Bash My Guitar Tone

H13

Inspired
Hooooooookay. I know I'm opening up a big 'ole can of wormies here. But hey, sometimes you've gotta use other people's ears and unfortunately I'm only blessed with the one pair.

I've been developing and tweaking the noise my guitar makes for a while and while it's getting CLOSE to what I want, it's not really there yet.

Basically, I like the overall timber\tone but I don't like how it sits in a mix. I haven't been able to get much punch out of it and sometimes clarity is lacking a little bit. There's always solutions here (less gain, more mids) etc. but I've kinda...got the gain and the mids where I like them, so my horribly biased ears need somebody else to look at it and go: "Dude, you totally need <X> to make it punch" or whatever.

What I'm Going For:
Yeaaah, it's a metal sound. But I hate djent. In fact, I kinda want this to be anti-djent. I hate keyboard sounding guitars and ice-pick high mids. I also love saturation rather than super clean. But I also hate scooped mids. The mids I tend to like are the rich low mids moreso than anything else. I also don't like SUPER TIGHT metal tones. I want size more than I want aggression.

So the guy who wants size moreso than aggression complains that his guitar sounds have no punch? I know right? But surely we can get a happy medium somewhere yeah?

So here's the tracks:

Les Paul:


Explorer:


Bass:


Full Mix:


Note: Soundcloud compression has done some fuckery with these samples. There's some artifacts and it sounds like there's a bit more saturation than what there really is.

So if this was your patch: What would you do to it to make it punch more and get a bit more clarity?
 
Not terrible. They've got good bite. Depending on the character of the singer's voice, you might need to shift the mids a little to make some room. Maybe a hair less gain for more clarity. Since you are double tracking the riff, it will still sound big and heavy.
 
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i would say it sounds a bit "digital" not always a bad thing if you like that, but that is the first thing i heard as an issue. however as Mr_fender says once the vocals are applied some changes could be made to the guitars. as a vocal track they are too loud, as an instrumental, sounds cool. if you want to bigger sounding then other guitar parts such as chordal inversions will sound great, but too many will be over kill.

Tonewise, what i didnt like in the first clip, didnt bother me in the full mix, sounds well suited to the bass.
 
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I'll comment briefly on the full mix clip, since that's what matters in the end. For me, the guitars are a bit too loud, making it hard to judge. The tone reminds me of a lot of the bands I saw live in the early 90s. It's a sound I might describe as 'smeary'. From a nostalgia standpoint, it made me smile. It does tend to make you want to pump your fist.
 
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Ok I'll bash the guitars. As an AX8 user I don't have the dephase and air freq parameters, but it sounds to me like you overdid it, big time. Or something similar. Like you mixed your IR with the raw signal. Sounds like a cheap analog cab sim. It's almost a raw signal with a high pass and a low pass, plus a little boost in the upper mids to completely straighten the slope. You will never make anything like that seat in any mix, unless maybe you're looking for a "metal-zone-in-the-mixing-deck" type of trve kvlt metal-in-a-cave tone. You can't fix an IR by mixing it with the raw signal. It's not a solution.
 
Thanks heaps for the constructive criticism :)

Not terrible. They've got good bite. Depending on the character of the singer's voice, you might need to shift the mids a little to make some room. Maybe a hair less gain for more clarity. Since you are double tracking the riff, it will still sound big and heavy.

Cool, it'll be my voice (Apologies in advance...) and I'm a bass\baritone. Does that help predict what I may have to do to the mids to get a voice to fit on top?

I'll comment briefly on the full mix clip, since that's what matters in the end. For me, the guitars are a bit too loud, making it hard to judge. The tone reminds me of a lot of the bands I saw live in the early 90s. It's a sound I might describe as 'smeary'. From a nostalgia standpoint, it made me smile. It does tend to make you want to pump your fist.

Thanks for the compliment :). I wasn't really "going" for anything, just tweaking until I found something that made me happy:)

Ok I'll bash the guitars. As an AX8 user I don't have the dephase and air freq parameters, but it sounds to me like you overdid it, big time. Or something similar. Like you mixed your IR with the raw signal. Sounds like a cheap analog cab sim. It's almost a raw signal with a high pass and a low pass, plus a little boost in the upper mids to completely straighten the slope. You will never make anything like that seat in any mix, unless maybe you're looking for a "metal-zone-in-the-mixing-deck" type of trve kvlt metal-in-a-cave tone. You can't fix an IR by mixing it with the raw signal. It's not a solution.

You're half right in that I'm using a cheap (AKA: Free) IR. I haven't mixed anything with a raw signal, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's kinda what's going on in the IR itself?

To create punch you need dynamics, and there's not much to work with here.

You're right. I thought there were tonal dynamics (AKA: Things sound different between hard hits\not hard hits) but in terms of the wave-form itself, not much different. Is there a setting you would tweak to get things swinging?

