Help me make these tones more aggressive!

H13

H13

Inspired
Hey all!

So I've been tweaking like crazy and I've got my patches "feeling" right. I listen to what's going on and I'm not sitting here disliking how the gain bounces back at me or feel like there's any harshness that I dislike. Note: My room is hardly perfect for monitoring, so if you spot something that sounds crap, please feel free to point it out!

The problem is that I have ended up with the friendliest metal guitar tone since Poison did Unskinny Bop*. While I'm not after DJENT BR00TALS or anything, I would like something that sounds more aggressive. However, I'm not sure what I should do to get some more "fuck you" out of my guitar sounds.

I'll give screenshots of my patches. 4 things I want to make clear from the outset (which is a bit of a dick move)

#1) I don't want to tell you which amp models I am using
This isn't because MY TONE is some super secret. However I'm worried that if I tell you what amps I am using, you might listen to the guitar sounds with a preconceived notion as to how it SHOULD sound. I'm not necessarily interested in getting the PERFECT Mesa Recto sound, I'm wanting to get a better version of my sound. So I don't want you to listen to this and go: "Well to make it sounds MORE like a Diezel, you should <X>". I want to know how to tweak my sound to get it more aggressive. If you think I've got too much <X> dialed in, you'll be able to see that with the amp settings. Feel free to guess what amp it is. If somebody gets it right, I'll let you know via PM :)

#2) The Cab I'm using is a blend of God's Cab and an Ownhammer Cab.
I merged the two together using CabLab. Since I don't have the rights to sell Ownhammer stuff, I'm not going to post up my cab. However if you think there is a certain quality to the cab that is lacking, please feel free to make suggesitons.

#3) The playing is shite.
I know. This is not meant to be a piece of music, this is just a sound check. There's 4 riffs. A crap, single note thrash riff x4, a powerchord progression x4, the same progression played with open chords x4, then some chugs which has the world's most generic guitar solo on it. It's in Drop D and I rarely go much lower than that.

#4) There's almost no post-processing.
I put an EQ on that was a high pass filter and a low-pass filter. That was it. I want to get great sounds straight away that I don't need to "mix" to sound good. One guitar is panned hard left, the other guitar is panned hard right so that they double-track when in a full mix.

I think that's covered all the FAQs, so here's the details\info.

Les Paul Patch
JJyzMOD.png

The amp that I'm using is very high gain and more than 100 watts. Meant to be an extremely hotted up Marshall. The boost pedal is the FAS LED drive.

Here's the rhythm sound


Here's the lead sound:


Explorer Patch
6OQarBk.png

Now here's the settings for my Explorer. It's using a very high gain amp that is very very very popular. If you were to think of the most popular modern high-gain amps? You'll probably be right. The boost pedal is the FAS Boost pedal (Love it. Wish I knew what it was)

Here's the rhythm sound:


Here's the lead sound:



Full Mix

Behold the sloppy playing in full glory! But at least you can hear how it's all working together with some bass and some drums. While I think it sounds pretty decent, it's missing a bit of an angry element. What would you do to get a bit more of an aggressive edge out of these sounds?

*No, I don't think this sounds like Poison. Nor would I ever want to. Suggestions that I sound like Poison will be met with seething resentment and creative death threats.
 
One of my simplest tricks to make amps sound and feel more aggressive is to turn up the "Dynamics" control in the amp block up to about 2 o'clock.
 
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Put your saturation button on and that will help A LOT. stick it on Ideal and it will give everything way more balls.
 
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A few things come to mind:

1) To me, the playing itself sound a bit weak. It sounds good, but your playing could certainly be more aggressive, because the tones themselves are really nice and aggressive as is. Players like Josh Browne, Jason Richardson, Ryan Knight etc. are great examples. That's how they get such an aggressive sound from such low gain patches, technique.
2) Try using a bit of limiting on the guitars (no more than about 4db) after the amp and cabinet. It evens out the performance and adds consistency, while also squashing palm mutes so they're even with non-muted notes. That consistency will make everything a bit more solid sounding.
3) Sounds like you need a bit more low end beef and chunk in there. Sweep around between 180-250Hz and find a region in there to boost a bit with the PEQ.
4) The sound is a bit nasally to me. Sweep around somewhere between 500-1.2kHz and suck some of the honk out, and replace it with some more pleasant high end aggression like 2kHz.
 
ConnorGilks said:
[...]
2) Try using a bit of limiting on the guitars (no more than about 4db) after the amp and cabinet. It evens out the performance and adds consistency, while also squashing palm mutes so they're even with non-muted notes. That consistency will make everything a bit more solid sounding.
Click to expand...
Hey Connor, which block would you use for this? A Comp or something else?
ConnorGilks said:
3) Sounds like you need a bit more low end beef and chunk in there. Sweep around between 180-250Hz and find a region in there to boost a bit with the PEQ.
Click to expand...
This is a great idea, but rather than boosting the bass, consider using a cut a little above the frequency that you want to hear more. The effect is sonically very similar to the boost, but without adding any "woofiness" which is usually inevitable with low-end boosts.
 
