Boring, muddy Guitars. Need advice on mix

[Kabale]

Hello Guys!

Let me first introduce myself. I'm Merten and i've been playing guitar for some years now. But today i am more interested in recording stuff. I started recording my first a couple of years ago. Very cheap stuff, no idea of what i am doing and so on. For about two years i try to get deeper into this recording thing. It started when I bought a Toneport UX1. The stuff i recorded was okay but far away from good or mindblowing. I searched the web for presets and EQ-settings to get behind that massive sound of a good production. I was really surprised what amazing sounds people create with their software ampsims. I never came close to it. Blablabla i tried a lot of stuff, read a lot of tutorials on mixing metal and mixing in generell, but i never managed it to get a sound i am pleased with.

Then I decided to try micing some real amps.

Here is what i came up with:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/55299866/MixTry.mp3
(BTW this is a coversong i learned while recording, so please excuse sloppy playing )

First i want to say what I did there ^^

I quadtracked the guitars. 6505 100% right and left. Engl Powerball 75% right and left.
The Signalchain was:
Viper 400 (With EMGs) -> Maxon OD808 -> 6505 or Engl -> Shure SM57 -> Toneport (all settings dry) -> DAW

Settings on the 6505:
Red Channel:
pregain: 2, low about 6, mid 5, high 4, postgain:3-4, resonance about 6-7, presence 7-8

Settings on the ENGL:
Gain: 9 o'clock, Bass 1 o'clock, Mid-open 2-3 o'clock, Treble 3 o'clock, Lo Lead Vol: 10 o'clock, Presence 1 o'clock, depth punch 11 o'clock


What happened to the guitars?
I send each amp to a seperate bus (6505 and engl bus) and then send both busses to a main guitar bus.
I did some eqing on each track.
6505: Low-Cut at 118Hz, Highcut at 7200Hz
some cuts at 360 and 570 Hz to clean up the mud.

Engl: Low-Cut at 172Hz, Highcut at 7000Hz
cuts at 330 and 640 Hz

I compressed each Guitarbuss the Ola Englund way.

For the bass i used the dry di signal and treat it the ola england way.

Drums is superior also the ola englund way, but i think i didnt use olas preset.
I think it was another preset i found in this forum.


I hope it was'nt that boring.
I hope you can give me an advice on how to improve things. maybe the micing was bad too, idk. I think it sounded great in the room but later in the mixing progress i was like "wtf is this shit?!".

But when i used to track guitars with revalver and impulses the results sounded the same.


kind regards

 

[Kabale]

Some thoughts....

maybe the drum mixing is shit as well, so everything is covered in mud and dullness.
I tried to boost the Guitars at 3 and 8Hz but they sounded very thin in the mix after that

 

[dcb]

your mix is very muddy, as you already stated. id try working on your initial sounds first.
working with impulses is always a compromise, make them shiny and they loose all note and bottom,
make them bottomy, they get dull.

so my first advice is : get some multitrack files from guitarhero and compare your guitar sounds to something you like.
youll immediately hear that your tracks are lifeless and behind a curtain.

sounds like you are mixing in an untreated room. if so, its even more important you compare your
mixes to references.
learn, whats a great sounding record (to you), then learn the skills to apply this to your recordings.

simple advices like : boost 3 khz + 10 db will not really help you here im afraid...

hope that helps! remember its years and years of experience to become a good mixing eng !

 

[Kabale]

Thanks for that.

What do mean with multitrack files from guitarhero?

The room is treated with 2 selfmade superchunks, and some absorbers to kill reflections. (its a bunker-like room, with no windows and just concrete walls)

I downloaded some stem files a couple of months ago and i was blowing away of the guitar sound. i think i know how a good guitar can sound like but i dont know how to get close to it.

if i compare my dry guitar tracks to other dry guitars i recognize their sound lifeless and dull. so layering more guitars will make it only worse haha.

