AFIII Wall-O-Guitars and a recording tip.

York Audio

Fractal Fanatic
Vendor
(I posted this on TGP as well, but thought my Fractal friends might want to get a little nerdy with me)

Well it's been what, three months of being quarantined and the state of the world is a lot to handle right now. The truth is, I needed to let out some steam to maintain some sanity, and what better way to do that than to play something aggressive?

I already know this kind of music isn't everyone's cup o' tea, but sometimes it feels good to layer big distorted guitars and turn it up way too loud. It's good for the soul. And after seeing an old Foo Fighters video pop up on my instagram, it had to be done.

For this track, I tried something I've never done before. I used modelers and real amps together using my Axe-Fx III and my mid 90's Mesa Dual Caliber DC-5 head through the Fractal X-Load, and used MixIR2 as the IR loader. Here comes the recording tip... I started each guitar part with a sound I liked, and it sounded good... but after recording the direct signals from the real amp and my Axe-Fx, it was possible to change mic placements after the fact. It made it really easy to listen to the track and choose IR files that suited the mix. One file would make guitars more forward, another would make them sit a little further back, and the nice thing was just being able to listen and try stuff rather than recording a part 5 times with 5 different mic placements or trying to EQ things to sit a certain way.

All that to say, if you're using modelers or real amps to record, try using the direct amp signals and play with your IR choices in the context of the whole mix. It's amazing how your mic placement can change the character of the whole song and you end up EQ'ing less.

Anyway, here it is.




Drums: Slate SSD5 Blackbird Pack
Bass: Fender Jazz, Axe-Fx III SV Bass 1, YA AMPG 410 HS IR
Clean Guitar: 2013 Gibson SG Standard, Axe-Fx III Brit JM45, YA MRSH M25 IR
Dirty Guitar R: 1997 Gibson Les Paul Classic, Mesa DC-5, Fractal X-Load, YA MRSH M25 IR
Dirty Guitar L: 1997 Gibson Les Paul Classic, Axe-Fx III SLO Lead, YA MRSH M25 IR
Dirty Guitar Lead: 1997 Gibson Les Paul Classic, Axe-Fx III SLO Lead, YA MRSH M25 IR
 
Sounds fantastic! Mixing with IRs sounds/seems way more organic than EQ'ing to fix something. Nice technique.
 
Sounds fantastic! Mixing with IRs sounds/seems way more organic than EQ'ing to fix something. Nice technique.
Thanks man! The result is definitely more organic. I put a low cut on the big guitars, but other than that, there isn’t any EQ on them. They just sit well. I spent more time tweaking Decapitator on the drum room mics than on the guitar tones.
 
Back
Top Bottom