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Cheers for your suggestions so far :)

I've made adjustments as people have said. That preamp dynamics knob is pretty awesome! I also scooped the mids a bit to try to emphasise some more attack and chug. I also tweaked the cabs a smidge.

I threw the "Ideal" switch on for the saturation. I KINDA like the edge it gives, but it's made things sound a bit "distant" in the mix.

However, ear fatigue has well and truely set in by now and I've started chasing my tail. Here's what I've got so far (that I'll probably listen to tomorrow and fucking cringe at) so any more suggestions would be great :). If I've butchered the shit out of it due to messing with things when ear fatigue has set in, do let me know!

Les Paul Rhythm:


Explorer Rhythm:
 
Hi, just a couple of quick suggestions...
Have you tried detuning lower? You're currently in drop D, maybe try down tuning all of your strings a semitone (half step) ?

Also, your riff is in D minor pentatonic, which isn't a particularly aggressive sounding scale. Have you thought about maybe trying a minor mode? You can keep the riff you already have, but just tweak some of the notes to give a slightly more aggressive sound.
Hope I'm not way off base :)
 
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Call me crazy, but I think your clips sound good! Have you put these in context with a full mix? In my (very amateur) experience, sounds that seem to lack bass when solo'd often sound right in a mix.
 
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Try two cabs panned left and right. Set one to have a slight amount of delay and adjust til they hit the sweet spot. That'll get a bigger sound. You can even use the cab you have now in stereo and do the same thing.
 
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Cheers for the suggestions all :)

jlynnb1 said:
are you sure you need the boost pedal? i feel like it might be pre-eq'ing a bit too much.
Click to expand...

For the second amp, I need the boost pedal. That amp sounds a bit unclear otherwise so the boost pedal improves the attack and brightens up the top end in a way that I like.

For the first amp? Maybe not. I'll experiment with that later today.

Bengalburst said:
Hi, just a couple of quick suggestions...
Have you tried detuning lower? You're currently in drop D, maybe try down tuning all of your strings a semitone (half step) ?

Also, your riff is in D minor pentatonic, which isn't a particularly aggressive sounding scale. Have you thought about maybe trying a minor mode? You can keep the riff you already have, but just tweak some of the notes to give a slightly more aggressive sound.
Hope I'm not way off base :)
Click to expand...

Cheers for the suggestion! I rarely go beyond D in my songs and like how it sounds in D. The above riff isn't meant to be BR00TAL or anything, but I still want something KINDA thrashy out of what I'm doing. Hell, Metallica rarely went below E until St. Anger.

Eliju said:
Try two cabs panned left and right. Set one to have a slight amount of delay and adjust til they hit the sweet spot. That'll get a bigger sound. You can even use the cab you have now in stereo and do the same thing.
Click to expand...

I'm not a fan of the 2 cab thing, I would just prefer to double-track it if I'm going to use 2 cabs. Cheers for the suggesion though :)
 
5150 said:
Call me crazy, but I think your clips sound good! Have you put these in context with a full mix? In my (very amateur) experience, sounds that seem to lack bass when solo'd often sound right in a mix.
Click to expand...

Apologies for the double post, but thanks for the compliment :). I'm pretty happy with what I have, but it never hurts to ask experts for improvements :)
 
Malvolio said:
Sounds great! Now that you're pretty happy with it, would you mind sharing the presets?
Click to expand...
I would, except that I believe the secret is in the cab. Since I don't have the rights to distribute Ownhammer stuff, I wouldn't feel right about handing out a cab that I put together based on one of his.

That said, you have my amp settings. For the Les Paul, I'm running an Uberschall and for the Explorer, it's an EVH5150 ;). Knock yourself out. I've tweaked them, but not dramatically. It's a good starting point.

So I've done just a touch more tweaking.


For the Les Paul, I tried getting rid of the boost pedal and it got a bit sloppy. However, I did dial back the level on the pedal and compensated with gain on the amp on itself. It did make things sound a lot richer and a little more "amp-like" which I dig. This extra richness though has killed a bit of the newfound attack that we had in it, so I'm keen for suggestions there :).


There's the lead sound with the new patch. I'm pretty happy with this!


For the Explorer, I turned up the tone a smidge to give it more attack. I can compensate for a loss of attack in the Les Paul by making this one a bit stabbier, but I'd still like to get some more attack outta the Les Paul patch.


Here it is in a full mix. Things have opened up nicely and you can hear the bass a bit better which is a nice bonus :)

Pretty much the only thing I'd like now is more attack out of the Les Paul sound so it's a bit stabbier. Suggestions?
 
Wolfenstein98k said:
Hey Connor, which block would you use for this? A Comp or something else?

This is a great idea, but rather than boosting the bass, consider using a cut a little above the frequency that you want to hear more. The effect is sonically very similar to the boost, but without adding any "woofiness" which is usually inevitable with low-end boosts.
Click to expand...

The Comp block, set to the highest ratio, acts as a limiter.

That approach can be much harder to get right. A low end boost only gets woofy if you don't know what you're doing. Typically boosting in the wrong areas, boosting too much, using a low shelf, or using too tight of a Q for a peak boost, where it just creates a weird resonance. The only downside is having to readjust levels if your patch is just below output clipping and then you boost a couple db in the low end.
 
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