Here is my 6505 Bus maybe you can give me a hint on that?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/55299866/CTC6505.mp3
(already some eq on it, but it still sound muffled)


The room i'm tracking in is about 6,66x3,35m. Will it have a big effect if i change the positon of the cab?
here's a pic:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/55299866/Foto 10.03.12 17 16 49.jpg

 

[Red Phoenix]

Well, your guitartone sounds like my 5150 when its postgain is lower then 1. I guess you do something wrong in the very first stage. You should try to get a decent sound with only one amp before blending them. Take your 6505. That amp is easy to set up. Also pregain on 2 is only a little bit of crunch and not fat sounding.
I'm not familar with the Maxon knoblabels but set your gain/drive knob on the maxon to minimum. Only the amp should do the distortion. Increase the Tone-knob (or that which raise the mids) only a bit (9 o'clock) and set the outputlevel depending on your guitar. The inputlevel of your amp should not be to high because then it gets too compressed and become boomy. Try out where the sweep spot is.
On 6505 try:
pregain (distortion) between 4 and 6 (i have it on 5.5)
low 6
mid 2
high 6
resonance 3-4 (too much of this and the sound will be too boomy/boxy)
pres 7 (when i get over 7 it becomes very harsh and fizzy)
postgain (mastervolume) 3-4

Put your sm57 directly on the center of the speaker. if possible use headphones, reamp your guitar and try out the mic position while monitoring.
In the mix only do a lowcut between 50-80hz and highcut at 10-12khz and a notch at 650hz (-3db Q15) to get it clearer.
thats how i do it and its far from beeing muddy, but when i use mics i use more than one because everytime i use only one mic i feel the tone is missing some frequencies and is not balanced enough. with two sm57 i get far better results than with one.

 

[Kabale]

Hey there!
Today i spent hours on finding the right position of the mic and fiddling around with the 6505.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/55299866/CTCneu.mp3

On this new mix i just used one amp (6505) in did only two takes for rhythm.
Drums are Superior Guillotine Preset (little tweaks), no parallel-compression,

I think the new mix sounds better, but its still lame as shit.

@Red Phoenix
Thanks for that, i will give it a try next time!
The Reason why I set the pregain on 2 is that i was afraid that to much gain will muddy everything.
It's said one should use less gain when quadtracking ?!


edit:
when i listened to the mix on my monitors it sounded quite good but at home on my cheap logitech system it sucks

edit2:
here's a mix with Red Phoenix' EQ-Settings
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/55299866/CTCRedPh.mp3
I had to do some eqing on guitar masterbus to clean up some lows

 

[RichS]

No offense, but your playing could be tighter. You might be better off just dual tracking instead of quad tracking for now. I think you are losing a lot of impact because of it, guitars sound washed out.

 

[Kabale]

No offense, but your playing could be tighter. You might be better off just dual tracking instead of quad tracking for now. I think you are losing a lot of impact because of it, guitars sound washed out.

yeah you're right ^^

 

[Kabale]

Hey there!
Today i spent hours on finding the right position of the mic and fiddling around with the 6505.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/55299866/CTCneu.mp3

On this new mix i just used one amp (6505) in did only two takes for rhythm.
Drums are Superior Guillotine Preset (little tweaks), no parallel-compression,

I think the new mix sounds better, but its still lame as shit.

@Red Phoenix
Thanks for that, i will give it a try next time!
The Reason why I set the pregain on 2 is that i was afraid that to much gain will muddy everything.
It's said one should use less gain when quadtracking ?!


edit:
when i listened to the mix on my monitors it sounded quite good but at home on my cheap logitech system it sucks

edit2:
here's a mix with Red Phoenix' EQ-Settings
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/55299866/CTCRedPh.mp3
I had to do some eqing on guitar masterbus to clean up some lows

Messed around with some masteringstuff....eq,compression,limiter...
it's louder now haha.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/55299866/CTCMaster0.mp3
BTW the guitars are now doubletracked without powerball


This is the original song and i spent hours to get close to the guitar tone, but no way...


I would love to hear this guitar without the mix.
I like it how "dry" it sounds. there's no fizziness in it. i always ended up with fizziness on the guitars. Too much highs, to much presence? Micing?

@ Red Phoenix, your Mids are really low on your 6505. Maybe the mids are my fizzy frequencies? I usually have them about 6-7


merten