How to tighten this up?

Hey all! Apologies if this is in the wrong forum. I thought about putting this in the recording part, but this is less: "Showing off" and more "Need advice" so I thought it was more appropriate here.

I'm getting pretty damn close to what I want out of my AFX. As a bit of a muck around, I recorded this:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7wafavcpac82usd/Dutch.mp3?dl=0

There's very little processing on the guitars. They're double-tracked but aside from a HPF and LPF, there's basically no fuckery to the sound. It's AFX -> Interface -> Your speakers.

I can already tell from listening to it that one of my guitars needs a bit more presence\treble. That I can fix, but the main problem I have with the tone is that it's not quite tight enough for my likings. In the 12 bar progression where it gets a bit chuggy in the last half in particular is where it stands out. It wasn't really a problem with this particular piece of music, but I occasionally do Drop C, Gojira-Esque stuff where it's going to be a fair bit tighter than what I have so far.

So what things should I mess with on the AFX to tighten things up? I was thinking of reducing the sag or the dynamic presence...

DISCLAIMER: I know I sound like I'm having a big whinge here, but I do genuinely like that tone and am pretty freakin' happy with it! I'm asking because I don't want to go randomly fishing and completely mess up what I have...
 
Anytime I think about tightening up a high gain amp, I reach for a TS style pedal to boost the front end. Drive way down low, volume over noon and tone somewhere around noon depending on the amp.
 
I'm in agreement with Lionheart here- without even listening to the clip I was already thinking "tube screamer."
Another idea might be to just isolate the problem frequencies in the low end and suck them out.
Probably somewhere around 150-190 hz.
Good luck!
 
I'm in agreement with Lionheart here- without even listening to the clip I was already thinking "tube screamer."
Another idea might be to just isolate the problem frequencies in the low end and suck them out.
Probably somewhere around 150-190 hz.
Good luck!
That's a great idea too. I usually opt for a multi-band compressor when taming the lower frequencies, along with a good EQ before that, zeroing in on the major culprit frequency. However, I usually leave that to post-processing in the DAW.
 
When someone wants "tight," they usually mean less-distorted lows. When overdriven, bass notes generate a lot of harmonics in the "mudrange" part of the spectrum.

Reduce the lows gong into the amp sim (the Cut parameter in the Amp block will give you a healthy dose of that, but there are other methods, too). If it hounds a bit thin, add back some lows after the Amp block.

TS-type drive pedals do this low-cut, but they add their own flavor, which you may or may not want.
 
Cheers for the suggestions all!

In regards to a TS, I love Tubescreamers and they are almost always the first thing I put in my patch. If I was to lose all my gear in a house fire, the first thing I would buy (even before an AFX) is a TS808. I'm actually thinking of building a project guitar which has a TS circuit built into it. The guitar will have standard V\V\T knobs, but they're push\pull. When you pull the knobs, they're messing with the TS circuit, when they're pushed, they're messing with the guitar. This requires a whole bunch of knowledge beyond me and the guitar would probably only be usable in about 3 situations, but it sounds like fun to me :)

Long story short, this has a TS with the Drive set to 0, Tone at 4.5 and Level set to 8.

I'm running the Bogner Uberschall. The Cut option is a bit tricky with this amp. The Bogner has a freaking MAMMOTH amount of bottom end (which is why I love it). When I use the Cut, it makes it sound a bit then, but then when I dial in more bass to compensate, it stays "cut" but it just adds woofyness rather than actual thickness.

But I DID dial back the Dynamic Depth and that tightened things up, so it was a good suggestion. Cheers!

What I'm mostly trying to do is tame the top end a bit. The amp pretty much kicks the way I want it to and I like the sound of it a lot, but the fizz up top kinda runs away from me a bit. That's why I'm looking at things like Dynamic Presence and Sag. Any other suggestions of ways to control top end fizz?

PS: The Gain is set to .75. I can't really turn down the gain on the amp without it losing a lot of everything.
 
I'm running the Bogner Uberschall.

PS: The Gain is set to .75. I can't really turn down the gain on the amp without it losing a lot of everything.

Ah, it makes sense now. I've owned two Bogner amps (Shiva and Uberschall) and they are different beasts. With the Uberschall, I wouldn't worry about sticking a TS in front of it. I'd actually take it out. Here's how I (kinda) remember setting up my Uberschall for my 7-string guitars.

Gain: 9 O'clock
Bass: 9 O'clock
Middle: 12 O'clockish
Treble: 1 to 2 O'clock
Presence: 2 O'clock
Master Volume: 10 O'clock

The cabinet does make a difference too. I was using the matching cab, which I know had a V30 in it and I'm not too sure what the other one was (wanna say T75).

But, yeah, the trick with that amp is to turn down the bass a lot and turn up the presence and treble.

If you're worried about the fizz on top, then I'd set a Filter block after the cab and set it for a lowpass, 2nd order, at anywhere between 6kHz to 10kHz.
 
Top end fizz? Be careful there.
Cut too much and you'll lose that high end clarity.
I usually just do a couple narrow cuts of about 3 db, almost always at 3100hz and 5300hz.
But that's probably just specific to my guitar or something.

Sweep around for the frequencies that bother your ears, then just cut it out.
 
Top end fizz? Be careful there.
Cut too much and you'll lose that high end clarity.
I usually just do a couple narrow cuts of about 3 db, almost always at 3100hz and 5300hz.
But that's probably just specific to my guitar or something.

Sweep around for the frequencies that bother your ears, then just cut it out.

To the OP, this is something that I would recommend doing in your DAW with an EQ plugin equipped with a spectrum analyzer.

Like The Last Romantic said, be careful with the 2kHz to 4kHz range. Anything higher than that range, there might be some single fizz bumps here and there. Just sweep a tight EQ boost beyond 4kHz and listen for anything that strikes you as troublesome. But, again, remember that each cut will decrease the clarity of your guitar tone. It's a delicate balance that takes time to learn and master.
 
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