Can't hear guitar over everything else

[Saint Chuck]

Amazing stuff posted in this thread! Wish I was in the community here years ago before I had to learn these points thru time, errors and frustration! My beautifully full, home studio tone would disappear like "Where's Waldo" in the mix.... Until I bought a boutique Magic Box (a mid-boosting overdrive)... Then it was like "aha!! I can hear myself!

Another benefit of boosting the mids is that you will fall in lust with your neck pickup!! (Think "Doug Aldrich," whose tone is always so prominent!)

 

[Tailstop]

You are not EQing properly. Start studying "bedroom tones vs. band room tones" and you'll get a better idea of how to solve this EXTREMELY common issue. Also' get yourself a powered 10" monitor, point it at your face.

Good luck!

 

[boolean]

Take a listen to some isolated guitar tracks and model your tone after that. Theres some recent Toto Isolated tracks floating around. You'd be surprised what the guitar actually sounds like isolated in the mix. Go for that kind of tone. Midrangey, kind of brash, etc. The more you crank your volume, you're really only poking out in that part of the frequency spectrum and not fighting the other frequencies (which will bury the guitar anyway)

That was very cool - thanks for posting !

 

[sprada]

Try this.. Take a blank preset and add cab block (Basketwave TV Mix) and a Amp Block.
Choose the Plexi High and reset block. Turn bass down to 2 or 3, Mids to around 8 and Treble to 7 or so.
That should cut trough the mix like a chainsaw.

 

[bdrepko]

That was very cool - thanks for posting !

Yes indeed. Steve Lukather is a very underrated guitarist.

 

[strat714]

Research Fletcher-Munson curve. This is the effect of frequencies on the perceived loudness of sound. I believe it applies here.

 

[vangrieg]

Yes indeed. Steve Lukather is a very underrated guitarist.

Well, Toto plays music that's kind of weird by itself, in a genre where guitar payers aren't really the heroes. It's easier to appreciate what he (and other band members) do than truly enjoy listening to this stuff.

 

[dpeterson]

Experiment... have a few patches setup with your main sound, and swap out some cabs, or try some different amps. Swap between them while playing see if one pops out better than the other. Just jamming mids will not always get you up there, if someone else is dominating that space, it then becomes a volume war. One of many reasons people use IEMS and control their own mix.

 

[solo-act]

I gig with guitar in the mix in one floor monitor. I like performing with guitar in the mix. It's easier to hear the relationship of my playing to the mix as I come forward or pull back in the mix based on the dynamics.

That said, some venues are loud enough I'll bring guitar and voice forward. It all depends on the room. Digital mixer with monitor sub mix is your friend.

 

[bwanagary]

The pa is a PreSonis with JBL Eon 15's. I do notice a lot of reverb in my patches.
Non are mine. They either came with the Axe or off the Axe-exchange. Looks
like almost everyone agrees the mids need to come up. I am not using the eq block
but notice there are several to choose from. Any 1 better than the other?

Make sure that in the "FAT CHANNEL" on the mixer you have no effects and no EQ. Everything should be flat so you only have to adjust all your settings in one place. Send to your own personal monitor the whole band mix at equal volumes but increase your guitar channel(s) mix about 12% higher and know that you will sound a little louder in your monitor than you are in the FOH. That way you'll be able to pick out your sound from the mix. Also, like all the other guys say - MIDs are your friend. Adjust the low cut to reduce low frequencies that will only conflict with the bassist and curve HF down rapidly from around 13k (or use hi-cut) and cut off everything over 16k so as not to beat up the horns in the FOH. I sometimes have a compressor only on the PreSonus guitar channel to control guitar peaks to the FOH.

 

[greiswig]

Take a listen to some isolated guitar tracks and model your tone after that. Theres some recent Toto Isolated tracks floating around. You'd be surprised what the guitar actually sounds like isolated in the mix. Go for that kind of tone. Midrangey, kind of brash, etc. The more you crank your volume, you're really only poking out in that part of the frequency spectrum and not fighting the other frequencies (which will bury the guitar anyway)

Holy crap! That is an amazing dissection of the production of that song. Educational on a lot of levels, so thanks for posting it. I'd never noticed Porcaro's drum subtleties in that track before. Man!

I struggle with how best to design my tone for use live, too. To me, if I am really treating the AxeFX like an amp, I shouldn't need to worry too much about what the soundman gets from me; make it so I like what I hear, and that I'm not so bassy that I have lost all headroom. I'd rather rely on the soundman to carve my instrument into the right part of the space. You're right that the chances are good that he would end up carving off a bunch of low end (channel high-pass set to 150-200Hz or even higher), and may even cut highs off (when I run sound, I tend to make the instruments a bit dark compared to the lead vocal, so the vocal retains focus of attention).

But although the soundman can cut whatever is there, he can't create what isn't there to begin with.

The other thing that strikes me about the "add mids" comments is that this kind of runs counter to what used to be conventional wisdom that cutting is better than boosting. So it used to be that "more mids" meant cutting highs and lows. Maybe I'm reading too much into some of the other comments above?

