Axe in High End Studio experience? TUBE PRE AFTER?

J

Jeries

Power User
First in a bit of shameless self promotion on the holiday season, please checkout my cover of the full score to sleigh ride, i did it all (40 guitar tracks) with my Axe Fx...

Jeries Alfreih: Sleigh Ride (Complete Score) Electric Guitar - YouTube


So... My question is does anyone have a really high end home or professional studio and use the axe fx? my question is- what are you using/do you use anything like a high end tube preamp with the axe fx/after the axe fx into the console/interface...

I bring up sleigh ride, because i have no sense of EQ and stuck pretty much to presets... and some sounded good to my engineer who mixed/mastered it, some was a little high/shrill- and he ran a lot of outboard gear to warm the guitars up (NOW THIS IS NOTHING AGAINST THE AXE FX- HE WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME WITH A TUBE AMP/ANYTHING)...

All together some gutiars ran through $50,000 in outboard gear...and the whole mix was also pumped through the stuff too overall...

obviously i'd be on a tight budget and can't afford near a $2500 preamp...
But i was curious if anyone is using any recording outboard gear w/the Axe, or a tube preamp after the axe...or anything like that...

thx!
 
i find no reason to add a tube preamp into the signal chain.

there are so many options and things to adjust your sound in the axe fx, you shouldn't need outboard gear to "warm up" the guitars. i know you did what you needed to so the recording could be completed and mastered, but just saying that a little time put into creating your tones would probably make it so that other gear wouldn't be necessary.

you say you use presets mostly. have you ever experimented with just an amp and cab?

there are so many threads and topics in the wiki about how to get started with creating your own tones. make a blank patch, put amp1 and cab 1 only, and shunt the rest so you get sound. choose an amp you like. choose a cab as a starting point. adjust the first 2 pages of the amp block for a while to see how they interact with each other and how the tone changes. change the master volume from low to high (adjust the level so the perceived volume is the same) then from high to low. notice any changes in how the amp sounded? get it sounding "good." now change the cabs, try as many as you can. try them all! see how much the cab changes the tone.

yes you will have to put work into this. you will have to spend time understanding how the basic parameters affect each other and your tone. i did the same thing when i bought my mesa roadster and 2x12 lonestar cab. i spent about 3 hours one night going through each of the 4 channels, messing with gain, all the eq knobs, and how everything interacted with the master and presence, how much volume i could get from my clean tone with the cab, etc. i do the same thing with each patch i try to make on the axe. good luck!
 
Everything I record, including the Axe, runs through my 610 preamps (or API), LA2A compression and custom modded converters. A good "front end" is essential because as the saying goes "you can't polish a turd after the fact."
 
Hi

From time to time I use the axe with my Mark V with 4CM.but thats just for effects as the correct ampsetting in the Axe can do 98% same( 2% is dynamic response) and is an example better on Marshalls like my JMP-1 was.

Tube poweramps espescially if you push them hard as your tone component make a tiny difference

Roland
 
I don’t have the AxeII yet..
My recording plan though would be to record all the wet signals DI [without delays or reverbs – I’ll add those after].
During mix down I’ll sub-group them and send a little of them to the aux that is used for parallel compression. In this aux they’ll combine with the drums and bass – to glue them together and add body to the rhythm section.
 
its like recording a real guitar: 5 minuits more of trying to find the best mic position is worth more than 50 minuits of correction attempts with eq,compressor etc.

the best signal source u can get is the one u dont have to edit at all so my advice is: learn more about creating your tones yourself in the axe. the possibilties are there so no need so spend extra $$$ on expensive gear ..
 
I have a high end home studio as well, and I don't usually run the axe thru anything else. I might use my eventides for some fx that are difficult to replicate with the axe or if I'm maxed out on CPU or something, and occasionally a high end tube preamp for some color, but they're all unnecessary really, but with limited time at my disposal, it's easier to dial up something quick on the eventides or get a desired color with a preamp than tweak with the axe. I don't even own an axe ii, my ultras do all the dirty work.
 
I don't have a high end studio - unless you consider Reaper "high end" - but I always follow the golden computer rule.. "garbage in, garbage out".
Meaning... you need to set up your tone properly BEFORE recording. That is completely do-able on the Axe, and requires little skill/knowledge to get right. AS mentioned earlier, start with Amp/cab and tweak to taste. READ the manual and the wiki, especially Yek's HOW-TO's.
We didn't wake up one morning and go "Wow!@ I completely understand everything about EQ!".. We ALL started from scratch and it is a learning process. The sooner you start, the sooner you'll get there. Trial and error. Learn. READ (did I mention the wiki and Yek's How-to's?). Try again. READ more.. you get the idea :D
 
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thanks guys..
every point was a great point- everything above was great stuff...

