First clips of mine on the Sneap forum, help me out here with my stuff

[Harry Hughes]

Well, I've finally decided that I should no longer be embarrassed about posting clips, after all we all went through this at some stage in our quest for improvement by having people that know better than us listen to our shit.

A bit of background first:
I only really became interested in audio engineering about 2 months ago, so obviously don't expect anything too flash at this stage. In terms of actually doing the "practical" (actuallly beginning to do it this stuff physically rather than just reading about it), that started towards the end of June, so I've been doing this stuff for just about 1 and a half months now, that's it.
3 months ago, I finally got my first usable interface, a Line 6 POD X3 Live.
My sister works at Ableton in Germany, so I got the software side of things covered by her sending me a free copy of Ableton Suite Live 8.0, effectively saving me $1300 Australian dollars. And pretty much after I got the software, I figured "Fuck this, I can't waste it, let's learn how to use this".

I'm gonna post 2 clips, one created on the 3rd of August, and the was mixed down to WAV and then converted to MP3 just 10 minutes ago.
These are only parts of a song so far, but they are clips nonetheless.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1663306/Thingo1.1.mp3

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1663306/Thingo2.1.mp3

The playing is not the best in either, I'll admit that, but they are decent enough I guess and excuse the random first snare and the silence in the second slip, I cropped and ripped that incorrectly lol.
I personally think clip 2 was a fair improvement, the guitars sound warmer and bigger I think, but I think I need to keep tweaking the POD a little more to get closer to where I want to be.

The first clip info:

Diamond Plate amp sim, with Line 6+ Boost EQ stomp, using 57 on axis mic sim with Treadplate cab sim.
No parallel compression on drums at all, just separate compression on kicks and snare I think.
All drums done within Ableton itself.
The guitars weren't even group tracked/bussed either btw woops.
The master buss was basically pushed using the Ableton "Saturator" audio effect and a bit of limiter.

Second clip info (more involving this time):
Diamond Plate amp sim, with Line 6+ Boost EQ stomp, using 57 on axis mic sim with Treadplate cab sim, but this time dual tone with:
Line 6 Big Bottom with Line 6+ Boost EQ stomp, using 57 on axis mic sim with Treadplate cab sim.
Snare and Kick were grouped/bussed and parallel compressed. I think it helped bring out more attack in the drums.
Bit of EQ done to the open hi hat with a little compression.
Guitar wise, this time the guitars were group tracked, and this time they were EQ'd a little more after the fact and had TesslaSE saturation applied to them.
Master buss was pushed with TesslaSE and the limiter that comes with Ableton.
You'll notice I don't smash the shit out of things ala Death Magnetic, I like to leave some breathing room, and I compared it to some pro done stuff and mine is noticeably quieter and I like it that way, cos loudness wars= shit.

 

[Harry Hughes]

Last bit of info, guitars were double tracked on both using my Ibanez RG 7421 7 string, admittedly with only the stock pickups that need to be replaced soon. However the tonepot has been removed to increase clarity and bite somewhat to slightly compensate for the pickups being too dark.
Behringer Truths 2030As (it's all I got, and I got them for free, so I'm grateful and I don't have a job anymore) were used for listening to the shit basically.

So, given I've been only doing this for a month and a half, is it at least a little decent? Would love to hear feedback and criticism. Was clip 2 an improvement perhaps?

Another edit: Bass guitar was Ibanez BTB 455 5 string bass, with Bartolini pickups. Don't remember which POD settings at all, I'm still struggling on the bass side of things to be honest, as I haven't really formed an idea of what kind of bass sound I want.

 

[Harry Hughes]

Anyone? They are short clips.

 

[Morgan C]

Hey

2nd clip is much better so I'll only comment on that..

Snare drum sounds good but has some REALLY weird low frequencies. Did you pitch shift it at all? I'd recommend a highpass at around 150Hz.
Kick is quite a bit too compressed. I don't usually like compress kicks at all.
Hihat sounds pretty damn programmed, is it one sample? ://

Guitars are alright. They're always my weak point so I can't really say much on them. They have that POD digitalness when solo'd but that seems to mostly disappear in the mix. Perhaps give Ryan's impulses a go instead of the POD's cab simulation.

 

[Nebulous]

There was definately an improvement on my end. Much more clarity.
Not having had much experience with a POD myself, I can't give specific details, though I think that things to work on first would probably be the bass and guitars (since of course they are your own playing there). I think at your stage you'd want to really start traning your ears. Listen to the different ranges/ bands/ aspects of an individual sound. Think about how they intereact with themselves within the instrument solo'd and within the mix. Think about what you'd want to hear from it, aim for that. Reference material is definately a great way to get your head around it all in the begining.
Technically, I would recommend leaving the limiting out for afew months at least. Start using subtle compression on individual instruments only, say 3-5dB reduction. Learn how it sounds and how to manipulate it. After some time experimenting with attack, release, ratio, etc, then consider more gain reduction. It can take some time to really hear what compression is doing.
I may recommend trying to treat the POD as we would a amp, record one pass, see what needs to be improved, then try to get the improvement with subtle changes in the amp settings instead of relying on the post EQ to fix it. I've also heard people here post POD clips with a real TS in front of it, and it has sounded much better, though that would come down to taste.

