Recording high gain sounds....at a loss...

Matt Steele said:
Welcome to the world of mixing! It's not your Axe FX, it's your mixing tools and know how. It's an art you'll never master.

Check this out if you want to learn and improve...

SYSTEMATIC PRODUCTIONS - Official Website - Mixing Guide
Click to expand...

+1027471

Ermz. This Man's book improved my mixes.

As for op, yeah what you've encountered is the reality of recorded guitars. They make the entire mix cloudy and stuffy. That's actually normal and you're supposed to chop them into something nice for the mix. So do yourself a favor and get that ebook. :)
 
clarky said:
in theory you shouldn't be able to hear the difference with respect to the source audio between 44.1k and anything higher
and you shouldn't be able to hear the difference in bit depth beyond 12 bit
it's supposed to be beyond human perception..
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It's called the "Nyquist frequency" (half the sampling frequency of a discrete signal processing system.) At 44.1khz that would be 22kHz. The human ear can only hear, at best, 20hz-20kHz. This is an ongoing debate and even though the facts suggest it shouldn't matter, it has been proven to matter in listening tests. Bit rate is extremely important for the reasons Clarky mentioned. It is most important in reverbs and delays and really low level signals. That is when the least significant bits are needed. If something is cranking at or near the threshold of the digital system (0dBfs) then you don't need many bits to describe the amplitude of the sampled waveform. Bits make more of a difference than does sample rate when you get up above 44.1kHz. I would even be as bold to say that no one on this forum could hear the difference of a high gain amp recording at 44.1kHz vs 48kHz in a blind test. All this being said, I always record my stuff at either 48 or 96kHz 24bit. Then sad part is it will eventually end up as a compressed mp3. UGH.
 
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Tonemeister - top info / comments..

I work at 44.1k 24bit
but this is more because everyone I work with does this
so it makes sense for me to do the same [because we send Logic projects back and forth between us all]
 
Matt Steele said:
Welcome to the world of mixing! It's not your Axe FX, it's your mixing tools and know how. It's an art you'll never master.

Check this out if you want to learn and improve...

SYSTEMATIC PRODUCTIONS - Official Website - Mixing Guide
Click to expand...

For fellas who are new and wanting to learn this, is this book easy on the terminology or explain itself well? I would love to get it to learn but am naturally intimidated by not knowing what most of the lingo means. Sort of like looking at the first chapter and being like.. "wtf did I just read...".

I've been dying for a thread like this to start to help out us guys new to the art of Mixing.

Shane,
 
Triaxis75 said:
For fellas who are new and wanting to learn this, is this book easy on the terminology or explain itself well? I would love to get it to learn but am naturally intimidated by not knowing what most of the lingo means. Sort of like looking at the first chapter and being like.. "wtf did I just read...".

I've been dying for a thread like this to start to help out us guys new to the art of Mixing.

Shane,
Click to expand...

If you've never or are new to the endless art of mixing I'd recommend checking out this book. Granted its mainly aimed at heavy distortion metal mixes but it still gives an in-depth breakdown of each instrument and where it sits in the mix.
 
Clarky,

Another question I had is, when you turn down the gain in order to record, is it not harder to grab things like pinch harmonics?
 
not really... they're already there in the dry recording it did before...

I don't perform the recording with a lower gain tone...
I perform with hi-gain cos I like the feeling and just record the dry signal...
and then reamp with a lower gain tone..

I have a different set of presets just for reamping..
they don't have all the complex modifiers that my live presets have [because they don't need them]
they are just amp and cab.. nothing else..
once I've recorded these, anything and everything else that needs adding is done so in the DAW

and... the soloing tone I use for reamping is still hi-gain..
but I don't place a vol block in front of the amp to jack up the level..
so this is slightly lower gain than I'd use live
 
clarky said:
not really... they're already there in the dry recording it did before...

I don't perform the recording with a lower gain tone...
I perform with hi-gain cos I like the feeling and just record the dry signal...
and then reamp with a lower gain tone..
Click to expand...

I do basically the same thing. Works very well.
 
Clarky and Funeral,

Thanks very much. I have learned more in this thread, than I ever knew about recording anything at all. Very insightful, and everyone has been very generous with their time.