What I've learned so far:
So it seems like I'm in the ballpark of something good (or at least headed towards a "good" direction). I think the problem is my IR which is making things sound digital, not really swinging and a bit of an unrealistic sound.

Based on those examples, could somebody recommend an IR that would give me the same sort of tone that I currently have, but sound like an actual cab?
 
Way to nasally.EQ is your friend.

Yeah, I'm doing a TONNE of GEQ. I'm probably wrestling the IR to sound the way I want rather than finding an appropriate IR in the first place. I kinda like the nasalness though...

The full mix sounds fat
Cheers!

Can you point out someone else who achieved the tone you want?
At the risk of sounding like an absolute wanker, unfortunately...not really. I've just chased a sound that I like and tried to make it work basically. I doubt I'm being super original or anything here, but I'm not trying to sound like anybody in particular. More just: "Ooh! I like that! How can I use that?"

As an update:

I've been experimenting with IRs today. I think I found one that gives me the same sort of "tone" but a more realistic response which hopefully deals with the oversaturation, the "digital" feel, gives it a bit more dynamics and makes it fit into a mix a bit easier.

What I've ALSO done: Since I like the tone of what I had (but not the response so much), I've used that IR as a second cab block, but put a HUGE LPF\HPF on it so that it's basically just giving me the mid hump. I've got that blended in softly so that it just pokes through a little bit. The end result SEEMS to be fairly similar to the first lot of samples I posted, but a more realistic response.

That being said, the IR I've chosen seems to give me what I wanted anyway, so if the second cab is a bit much, I can deactivate it and it won't "ruin" anything.

I've kinda burned out my ears though so I'm giving it a rest for today. If I'm happy with the results tomorrow (which is always an interesting test!) I'll post 'em up here to show progress.
 
You're right. I thought there were tonal dynamics (AKA: Things sound different between hard hits\not hard hits) but in terms of the wave-form itself, not much different. Is there a setting you would tweak to get things swinging?

You might try an Expander Block.
 
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So the guy who wants size moreso than aggression complains that his guitar sounds have no punch?
First off, you can let the bass do it's job and not have the guitars resonating on top of it. That's where you're missing your punch.

Yeah, your guitars solo'd sound big, but in the full mix it's a mess. It overshadowing the bass. A fairly steep (18 db/oct) high-pass between 60 to 140Hz should help, but that's not all. Using an EQ plugin like FabFilter's Pro-Q 2, look for any peaks between 100 to 200Hz and reduce them down. This will give clarity to the bass guitar. By allowing the bass to give you that punchy low-end, it will give you the feeling that your guitars sound larger.

To keep some of the mid-bass and low-mid resonances in check, use a multi-band compressor. Have affecting between 70 to 250Hz. Set it to where you're letting through just enough to sit in a mix. You don't want it neutered, but going back again (am I sounding like a broken record) let the bass do it's job by holding down the low-end.

Your high-end is also obstructing the cymbals and hi-hat. Low-pass somewhere between 6 to 10kHz.

That my bash. Hope it helps.
 
What would be cool and maybe helpful to you, is send us the stems with no post-processing. Basically, the raw .wav files of each instrument. Then we'll throw it in our DAW, mix it and post it here for you to listen to. If you like what you hear, we can tell you what moves we made and give you more specific tips.
 
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You might try an Expander Block.
I'm actually keen to try that with the second cab that I talked about. I messed around with it, but I couldn't really get it to behave. Could you give me a few pointers on setting up the Expander properly?

First off, you can let the bass do it's job and not have the guitars resonating on top of it. That's where you're missing your punch.

Yeah, your guitars solo'd sound big, but in the full mix it's a mess. It overshadowing the bass. A fairly steep (18 db/oct) high-pass between 60 to 140Hz should help, but that's not all. Using an EQ plugin like FabFilter's Pro-Q 2, look for any peaks between 100 to 200Hz and reduce them down. This will give clarity to the bass guitar. By allowing the bass to give you that punchy low-end, it will give you the feeling that your guitars sound larger.

To keep some of the mid-bass and low-mid resonances in check, use a multi-band compressor. Have affecting between 70 to 250Hz. Set it to where you're letting through just enough to sit in a mix. You don't want it neutered, but going back again (am I sounding like a broken record) let the bass do it's job by holding down the low-end.

Your high-end is also obstructing the cymbals and hi-hat. Low-pass somewhere between 6 to 10kHz.

That my bash. Hope it helps.

What would be cool and maybe helpful to you, is send us the stems with no post-processing. Basically, the raw .wav files of each instrument. Then we'll throw it in our DAW, mix it and post it here for you to listen to. If you like what you hear, we can tell you what moves we made and give you more specific tips.

First off: This is awesome.

Secondly: I'm definitely going to take all this mixing advice into account. At the moment however, the only "mixing" that I'm doing is a HPF with Pro-Q2 and balancing the volume. Oh and I also have the DI signal mixed very quietly in with the bass track. That's it.

