Do you EQ presets?

S

Slowlearner

Member
Hi everybody,

I recently produced a metal track, stacked three layers of guitars with different distortion types (mild to heavy) on top of each other, EQed and compressed everything in the mix, but it sounds shit. I cant figure out where the problem is, as the sound from the Axe sounds good initially. Do you EQ your guitars or are they already pretty good to go? I came with a type of muddy, distant sound, but if anything I high passed everything.

Will post an extract if needed.
 
Start with only 2 tracks, hard panned, low gain.

You probably use too much gain!
(We all tend to do so... Im not juging!)

I use light post eq in my daw, but the sound comming out from the axe is already great!

Try to aim for a balanced sound (low gain, not too bassy, not to trebly!)

Those are all doubled track, hard panned :
https://m.soundcloud.com/vondano
 
Without listening, I'd try doing all 3 of your rhythm tracks with either your "mid" or your "low" gain settings.

You'd be surprised how well one tone will later with itself when multitracking metal rhythms. (As long as you don't scoop the mids or anything)

Also, less gain is preferable when doing more than two rhythms. I always track 4-6 rhythms, so my original tone is usually pretty tame.
 
Thanks guys I'll try the less gain tip. @frankyandreas, thanks, do you also start with a tone that has little distortion? Or do you stack heavy distortion tracks, same settings, but with little gain?
2) finally, do you record stereo tracks, or doubled mono tracks?
 
I'm by no means saying my method is "the" way, but I layer low-mid gain mono tracks. I do 3-4 tracks (either 2 hard panned + 1 down the middle or 2 hard panned and 2 50% panned). I usually build a tone from scratch, make it somewhat mid-heavy and shoot for a tone that sounds "not quite distorted enough". sometimes making it sound too bright and brittle actually helps it layer well, but this approach is less reliable than layering the mid rangy tone.

Hope any of this helps at all. My advice may just be what's best for my hands and my ears.
 
Double and triple tracking the same exact part requires some careful considerations.

Anything the affects the note transients has a profound affect of the perception of the track.

So different EQ, different compressor attacks, parts not played precisely together, all can contribute to blur the attack and make the overall perception be less precise or more distant.

Listen to some commercial records that you really admire and see if they are arranging slightly different parts that work together. That is a pretty common technique when layering guitars.
 
It sounds from your description like comb filtering. Do the layers when played together have a kind of a volume drop compared with each track alone, especially in mono?

Than the solution would be to play layered tracks through different amps or at least different IRs or to EQ them differently. Secondly, try to use the phase inversion on some of the tracks in this version and pan them L/R in any case. Is your mix maybe in mono?
 
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