Keep at it dude. You will learn alot from here.

 

[Harry Hughes]

Cheers for the comments/criticism/suggestions/advice guys.
I've gotta hit the bed now, but I'll reply in more detail tomorrow most likely guys, so stay tuned if you can.

 

[Harry Hughes]

@ Morgoe: There is a boost on the snares at 191Hz of 5.90dB/2.49Q (I actually don't even remember why 191 and not something more "normal" like 250Hz or 200Hz ). Unfortunately no, there is no hi pass on the snare. There is also a cut at 1KHz of 6.9dB, 2.29/Q, a cut at 1.44 KHz of 7.62dB/18Q and boost at 8.32 KHz of 7.38dB/ 0.71Q.
Yeah, I compressed the fuck outta the kick. I'll need to tweak with that quite a lot. It just seemed a quick fix to get rid of annoying transient peaks at the time
I have no idea what the fuck I'm really doing with hi hats other than EQ-ing some frequencies to EQ harshness to be honest, I'm a complete fuck wit in that area that needs serious help with it.
I kinda feel in a way uses impulses is an easy way out. I mean, shit, Joey Sturgis is getting amazing results without impulses and he's not the only one getting incredible tones out of them. I'm of the opinion a POD is no worse than a real amp, just different and it requires a different mind set and approach to it, and it requires the same effort and tweaking to get to that golden point, so I want to persevere with strict POD tones to see how far I get.
Whenever I've used the impulses, I've actually not liked the results as much as using the Line 6 cab sims, call me crazy, but it wasn't for me. It's also ridiculously uninspiring to play directly with cab sims turned off too.

@Neb/Daniel: Part of my improvement from the first to second clip has come from listening to reference bands/productions. I come from the school of "I hate Metallica's old guitar tone" so I like to boost my mids a lot lol, but due to the amp models I choose on the POD it kinda ends up fairly balanced mids wise, far more middy than old Metallica, but not quite as much some other stuff I've heard.
What I really notice when I listen to professional stuff, is that my clip completely lacks this "air" about it. It's the only word I can use to describe it and I hope you can get the gist of what I mean, they have this certain open-ness and "airyness" to them. Is it my guitar tone? The bass tone that isn't quite there? The levels of the mix that aren't good enough? Maybe the whole thing is somewhat too muffled? Probably all 4 and more knowing my lack of experience thus so far.
So far I've gotten to a point where obviously my stuff is quite better than complete beginner records but I feel like I've reached the limit of what I can do given the knowledge I have now, which is extremely frustrating because obviously the pro stuff and even semi pro stuff is many levels above where I am and I have no idea what to do to get there.
You're right about post processing EQ. .I desperately tried to post process EQ my tone in clip one, but it was a turd that was not able to be polished at all.
For my second clip I decided to completely rethink and retweak my tone over those days between, little bit of tweaking each to gradually get to where it is now.
For post processing EQ, instead of trying to fix things, I just used very subtle cuts and boosts to improve the tone to help it fit in the mix better and to remove frequencies that weren't nice that I couldn't do so with the PODs inbuilt semi parametric EQ (at the time). The biggest cut of any frequency was 3dB, but everything else I didn't go over 2dB, most of my cuts were very minor, usually 1dB or even slightly less.
As for compression, I'll start really focusing on listening much harder with that, I'm clearly way off with what I need to do to get it right.

 

[Morgan C]

@ Morgoe: There is a boost on the snares at 191Hz of 5.90dB/2.49Q (I actually don't even remember why 191 and not something more "normal" like 250Hz or 200Hz ). Unfortunately no, there is no hi pass on the snare. There is also a cut at 1KHz of 6.9dB, 2.29/Q, a cut at 1.44 KHz of 7.62dB/18Q and boost at 8.32 KHz of 7.38dB/ 0.71Q.
Yeah, I compressed the fuck outta the kick. I'll need to tweak with that quite a lot. It just seemed a quick fix to get rid of annoying transient peaks at the time
I have no idea what the fuck I'm really doing with hi hats other than EQ-ing some frequencies to EQ harshness to be honest, I'm a complete fuck wit in that area that needs serious help with it.

Don't worry so much about specifics.. chuck a highpass on that snare and keep playing around with your EQ's til you get something you like. Then wait a few days, listen to it again and compare it to other mixes and start the whole process again XD

Btw, 191hz is no less 'normal' than 200hz, it all depends on the tuning of a drum. If you play a guitar in D (round 73hz) and are boosting at 90hz because its 'normal' thats not a good idea. Everything is specific to what you're working on.