I do appreciate it,

You guys are great,

JD
 
JD - I guess your next lil' job is to try out and experiment with what you've learned...

and if your experiments fail... never forget...
failure is a part of the learning process that leads to success

so you try to figure out.. what is failing? why is it failing?
and ultimately..
what could I change or do differently in the next experiment??

post your results here... lil' audio clips..
try not to be too personally attached to the music itself.. it's not the object under scrutiny..
the object is the tone and the techniques you used to mix / blend them together..
what you are looking for is a set of test recordings that get progressively better..
 
You can pick up the knowledge anywhere, there is a sound on sound guide to mixing metal which is pretty good.. The hard part is knowing how to apply it, some times I don't have to compress or eq, some times I cut, some times I have to go extreme and boost all over the place. Then it's knowing what's going to happen at mastering time when you run your mix through a mastering compressor and Limiter.
 
While I generally do this:

I have a different set of presets just for reamping...they are just amp and cab.. nothing else..
once I've recorded these, anything and everything else that needs adding is done so in the DAW
Click to expand...

I hadn't thought of doing this:

clarky said:
I don't perform the recording with a lower gain tone...
I perform with hi-gain cos I like the feeling and just record the dry signal...
and then reamp with a lower gain tone..
Click to expand...

I might try it.
 
Re-amp

clarky said:
not really... they're already there in the dry recording it did before...

I don't perform the recording with a lower gain tone...
I perform with hi-gain cos I like the feeling and just record the dry signal...
and then reamp with a lower gain tone..

I have a different set of presets just for reamping..
they don't have all the complex modifiers that my live presets have [because they don't need them]
they are just amp and cab.. nothing else..
once I've recorded these, anything and everything else that needs adding is done so in the DAW
Click to expand...

Okay, this prompts another question (sorry)

If you perfrom the initial "High-gain" track for the feel and what not, does this track stay on as one of the 4 guitars
in the recording, or is it dumped, and then 4 new guitars are added from the re-amp. The reason I ask is because in the
beginning we were talking about turning down gain so as not to create too much noise, so does that original stay or go?
It sounds like you delete it, and then re-amp the 4 new tracks?

Thanks,

JD
 
JDWhite said:
Okay, this prompts another question...so does that original stay or go?
It sounds like you delete it, and then re-amp the 4 new tracks?

Thanks,

JD
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You hear the patch out your monitors. Your output channel to DAW is 3 (or/and 4), which is dry. I bet people typically hold onto that dry track, and perhaps mute it. Capice?
 
Sten said:
You hear the patch out your monitors. Your output channel to DAW is 3 (or/and 4), which is dry. I bet people typically hold onto that dry track, and perhaps mute it. Capice?
Click to expand...

Okay, I definitely have read enough here to confirm that I never knew what I was doing, and to head down this new road. Thanks all for such great advice. I will report back,

JD
 
JD - Sten's nailed it...

I never record the hi-gain performance, only the dry guitar...
I'll never use that track so why commit it to 'tape'??

when cutting the 'dry' track..
I record the dry guitar but never hear it..
I hear the hi-gain tone but never record it..

then...
I'll reamp using the recorded dry tone as the source audio, and record with my less gainy preset..
I tend to reamp this performance twice..
in my case I'll use:
- 5153 Blue
- Herbert ch2+

if I want to add a 3rd or 4th guitar track, I'll record a fresh dry part to be the source of this one / these two
reamping too many times from that same dry source performance will result in phasing
you need to make sure you play real tight though so that these track well with the others or it'll get messy in the mix..
with these, I'll use different amps again
VH4 ch3 / or ch4 for the 3rd track, and maybe the 5150 for the 4th

if you have a 3rd track, pan the least gainy one closer to the centre of the mix and place the hotter ones wide
with a 3rd and 4th, the hottest tones are panned wide, the least gainy pan half way..
 
Sorry to bandwagon on the back of this thread, but it's related.. So for me what's usually working is a TS808 > AMP > 2X 4x12's with a different mic on either side.. Sound's great, then when recorded and panned left / double tracked and panned again to the right not so good. Is this what I should be doing?

If using multiple cabs, should it be recorded stereo then panned? Because I have been recording Mono in..
 
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