I haven't spent much time tweaking things on my own, and i'm sure the Axe with enough tweaking can put out what I want it to... and some of you live by good outboard gear after- and that's great too...

and the guitars were recorded before the engineer touched it so he had no control over presets...

the reason i wanted the axe was the MULTIBAND Comp. I use a multiband compressor extensively in protools when recording guitars- and thought it was amazing a unit had it built in.

I still haven't even tweaked my own personal sounds yet...
Sleigh Ride was done by using presets, minimal tweaking if any- and taking off all the reverb
everything else i've done with the ask has been pretty much with presets... I only tried once to make something from scratch and it's what convinced me to keep the Axe.

I wanted to see if the Axe can sound the same as a mic'd real guitar on a commercially released album...
I took My Chemical Romance's song TEENAGERS... i have the master tracks to it and listened to the guitar solo'd, and knew they used sm57's and a marchshall jcm800 w greenbacks on the recording... and 5-10 min later had an identical sound to the one that was on the recording and you can't tell the difference between the mic'd one from the album and the Axe.

thx all!
 
Admin M@ said:
I'd say this is only because he didn't know how to tweak the Axe-Fx.
Click to expand...

violently agreeing.....
the sound eng / producer most likely knows what he's looking for and is using the kit he knows to get there [and most likely get there quickly - time is money and all that sort of thing]
 
Jeries said:
i have the master tracks to it and listened to the guitar solo'd, and knew they used sm57's and a marchshall jcm800 w greenbacks on the recording... and 5-10 min later had an identical sound to the one that was on the recording and you can't tell the difference between the mic'd one from the album and the Axe.
Click to expand...

Awesome!
 
clarky said:
violently agreeing.....
the sound eng / producer most likely knows what he's looking for and is using the kit he knows to get there [and most likely get there quickly - time is money and all that sort of thing]
Click to expand...

you guys are right... he only touched the tracks after i already tracked them all and gave him the wavs...

he's mixes/masters all what i do- cuz i suck at mixing... everything i've ever given him has been too shrill/bright/trebly/annoying- so it's not the gear/the amps/the axe- it's me and my trebly deafness...

I'm sure if he tweaked the Axe before it would have been much different... I had a Soldano SLO-100 Patch that he said was left as is/untouched that he thought sounded great... most everything needed work- ALSO- some things needed a lot of work because they were recorded up one octave and on the piccolo part, up 1 octave and up 2 oct.

I do need to invest in the best tube mic pre i can afford.
 
Sammetal91 said:
Whoa how'd you get your hand on the masters?
Click to expand...
chrisallen8888 said:
Awesome!
Click to expand...

I have the masters to about 50-100 songs... Most came from guitar hero songs that were split up and i made protools sessions for them... got all the metallica stuff too!

I do have a few interesting things like the full 24 track master to Bohemian Rhapsody, Killer Queen, and i think Hotel California...

The coolest thing about Bohemian Rhapsody is every verse has 4-5 vocal takes and only 1 was used... so there's alternate takes that have never seen the light of day-
i arraged a version i didn't release/put on youtube or anything that has the entire song with just 1 vocal track- no harmony/100 overdubs... just a single vocal line through the entire song- kind of cool...it would be also cool to make a version with different/unused takes of the verses.


i do want to put up here or youtube the MCR song comparing the Axe to the orig master...maybe a few other songs- the only difference is the reverb and if i tweaked it for like 2 more min it would be perfect...i'd also like to do the same with a bunch of songs.
 
there are tons of posts in various forums about this...

you can download individual wavs (ususally 4 tracks- gtr/bass/drums/vox) of almost every song in guitarworld/rockband history...

sometimes they have the MOOG file which can be opened in audacity and exported into wavs for protools/etc...

Some NIN forums had some posts and a few other recording sites/music forums had a lot on this

you might be able to search your fav torrent site for master tracks/studiomasters/ multritrack stems/etc
 
IMO...
Record it as you feel it will best benefit your vision/the song. Consider opinions, if available at the time.

Before tracking, ask yourself, "What do I want the *final* track to sound like?" Then go backward, deconstructing. Now you have a pretty solid blueprint for building. Next, consider your medium; with digital (DAWquencer, for instance), you have a TON of options. Now ask yourself, "How can I afford myself the greatest post-recording flexability?" Consider that you will possibly be unable to account for all of those post-recording possibilities, and as such, it might be a great idea to also capture "pure" tones as well (remove "coloring" pieces, insert neutral/pristine pieces). This is not "instead of," but rather "in addition to." We have the resources, and unless it is done "under the ($$$) gun" or for someone else who does not see the benefits, I can see no logical reason not to "over record."

Of course, simply going for it, sometimes, can produce the most amazing results. IMO, consider all of this. Then, when the time comes, go with what feels best.
 
The Queen tracks are not from Rock Band...they were leaked some time ago and are the actual original 24 tracks
 
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