Hello everyone!
After lurking in the shadows for a few years and only reading all the fantastic material there was to be found on these forums (cheers!
), I finally had to start a thread regarding an issue that me and my friend have encountered every single time when recording his DI-tracks. (I've tried to read every single thread regarding this issue, but never found a working solution)
He records his ESP ltd-mh1000nt with Sh-04@bridge sh-01 pickups (according to him, I'm a keyboard player and I don't know anything about guitars) into a Line Ux2 with 1MoHm impedance. The first step forwards was that we realized that the preamp he was using before was only 60k which was too low when compared to his pickups and the resulted sound was really bad.
Now the signal seems better, and there's a lot more beef and body to the sound when post-processed with a TS-999, followed by a Lecto on 8x Oversampling and a Lecab 2 with the Catharsis Impulses loaded (s-pres5, s-preshigh).
The real problem now surfaces: No matter what EQ techniques I try to approach the sound with, the result is always a really boxy and dull guitar sound. Worse actually, because when I begin to "clean up" the sound with surgical EQ cuts (subtle ones -1-3db and extreme ones 6-8db) in the low mids, the "cardboard" zone, and the fizzy stuff higher up, the guitar becomes even worse. Sure, it's clean of all the fizzy whistles and honky mid range but it's even more boxy than before. Even just the adding of a basic HP/LP to remove the hiss and the sub-low rumble makes the guitar even more boxy (although only slightly). Trying to boost something seems out of the question, because if I try to add some "air" or some kind of presence to the amp sim the tone gets really digital and harsh. At one point I thought it was the tunes overall mix that was lacking, but nothing can really dispute the fact that the guitars are already really boxy when soloed, before even entering the mix with the bass and drums etc. The guitar sound is like its sitting behind a curtain, or being played really loud next door. It lacks definition. I have tried nearly every free amp sim and impulse there is, with almost no effect. Even just browsing through the Catharsis and Powertube impulses while the DI is looping makes me cringe due to every impulse sitting inside somekind of box. I've tried Saturation, Multiband Compression (Sneap Settings), tweaking the amp settings, tweaking the TS settings, and nothing has worked. I actually really hope that I'm doing something wrong in the post-process because otherwise the fault is in the hardware we are using. I really have no clue at this point.
My friend is re-recording the tracks as we speak and at some point I will be able to post a clip of what I'm talking about. (I don't wanna post any loose playing because I know how critical people can be about that, haha :Smokedev
There might be some detail regarding the chain, hardware etc, that I have forgot to mention, if so, simply ask! And once again thanks for all the great reading material you people have provided to world!
After lurking in the shadows for a few years and only reading all the fantastic material there was to be found on these forums (cheers!
), I finally had to start a thread regarding an issue that me and my friend have encountered every single time when recording his DI-tracks. (I've tried to read every single thread regarding this issue, but never found a working solution)He records his ESP ltd-mh1000nt with Sh-04@bridge sh-01 pickups (according to him, I'm a keyboard player and I don't know anything about guitars) into a Line Ux2 with 1MoHm impedance. The first step forwards was that we realized that the preamp he was using before was only 60k which was too low when compared to his pickups and the resulted sound was really bad.
Now the signal seems better, and there's a lot more beef and body to the sound when post-processed with a TS-999, followed by a Lecto on 8x Oversampling and a Lecab 2 with the Catharsis Impulses loaded (s-pres5, s-preshigh).
The real problem now surfaces: No matter what EQ techniques I try to approach the sound with, the result is always a really boxy and dull guitar sound. Worse actually, because when I begin to "clean up" the sound with surgical EQ cuts (subtle ones -1-3db and extreme ones 6-8db) in the low mids, the "cardboard" zone, and the fizzy stuff higher up, the guitar becomes even worse. Sure, it's clean of all the fizzy whistles and honky mid range but it's even more boxy than before. Even just the adding of a basic HP/LP to remove the hiss and the sub-low rumble makes the guitar even more boxy (although only slightly). Trying to boost something seems out of the question, because if I try to add some "air" or some kind of presence to the amp sim the tone gets really digital and harsh. At one point I thought it was the tunes overall mix that was lacking, but nothing can really dispute the fact that the guitars are already really boxy when soloed, before even entering the mix with the bass and drums etc. The guitar sound is like its sitting behind a curtain, or being played really loud next door. It lacks definition. I have tried nearly every free amp sim and impulse there is, with almost no effect. Even just browsing through the Catharsis and Powertube impulses while the DI is looping makes me cringe due to every impulse sitting inside somekind of box. I've tried Saturation, Multiband Compression (Sneap Settings), tweaking the amp settings, tweaking the TS settings, and nothing has worked. I actually really hope that I'm doing something wrong in the post-process because otherwise the fault is in the hardware we are using. I really have no clue at this point.
My friend is re-recording the tracks as we speak and at some point I will be able to post a clip of what I'm talking about. (I don't wanna post any loose playing because I know how critical people can be about that, haha :Smokedev
There might be some detail regarding the chain, hardware etc, that I have forgot to mention, if so, simply ask! And once again thanks for all the great reading material you people have provided to world!