I kinda want to have my patches set up so that it MOSTLY mixes itself when I turn the faders up. Get it right at the source yeah? So once things are better, I'll definitely take a lot of this information into account and be a bit more thorough with the mixing to get things to play nice.

Once things are improved (Hopefully I'll have something ready later today, I just woke up and am enjoying my coffee...) I'll be happy to give stems and see what you guys can do with it. What's the easiest way to do that?

In regards to the bass:

I do try to let the bass be responsible for MOST of the punch and dynamics. It's why I've got a bright and "zingy" sorta sound so that it pierces through the guitar track. For the record, it's recorded with a Darkglass B7K (because of course it is) into the Ampeg model. The blend knob is only at around 1\3rd though so most of what you're hearing is the Ampeg.

That being said: I'm reluctant to use a Multiband on the guitars? Whenever I've used one in the past, whatever frequency the MB is responsible for is squashed and has NO dynamics whatsoever. I know the 70-250hz range on a guitar is where things get real murky with bass guitar and is a danger-zone for guitars, but isn't that also responsible for the "woof" and "thud" of the guitar which helps gives the illusion of a chuggy guitar punching you in the balls? If I've got too much 70-250ish, I'm totally okay with pulling that out a little more with EQ, but I'd still want that area to be dynamic and pumping, rather than squashed and flat.

Happy to be wrong and to learn something here. Maybe I always had MBCs set up wrong?
 
Oh and I also have the DI signal mixed very quietly in with the bass track. That's it.
I like to filter my bass into at least two separate tracks (DI and Grit/Dist), then bus them together. DI is low-passed somewhere between 200 to 300Hz. Grit/Dist is high-passed from 500 to 700Hz area and low-passed at 4kHz or so. Mess with the faders to get a balance that feels right to you.

If I've got too much 70-250ish, I'm totally okay with pulling that out a little more with EQ,
Happy to be wrong and to learn something here. Maybe I always had MBCs set up wrong?
With EQ you run the risk of sucking out too much of the resonance there and the guitars get thin and weak. It's because there's a lot of non-linear peaks in that area that you'd need several EQ's to control them in a fitting ratio. Which leads to phase shift galore.

You don't have to squash them with a multi-band compressor. Just affect the resonances that cross the threshold you set. It'll keep the rest of the low-end intact and allow your guitars to still be heavy while being controlled. Use a fast attack and fast release.

I'll be happy to give stems and see what you guys can do with it. What's the easiest way to do that?
You can zip the files and then upload the zip folder to Drop Box.
 
To me it sounded like it needed a lot more hi and lo cut. Usually when you need a lot of hi n low cut it means your ir is not complementing the amp model as well as it should. I would try out some different speaker types or at least different mixes if you want to stick to your current speaker.
 
But I also hate scooped mids.
Also, I know this sounds counterintuitive (because in your raw guitar tone you want mids), but my favorite zone to cut in mixing is the 600 to 800Hz range. Using a wide Q (1 or so), start dipping out some of this range in that raw guitar tone and you'll be amazed at how it opens up the whole mix and creates some breathiness to it.
 
I'm actually keen to try that with the second cab that I talked about. I messed around with it, but I couldn't really get it to behave. Could you give me a few pointers on setting up the Expander properly?

For the riff in your 1st sample, I'd start with the Threshold around 25dB, Ratio at 2.00, Attack at 1.00, Hold at 3ms and Release at 4ms - 5ms. That's a rough starting point, but it should get you in the ballpark. If you notice some unnatural breakup or the tone cuts in and out, the threshold is probably too low. Slowly raise the threshold 1dB at a time until it goes away.
 
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I kinda want to have my patches set up so that it MOSTLY mixes itself when I turn the faders up. Get it right at the source yeah? So once things are better, I'll definitely take a lot of this information into account and be a bit more thorough with the mixing to get things to play nice.

I recommend tweaking instruments within the context of the mix. It's fine to check an instrument in isolation initially just to get a fix on who the actors are in the show, but it's not recommended to tweak instruments in isolation, namely because what sounds best in isolation may not sound best in a mix.

That being said: I'm reluctant to use a Multiband on the guitars? Whenever I've used one in the past, whatever frequency the MB is responsible for is squashed and has NO dynamics whatsoever. I know the 70-250hz range on a guitar is where things get real murky with bass guitar and is a danger-zone for guitars, but isn't that also responsible for the "woof" and "thud" of the guitar which helps gives the illusion of a chuggy guitar punching you in the balls? If I've got too much 70-250ish, I'm totally okay with pulling that out a little more with EQ, but I'd still want that area to be dynamic and pumping, rather than squashed and flat.

For punch, yes. Low mids are the punch zone, so no, I wouldn't compress that range as much as the highs and mids.

Generally speaking, most of the punch will come from the bass and drums, though.
 
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