I kinda feel in a way uses impulses is an easy way out. I mean, shit, Joey Sturgis is getting amazing results without impulses and he's not the only one getting incredible tones out of them. I'm of the opinion a POD is no worse than a real amp, just different and it requires a different mind set and approach to it, and it requires the same effort and tweaking to get to that golden point, so I want to persevere with strict POD tones to see how far I get.
Whenever I've used the impulses, I've actually not liked the results as much as using the Line 6 cab sims, call me crazy, but it wasn't for me. It's also ridiculously uninspiring to play directly with cab sims turned off too.

If you're using PODFarm to record (which I highly recommend instead of straight thru the X3, because then you can tweak your amp settings after recording so you don't get the sound of the guitar strings interfering with how you perceive the sound) then you should just be able to slap Boogex on it afterwards to put the impulse on.

Pod's cab sims ARE impulses. They're just not very good.

And as for sims vs real amps, etc... I'm not a guitarist and guitars are definitely my weakest point (I've mic'd up an amp once..), but from what I've learnt about recording real drums vs programming them and also having my guitars reamped thru real amps rather than soft sims...
If you have an opportunity to record the real thing, take it. Yes, you can probably get 'as good' results with software drums or amps or whatever, but you spend so much time making it sound 'real' and 'not digital/programmed' and not 'artificial', stuff that is inherent in ANY live recording no matter how bad it is. And then you can spend your time working on making it sound good because its already 'alive' and 'real', etc. etc.

Of course real things bring with them their own problems.. volume, isolation, good acoustics, shitloads of $$, etc. so there is that trade-off ;p



Honestly the thing I can recommend most is to mix as many different things as you can (DL projects that have been uploaded here, there was a thread in the production tips a week or so ago), on as many different systems as possible.

Yeah, I compressed the fuck outta the kick. I'll need to tweak with that quite a lot. It just seemed a quick fix to get rid of annoying transient peaks at the time

That was a bit worrying..
It depends how you're using compression. If you're going the 30ms attack route, you're going to be INCREASING the transient. If you're going with a really short attack then that might work but might not sound great, it depends.

(assuming all your kicks are approx the same velocity, because they're programmed, you really don't need compression to even out the hits)



Fuck me that was a long post.

 

[Nebulous]

Sounds like you're going about it the right way dude. It's a just a matter of experience. Keep making clips, try different amp models, different drums samples, etc.
I should take my own advice btw....

 

[Harry Hughes]

@Morgoe: Unfortunately, due to having no job, as well as living with my parents means being able to drop 9 on a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier with 4x12 cab, a couple of Shure SM57s, a brand spanking new firewire interface and having an amp cranked up all day while my parents want to be able to relax and watch TV or play with the pet dog (my dog is shit scared of loud noise) isn't an option really. Which of course sucks hard, because ultimately I'd love to be able to feel the full roar of a Dual Recto while recording.
As for recording drums, well I don't own a good drum kit, nor can I play drums well at all since my time is spent playing guitar and bass guitar, so programmed drums is going to beat a kit with worn out skins and complete lack of playing ability any day of the week.
The thing is I'm not really trying to make the POD sound "realistic" because that simply doesn't make sense to me. You don't buy a real amp and say "fuck it doesn't sound enough like a POD!" , nor did I buy my POD and expect it to sound like a real amp to an accuracy of 100 percent.
I have heard so many comparison clips between PODs and real amps where both sounded absolutely amazing (without using outside impulses too), but in somewhat different ways. But you'd have people complain "OH BUT OH MAN THAT ONE TINY LITTLE FREQUENCY ON THE POD ISN'T AS PERFECT AS THE REAL AMP", which to me is just ridiculous, because not only are 99 per cent of people listening to it not even going to notice any difference, as long as it sounds good, why the fuck sound it matter what means where used to get to the end point? Real tube amp, analog solid state amp, digital modeling, it's all capable of delivering the goods
Tiny imperfections don't stop things from sounding incredible, I even remember Sneap saying something about when someone commented on a particular guitar take where there was a slight error in the playing, with Andy responding "it was the best take/performance, so mistake or not I just used it because it sounded the best", well not exactly in those words, but that was the gist of it really.
Sorry about that rant, and it wasn't directed personally at you either, just at the people that are far too obsessive over the most micro details 99.9 per cent of people don't hear nor give a shit about, when really what should matter is the best performance possible and just getting it to sound good.
As far as I'm concerned, PODs are not just capable of good or okay, or fairly good, but amazing. Obviously I'm not there with my POD yet nor my general AE skills, but someone like Joey Sturgis is IMO. I also really loved the POD tones Steve Wilson used on the Porcupine Tree album that was tracked with PODs, I honestly couldn't tell it was even a POD, nor did I notice because it just sounded amazing to me.

On another note, I've actually tried recording dry and using 8505 with cab impulses (Ryan's awesometime friedman impulses) for a little, but all I've noticed is that is seems to just bring to the fore front of how fairly average quality the DI in the POD is and actual POD tones just sounded better.

 

[Harry Hughes]

Sounds like you're going about it the right way dude. It's a just a matter of experience. Keep making clips, try different amp models, different drums samples, etc.
I should take my own advice btw....

Hopefully I can make a few more clips in the coming weeks if I'm not too busy.