 

[solo-act]

it used to be that "more mids" meant cutting highs and lows.

That's the best approach if the original rig/preset is dialed in any way that makes sense. Depends on the user, mix and context.

I always feel like my patches are "thin" in isolation and want them to be fatter. As those Toto tracks show however, even frequencies in a "fat" guitar part (big distortion power chords) are reigned in more than you'd think.

 

[vangrieg]

The other thing that strikes me about the "add mids" comments is that this kind of runs counter to what used to be conventional wisdom that cutting is better than boosting.

Well, first of all, like every conventional wisdom, it's not some holy scripture that you should never break or else. Secondly, some more knowledgeable people may correct me if I'm wrong, but on a guitar amp, when you turn your MID knob up, you actually attenuate lows and highs, that's how those passive EQs should work, they don't add anything. Thirdly, what matters here is the reference point. The core of the advice is to add mids relative to what one would think it's enough, make the sound more mid-rangey than appears normal when one listens to his sound isolated and not very loudly. Whether you need an active EQ that actually adds something is a separate story.

 

[hippietim]

Too much bass or too much distortion are the most common culprits. It's way easier to get too much bass out a modeler than it is a real rig because most real guitar cabs will trim the lows for you.

 

[greiswig]

Too much bass or too much distortion are the most common culprits. It's way easier to get too much bass out a modeler than it is a real rig because most real guitar cabs will trim the lows for you.

Man, that isn't my experience! Both as a player and when I run sound, I find that any decent 2x12, 4x12, and even some 1x12's will put out a lot of bass especially indoors. Frequencies well below where I would put the low cut filter for best mix. As a player, I like the kind of "girthy but bangable" tone, but I know that too much bass and low mid will just muddy things up, step on the bass player and keys, etc. That Toto dissection really is a great example of how things ought to work.

 

[6stringscott]

Fastest fix for a home-tuned patch when I play with the band, is to cut bass and treble that sound good in the bedroom but are too much when really loud. And the reverb thing. Also beware slapback delays and stuff like that which muddies up your note articulation. In a power trio maybe it sounds good. In a 5-piece or more band, you need to keep a small sonic footprint.

Also, if you are playing more rhythm/chords/backing in a band setting, let go of the need for the patch to sound good in isolation. The best compliments I got from my band about my tone happened with patches that sounded mediocre at best in the bedroom.

That Toto mix dissection also shows how restrained the backing instrument parts are: no ringing strummed chords or sustained or dense notes, no effect trails. Each note is articulated clearly, and occupies a small part of the time allocated for that note (without sounding staccato) to leave focus on the vocals or lead instruments. The backing instruments show their greatness by how the whole mix sounds, not by standing out with individual great tone.

 

[greiswig]

The keyboards in that track are the only things that tend to be sustained or continuous. You're right, the guitar parts are just spice...not the primary focus.

 

[The Whale]

Gang - I love this discussion and continued +1s for the Toto dissection, I'm curious to steer the conversation towards more modern guitar sounds. Most examples given for tones that cut are classics (plexi + g12s), and I use a fair amount of those. But, at the same time, I'm trying to make my tones more current and modern and many of those reference tones are more Mesa/Bogner ish with much more emphasis on the low-mids. How does one make those tones cut through a mix live?

 

[vangrieg]

I guess that if you want to go lower, bass will need to go lower as well to make some room for you. Like cut 100-125 Hz. For modern music with modern basses, especially 5 string ones, this can be okay since they can deliver a lot of energy in lower bands. The trick is then to figure out how they should live with the kick drum together. I personally like kick boosted around here, so there's still no room for guitar. And this is a tricky band especially when subwoofers don't have a lot of head room to spare. What happens often is that when they start to distort, they create harmonics in upper bands, which translate into unintelligible mud in the mix. And how many places do you know that have more than adequate sub power? So I'd say no matter what, try to avoid the subwoofer territory, it's not yours. Bass and kick are responsible for that, so let them do their job.

 

[The Whale]

I guess that if you want to go lower, bass will need to go lower as well to make some room for you. Like cut 100-125 Hz. For modern music with modern basses, especially 5 string ones, this can be okay since they can deliver a lot of energy in lower bands. The trick is then to figure out how they should live with the kick drum together. I personally like kick boosted around here, so there's still no room for guitar. And this is a tricky band especially when subwoofers don't have a lot of head room to spare. What happens often is that when they start to distort, they create harmonics in upper bands, which translate into unintelligible mud in the mix. And how many places do you know that have more than adequate sub power? So I'd say no matter what, try to avoid the subwoofer territory, it's not yours. Bass and kick are responsible for that, so let them do their job.

Vangrieg - this make sense so I think I need to clarify with actual bands to reference: King's X, Big Wreck, Muse. im not so much thinking of the super saturated modern thing and should have specified that. Each of these bands uses low tunings and modern amp tones yet manages to cut. Is the solution to cutting through the mix listening to the bass players tone? See if the bass player has scalpted a tone that gets out of the way of the guitar?