Bi-amping etc

[Lasse Lammert]

I've tried reamping the same track through different rigs a couple of times to then blend them to one awesome sounding guitar track (bi amping)
Never came out awesome though....there's always some weird sounding build up in the mids.....
It never sounded like "the awesome mids from that amp and the great low end from that one", but like some stuffy weirdness...

But apparently people are doing it all the time, live and in the studio...what are your experiences? (I'm not talking about different amps left and right or "2 tracks of that amp and two of that" when quad tracking, I actually mean blending amp sounds for the same guitar track)

 

[Grå Värld]

Henrik in this thread
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/bar/709217-friends-new-album-fredrick-nordstrom.html
wrote about the guitar tone for the Confession song :"It´s all ITB, and rythm-guitars is going straight into a EVH 5150 mkIII, Marshall Greenback cab. Sent into the poweramp of a Peavey 5150 to an EVH cab, two 57 on each and that´s basicly it."

That example of biamping sounded great. I am too looking for good blends on two amps using one guitar take each side as I play a more hardcore style and think that quad tracking guitars sounds more dense and metal. I have been experimenting with reamping the same DI thru Peavey 6505 with Boss HM-2 and Peavey 6505 Green channel with Maxon but not 100% happy yet.

 

[Red Phoenix]

that's still more or less the same amp with different settings or speaker.

The few times i tried sending the same DI track into two totally different amps i got only bad results. It sounded kinda hollow like having phase cancelation which couldn't be corrected by phase aligning. I would combine two amps only with different DI tracks...but i prefere only one amp for the same riff.

 

[Mago]

Yeah I get what you mean wit the stiffy weird mid build up. I think that mostly happens when you use different heads through the same cab and the same mics/mic positions.
Very selective filtering does the job in that case, still I think it's not that much nicer than using more mics and blend those for the final sounds.
Useing a different head for another mic and micposition gives it a nice flavour in between those possibilities.

 

[53Crëw]

Lasse, just a thought (and you may know this already)... but if the amps have a different number of gain stages, the phase can be out. Each time the guitar signal goes through a gain stage in the amp, the phase is flipped. So if you combine an amp with 3 gain stages and another amp with 4 gain stages, they will be out 180-degrees with each other, and you'll need to flip the phase on one of the tracks.

Not sure if the weird mids you're describing may be due to phase cancellation... You might double-check the waveforms and see.

 

[JakeAC5253]

Not sure what the issue is. I sometimes do this using speakers and I guess the trick is getting each to sound its own personal best before blending. Like obviously don't dial one to sound all lows and one to sound all highs or something. You probably know this already. I also don't EQ or filter any of them before blending, I like to let the tones slam into each other before any shaping or filtering happens. That's it really... just make sure everything is time aligned.

Lasse, just a thought (and you may know this already)... but if the amps have a different number of gain stages, the phase can be out. Each time the guitar signal goes through a gain stage in the amp, the phase is flipped. So if you combine an amp with 3 gain stages and another amp with 4 gain stages, they will be out 180-degrees with each other, and you'll need to flip the phase on one of the tracks.

That's a great point. I had to do that back when I had a Marshall and a Dual Rec.

 

[RedDog]

Phasey bullshit happens. Some heads get squishy and others are really responsive. especially when working with tube and solid state amp heads. Even with extreme filtering, phasey bullshit. That said, I've never tried to time align with some kind of marker/signal blurp/ whathaveyou to keep signals in phase. If I had the time (nee patience), maybe it would be an excellent discovery but I'm lazy.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

Yeah, not talking about the 180-flip.
I've tried Reamping a bit of a sine wave or something to make sure the tracks are aligned, but they always were (which makes sense with analog gear, as long as he distance between mic nod speaker is the same).
The blend usually doesn't even sound phasey, just weird and unnatural with this odd mid buildup.
The second amp never really adds sparkle or anything, but always bloated droney mids

 

[colonel_claypoo]

and what if you simply high-passed one amp?

 

[tempe]

Are you EQing them individually or separately? I find I get better results when applying all processing to multiple amps on the same bus.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

on the same bus...
trying to get perfect tones from both amps, then blending them to taste.....usually ending up with just one amp then

 

[TonyS.]

on the same bus...
trying to get perfect tones from both amps, then blending them to taste.....usually ending up with just one amp then

+1, but never worked for me, too.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

Then again the Tool 10.000 days guitar sound is close to perfection, with none of that weird build up

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Unless I misread, I think there is here some misunderstanding here.
The most useful way is to use a first guitar amp normally, then use the Send from that amp to feed another amp's Return and record that amp as well on another cab. So you don't use the Preamp section of the second amp, just the Poweramp.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

yeah, but that's not really what I mean, I really meant splitting the signal into several heads...

like here for example:

http://mixonline.com/recording/projects/audio_making_tools_days/index.html

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Ah ok then it's not what they do at Fredman (for sure) and in most places.
I've done this bi-amping method a lot in the past when guitars were double tracks and not quad tracked (and I do it for people sending me their guitars to be reamped), getting two pretty different sounds (as usual they might sound like shit solo'd, nobody cares), can be the same amp with one crunch and one more saturated signal (which is cool because you can change the balance between those sounds depending on the riff or part of the song).

 

[FrancescoFiligoi]

I tried doing it, always got phase issues.

 

[jangoux]

I´ve done this a few times (really few tbh) and what worked for me is to find a great tone with the first amp and then find a tone on the 2nd amp that compliments the 1st one. I did this with some rock bands, never used with heavier stuff tho.

 

[JakeAC5253]

as long as he distance between mic nod speaker is the same

That's not a good rule to follow, that could be part of your issue. That rule is only worth following if you use two of the same exact microphone, and even then it's not the best thing you could be doing. It is always best to record a short snip and then check back to see if the mics are indeed exactly in phase and move them if needed.

Reason the distance formula doesn't work is that different mics have different distances between the diaphragm element and the front of the mic, so even though you have the fronts lined up, the part that really matters isn't. When I'm done miking my cab the mics are all scattered slightly... this one is a little forward, this one is a little back, and so on. It looks like a real mess, but it sounds great. Doing these tests and adjusting before the capture is the only way to get a pure summation in the blend stage.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

That's not a good rule to follow, that could be part of your issue. That rule is only worth following if you use two of the same exact microphone, and even then it's not the best thing you could be doing. It is always best to record a short snip and then check back to see if the mics are indeed exactly in phase and move them if needed.

Reason the distance formula doesn't work is that different mics have different distances between the diaphragm element and the front of the mic, so even though you have the fronts lined up, the part that really matters isn't. When I'm done miking my cab the mics are all scattered slightly... this one is a little forward, this one is a little back, and so on. It looks like a real mess, but it sounds great. Doing these tests and adjusting before the capture is the only way to get a pure summation in the blend stage.

I know, what I meant by that is that the distance between the speaker and mic is the only part of the chain that can cause a phase shift...
so if you use the same mic and cab (without moving it), but just a different head, the signal should be absolutely in phase or 180 degr. out of phase.

I obviously don't check the phase relationship between mics etc by measuring the distance

I should have worded that more clearly, my bad