EMG 81/5150 Combo clip

[Disconnekt]

Amp completely stock. I bought it used, but as far as I know, it contains the original tubes.

Guitar is a Fender MIM Fat Strat w/EMG 81 at the bridge (and 2 SAs, but those aren't used here).

Mic is a Shure SM57, on-axis at the exact center of the cone, just barely off the grille.

Tracked into an Mbox and then obliterated with a metric assload of EQ.

The stock speakers have a LOT of nasty frequencies, but once those are tamed, you can get some pretty fucking awesome (in my opinion, anyway) tones out of them. I'm a big fan of that really snarly Fredrik Nordström tone as I have mentioned in the past, and although I haven't quite got it yet, that's what I'm going for here. Yeah, I know there's a lot of 2k there and most people don't like it, but I do.

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/jelmiger/5150 Snarl.mp3

 

[Familia><Publica]

Thats a sweet tone, makes me want to get a 5150 head, which i probably will at some point. I also love freds work, he did an amazing job on Cipher systems album.

 

[Disconnekt]

Hey, if you don't mind the stock Sheffield speakers (I love them, personally), the combo is the way to go. Loud as shit even at 60 watts, smoother than the head due to a hotter stock bias, and if you want to add a cabinet, you can. Hell, you can disconnect the stock speakers and just run it through a cab if that's your thing. Plus, you spend a whole hell of a lot less money if you get the combo used, rather than buying a head and cab. However, if the preamp out is something you absolutely need, or speaker impedance other than 16 ohms, or 120 gratuitous watts (or if you just think a half or full stack looks much more badass, which it does), then by all means get the head. Might sound a bit harsh with crossover distortion until you get a bias mod done, though (it's fixed bias).

 

[Familia><Publica]

I'll buy a tube screamer for the recto and see if that helps with tracking, maybe an audix i5 aswell. If that fails, i will seriously consider a 5150. Will still keep the mesa though. Hard to come by those 5150 combos, especially over in the uk.

 

[Static]

I didn't like it that much...I'm into more organic sounding tones. It just seemed quite mechanical, grainy and stark. Stark is the right word...very dry and plain...

It isn't a bad tone per se, the sound quality is good and such, but it's not the type of tone I usually gravitate towards.

 

[Disconnekt]

It's a work in progress. I've found the character I want from it, but now I have to work on smoothing it out a bit; I agree that it does sound kind of grainy. I think throwing an MD421 in might help, and one of these days I'll rent one and try it out. That mic has helped other recordings I've worked on with different amps, and it generally sounds great blended with a 57 as long as you can get the capsules lined up properly.

Also, I think this tone as it is would sound a bit more palatable in a mix; I'll try it out one of these days, or if someone who's better than me at mixing wants to send me some DI guitar tracks from a guitar with an EMG 81, I'll reamp it and send it back.

 

[Mark_Palangio]

Amp completely stock. I bought it used, but as far as I know, it contains the original tubes.

Guitar is a Fender MIM Fat Strat w/EMG 81 at the bridge (and 2 SAs, but those aren't used here).

Mic is a Shure SM57, on-axis at the exact center of the cone, just barely off the grille.

Tracked into an Mbox and then obliterated with a metric assload of EQ.

The stock speakers have a LOT of nasty frequencies, but once those are tamed, you can get some pretty fucking awesome (in my opinion, anyway) tones out of them. I'm a big fan of that really snarly Fredrik Nordström tone as I have mentioned in the past, and although I haven't quite got it yet, that's what I'm going for here. Yeah, I know there's a lot of 2k there and most people don't like it, but I do.

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/jelmiger/5150 Snarl.mp3

Damn, I think that sounds great! What were your settings for that clip? I love that harmony part. Very cool man!

 

[Disconnekt]

Damn, I think that sounds great! What were your settings for that clip? I love that harmony part. Very cool man!

Thanks dude.

All guitar controls wide open, although, like I said, the EMG 81 is being run at 18 volts, which increases the output (slightly) but mainly keeps the onboard preamp from distorting on pick attacks.

High gain input
Lead channel
Pre gain ~5.75
Bass 8
Mid 3.5
Treble 6.5
Post gain 4 (any higher than that seems to rattle the speakers when I palm mute)
Resonance 7
Presence 6

 

[DIOBOLIC5150]

Yeah, that's nice! I too go for more organic tones but that would fit perfect for faster, more articulated riffs. I love my 5150 head, too bad I never really use it. I use my solid state because it's quick, easy, reliable and sounds good for what I do (I think). Plus the 5150 has a strange short in it that I can't figure out!

 

[Mark_Palangio]

Thanks dude.

All guitar controls wide open, although, like I said, the EMG 81 is being run at 18 volts, which increases the output (slightly) but mainly keeps the onboard preamp from distorting on pick attacks.

High gain input
Lead channel
Pre gain ~5.75
Bass 8
Mid 3.5
Treble 6.5
Post gain 4 (any higher than that seems to rattle the speakers when I palm mute)
Resonance 7
Presence 6

Damn, that's loud as hell for a 5150. I've owned the combo and head, I never got mine to sound that good on a recording. Very cool clip man! Has the old school Swedish metal tone, which I love.

 

[DIOBOLIC5150]

Pre gain ~5.75

Man, where's durbans? You were ALMOST to 6!

 

[Disconnekt]

If you listen to the intro of "Suburban Me" from Clayman, that's pretty much my ideal guitar tone. Really, really distinctive, tight, defined, and perfectly smooth. I mean, it's the rhythm sound on the entire Clayman album, but you can hear it best on its own at the beginning of that song.

