Can't get good recording tones, what am I doing wrong?

mak said:
Yeah that makes perfect sense!! I'm using Yam HS5's. It sounds great on them but much muddier than yours on my cheaper speakers. I need to do some EQ-ing!
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A trick I do that I learned from some youtube video a little while ago that is probably well known is I put an EQ plugin on a guitar track, solo that track and boost a very thin part around 150khz all the way to the top (like 10db boost). From there I playback the guitar part and slowly move the top of the point right until around 400khz, while doing that I listen to the sound and when a really harsh, annoying sound is presented, I know that will be a part that's hurting the mix overall. So I drop the spike that has the harsh frequency to around -6db or -8db. I do that on both guitar tracks and bass guitar.

I do the exact same technique on the master stereo track to remove any overall harsh frequencies, but I reduce it only to like -4.

Also, on the electric guitars I roll off everything below like 60 or 70khz which seems to allow the kick drum and bass guitar to punch through the mix.

I'm no expert in audio production, but my ears tell me doing that stuff makes it sound cleaner in a mix.
 
willbartlett said:
A trick I do that I learned from some youtube video a little while ago that is probably well known is I put an EQ plugin on a guitar track, solo that track and boost a very thin part around 150khz all the way to the top (like 10db boost). From there I playback the guitar part and slowly move the top of the point right until around 400khz, while doing that I listen to the sound and when a really harsh, annoying sound is presented, I know that will be a part that's hurting the mix overall. So I drop the spike that has the harsh frequency to around -6db or -8db. I do that on both guitar tracks and bass guitar.

I do the exact same technique on the master stereo track to remove any overall harsh frequencies, but I reduce it only to like -4.

Also, on the electric guitars I roll off everything below like 60 or 70khz which seems to allow the kick drum and bass guitar to punch through the mix.

I'm no expert in audio production, but my ears tell me doing that stuff makes it sound cleaner in a mix.
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Thanks I'll give that a try!
Next thing I want to work on is a melody over a heavy rhythm track... Is there a standard approach to that?
 
If it's a lead, boost some of the freqs you're cutting from the rhythms (but not too much), I usually pan it 25% to the left to give it it's own space that doesn't conflict with the bass and kick/snare
 
mak said:
Haven't done anything for a while now... need to get back to it!
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Here's a test we recently did. Biggest changes were a better bass guitar tone (using the Axe), and a more defined/refined guitar preset. Still haven't bought a cab pack yet though! I feel like we've come a long way with the guitar tone since the first test. What do you guys think?



Random clean test:
 
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Steveche said:
Here's a couple tests we recently did. Biggest changes were a better bass guitar tone (using the Axe), and a more defined/refined guitar preset. Still haven't bought a cab pack yet though! I feel like we've come a long way with the guitar tone since the first test. What do you guys think?



Random clean test:
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i don't remember what the original tones sounded like (i'll listen again after i post this), but immediately everything sounds clear and defined. it sounds good!

could you give a really short summary of the things in the preset that may have made it better?
 
Tame that cymbal or HiHat, or whatever it is (I couldn't figure it out is it a HiHat or some kind of splash), it makes it hard to listen to the whole track.
 
Chris@AxeFxTutorials said:
i don't remember what the original tones sounded like (i'll listen again after i post this), but immediately everything sounds clear and defined. it sounds good!

could you give a really short summary of the things in the preset that may have made it better?
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Thanks Chris! We started with amp + cab, spent some time choosing those and tweaking the basic parameters. Once we felt we couldn't do much more to the sound using the basic parameters, we refined the tone to our liking by throwing in drive and GEQ blocks. So the preset became Gate --> Drive --> Amp --> Cab --> GEQ. Very similar setup to my old analog rig (pre-Axe days). That's pretty much what my presets look like when I play live with the Axe, but tweaked much differently b/c it sounds a lot different through a real 4x12.

Here's some older clips (from the soundcloud page):






 
kisslorand said:
Tame that cymbal or HiHat, or whatever it is (I couldn't figure it out is it a HiHat or some kind of splash), it makes it hard to listen to the whole track.
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We just had it there as a reference, since they were drum samples from Will's electric kit, which he just added in manually.
 
Steveche said:
Here's a test we recently did. Biggest changes were a better bass guitar tone (using the Axe), and a more defined/refined guitar preset. Still haven't bought a cab pack yet though! I feel like we've come a long way with the guitar tone since the first test. What do you guys think?



Random clean test:
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Sounding good!! The bass makes a huge difference - nice bass tone!
Snare is a bit urm how to describe it... hollow or flat?
 
Thanks! Yeah, we're not worrying about drums for now, just focusing on getting good guitar and bass tones with the Axe.

Here's a more recent clip we did last week, using a small section from a different song. I wanted to have more presence / brightness in the guitars:
 
Steveche said:
Thanks! Yeah, we're not worrying about drums for now, just focusing on getting good guitar and bass tones with the Axe.

Here's a more recent clip we did last week, using a small section from a different song. I wanted to have more presence / brightness in the guitars:
Click to expand...

You should definitely get in the habit of thinking of everything at once rather than breaking it down to a good guitar, bass, and drum tone. seperately they might sound good to your ear but things can go south very quickly if youre mating tones that done naturally jive well. I will say that most source guitar tones are on the darker side, and the sheen and presence you hear on most modern mixes comes in at the mastering stage. as long as you have a strong, unobtrusive midrange on your guitars that isnt drowning your vocals out you should be golden
 
We recorded some parts to one of our newer songs and did a few bounces with different EQ settings. I think this is our best recording so far:


What do you guys think? How is it sounding to you? For a home studio, I think we're doing alright :) I'm pretty happy with this, but any feedback to help improve it is appreciated!
 
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