Type85.

 

[TheIllusionist]

He's not going to be able to use a decent DI box as he's only just managed to get the interface. The focusrite has a good input and good impedance settings so it should be as good as a standard DI box. Not the best, but it can not be worse than the previous setup