 

[Mark_Palangio]

If you listen to the intro of "Suburban Me" from Clayman, that's pretty much my ideal guitar tone. Really, really distinctive, tight, defined, and perfectly smooth. I mean, it's the rhythm sound on the entire Clayman album, but you can hear it best on its own at the beginning of that song.

Since you said you used a ton of EQ on that clip, how close does that sound to the actual tone in the room?

 

[Awake_In_Animosity]

Amp completely stock. I bought it used, but as far as I know, it contains the original tubes.

Guitar is a Fender MIM Fat Strat w/EMG 81 at the bridge (and 2 SAs, but those aren't used here).

Mic is a Shure SM57, on-axis at the exact center of the cone, just barely off the grille.

Tracked into an Mbox and then obliterated with a metric assload of EQ.

The stock speakers have a LOT of nasty frequencies, but once those are tamed, you can get some pretty fucking awesome (in my opinion, anyway) tones out of them. I'm a big fan of that really snarly Fredrik Nordström tone as I have mentioned in the past, and although I haven't quite got it yet, that's what I'm going for here. Yeah, I know there's a lot of 2k there and most people don't like it, but I do.

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/jelmiger/5150 Snarl.mp3

Sounds like In Flames - Reroute to Remains guitar sound with less effects.

Not bad at all.

 

[Disconnekt]

Damn, that's loud as hell for a 5150. I've owned the combo and head, I never got mine to sound that good on a recording. Very cool clip man! Has the old school Swedish metal tone, which I love.

Haha, loud, yes, definitely! I generally record with cables run out to another room, and 2 doors between me and the amp and the mic. When I get any closer to the amp, it feeds back constantly whenever I'm not actually playing. I draped a really thick blanket over the whole mess to cut reflections into the mic, and the floor is carpeted, but I still think I'm getting standing waves in the room... there's a weird kind of phasey sound that I am kind of hearing but kind of not hearing.

Like I said before, EQ is definitely required to tame the Sheffields... they sound nowhere near as good right off the bat as Celestions. However, they do have that midrange snarl I love. Someday I'd like to give Celestion Greenbacks a shot, since the Sheffield 1200s are supposedly based on them. They probably sound a good bit smoother. Anyway, I'm currently using 18 bands of parametric EQ, and it's still kind of fizzy. I can probably cut a lot of that down, but I'm still trying to figure out what sounds best.

And yeah, Swedish metal is the reason I now own a 5150.

 

[Mark_Palangio]

Haha, loud, yes, definitely! I generally record with cables run out to another room, and 2 doors between me and the amp and the mic. When I get any closer to the amp, it feeds back constantly whenever I'm not actually playing. I draped a really thick blanket over the whole mess to cut reflections into the mic, and the floor is carpeted, but I still think I'm getting standing waves in the room... there's a weird kind of phasey sound that I am kind of hearing but kind of not hearing.

Like I said before, EQ is definitely required to tame the Sheffields... they sound nowhere near as good right off the bat as Celestions. However, they do have that midrange snarl I love. Someday I'd like to give Celestion Greenbacks a shot, since the Sheffield 1200s are supposedly based on them. They probably sound a good bit smoother. Anyway, I'm currently using 18 bands of parametric EQ, and it's still kind of fizzy. I can probably cut a lot of that down, but I'm still trying to figure out what sounds best.

And yeah, Swedish metal is the reason I now own a 5150.

Yeah man, I love 5150's and Swedish metal! A lot of people swear by the Greenbacks + 5150 combo. I'd say you got a real sweet tone already though.

 

[Disconnekt]

Since you said you used a ton of EQ on that clip, how close does that sound to the actual tone in the room?

It actually sounds pretty close to the tone in the room (except for the fact that it's deafening in the room), but the SM57 that close to the speaker and right on the center picks up a lot of nastiness you don't hear when you're in there rocking out. However, if you move the mic back too far or off axis too far, it gets really dark and you lose a lot of bite and sparkle. I prefer to capture everything, bad frequencies and all, and just cut the bad stuff rather than putting the mic in a bad place and losing important information that I'll want later.

Oh, and there are a lot more muddy lower mids in the room. I've put a few pretty drastic cuts at fairly wide bandwidths at 350 Hz, 500 Hz, 777 Hz, and 1k to tone it down a bit. 1k especially is really prominent, and I like to keep it around since it's nice and throaty, but I try to bring it down enough so it's not overpowering the upper harmonics and getting too boxy. It's a tough balance and I'm never quite happy with it, but this is the best I've managed so far.

 

[Exsanguis]

Seems real thin and fizzy to me. Also, overeqed. It doesn't sound like it has any real body, which is something hard to do, but pays of in the mix. Keep trying, and use a low pass.

 

[Disconnekt]

Exsanguis: It definitely is over EQed. 18 bands, as far as I'm concerned, is just unacceptable, and I'm working on keeping the essence of the tone while cutting down on the far-too-drastic notches. I actually had a lowpass in there, took it out so I had room to try some other things, got rid of the other things, and forgot to put the lowpass back in. Also, I made some tweaks while I was drunk last night, which is probably a BAD idea for trying to get something to sound just right.

For anyone who's interested, let's try something different for shits and giggles. Here's the recording straight off the mic. No EQ, none of Andy Sneap's low-end-taming C4 which I use religiously.

This is what I mean by nastiness. If anyone has any EQ secrets than will clean this up better than I've managed to, by all means, have at it and post the results.

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/jelmiger/Earbleed.mp3

If mp3's not good for anyone who's interested, I can also do .wav, .aiff, or .SD2 in 16 or 24 bits, 44.1 or 48 kHz.

 

[JeffTD]

I think it sounds fine, but I do have one complaint. What guage strings were you using, and I assume it's in C tuning? It sounds like you're using a fairly light guage of string, so they kind of 'give' more on the low string's palm mutes.