guitar-track sounds like crap!

D

damas

Member
Sep 11, 2007
48
0
6
greetings!

this forum is f....g cool. there are lots of really good tips and stuff.

im from germany. playing guitar and trying to do some recording and songwriting. i kinda dont know how to introduce myself cuz my english sucks.
my knowledge is not really great and there are problems which i cant solve. it seems here are some really skilled people and maybe they could give me some tipps.

my "studio" equipment sucks too :) dont have the money.
i do all the records via me-33(guitar FX). the whole mixing and mastering stuff is done at my friends "studio". he has some really usefull plugins an stuff.

after all the mixing and mastering process the guitar sound like crap and the eq-curve (i dont know how its called but in winamp there are bars which are jumping up and down :cool:) show me that the most output is in the bass area. so i thougt the low cut should be applied some where "higher" BUT there were no changes after all. OK maybe the guitar sound is to bassy, so i turned the bass to 0 the mids to 100%. still, after mastering compression and equing there were almost no changes. it seems like the mids and highs output is to low. tried to boost these frequencies via high shelf and various bandpasses. the only effect: guitar sounds like pile of S..T! :puke:(the mid-output is kinda higher)

the eq curve of professional recordings shows that there are two "hills", one in the bass region the other one in the (probably) mids

could someone tell me what the hell is going on?

i hope my english could explain the problem.

mfg
 
sry maybe i should have explained the details.

guitar->guitar fx (me 33)->line in (PC)->cubase vst3->record
track: compressor (Treshold -10db, ratio 4:1, attack 15ms, release 500ms), eq(highpass@100hz, bandpass: (800hz,-6db, q 7)(1300hz,+1,3db, q 3)(5khz +2db)(lowpass@12,5khz), no other stuff->export
wavelab->ultramaximizer around -8db, -7,5db->dipther: L1+, type 1, ultra->export

is there something "wrong" with this settings? (the values are not exactly the same, but almost)

i have no connection to the web on my computer at home, but i try to post some clips (comming soon).
 
i hope i managed it:

http://www.upload.celtiaproductions.co.uk/uploads/seasons in the abyss.mp3

no delay or room used in the me 33
guitar doubled panned left and right (64)
added compression (trsh -7db attack 17 release 500 ratio 4:1) nothing else, no eqing and so on

i dont fuckin know what to do. i understand also that i cant get a sound like "shovel headed kill machine" without having the right equipment. but im also sure a pro like some here could get a thousands times better sound than i do.

so i would be fuckin thankfull if someone could help
 
thats alot of gain... back that way down and quad track to thinkin it up. Maybe post up a clip without all the post eq'ing as well.
 
also, is the me33 an amp modeler? Im checking th specs and it doesnt look like. You should try some cab impulses from this site and apply em to your tracks. Might help out a lot.
 
hmmm....as said before, just added a compressor nothing else.

quad track....damn i have to play tighter, i think:)

the me 33 has a guitar sim (just pickups singlecoil->humbucker and so on), an amp simulator (like jc120, ms stack, bg stack, metal stack, twin ...), "pedal board" (like OD, distortion,...) and other crap :)

i think i give a try, post later
 
oh man, this fucking sucks. after reading through some other posts i realized that theres a bunch of ways to improve the overall sound.
my computer is to old to apply all the shit down.

i have some questions on multiband compressing and dynamics:

i want to understand and HEAR it better. so maybe some of you have few hints on how to apply mbc properly. maybe where to start first or a way to find a good relation between ratio und treshhold:)


(im not asking for presets or such crap beacause i want to understand)
 
damas said:
oh man, this fucking sucks. after reading through some other posts i realized that theres a bunch of ways to improve the overall sound.
my computer is to old to apply all the shit down.

i have some questions on multiband compressing and dynamics:

i want to understand and HEAR it better. so maybe some of you have few hints on how to apply mbc properly. maybe where to start first or a way to find a good relation between ratio und treshhold:)


(im not asking for presets or such crap beacause i want to understand)
Click to expand...

Multi-ban is tool to fix something that might have been tracked wrong. Since you are still unsure on how to track I suggest practicing that more then Multi-ban stuff.
 
another question:

are all people (who own a dual/tripple rectifier) using a boost pedal like tube screamer?
 
Not all, but a lot. Depending on your settings and pickups you may not need it. Before anyone asks, TS stuff has been discussed and you don't even have to scroll down half a page to get to two or three different discussions at any point in time.

You can apply processing to a track directly instead of making it go in real-time - that'll save some processing power, but I wouldn't use that for anything more than getting a rough idea (and it's time-consuming as hell, too) unless I knew exactly what I had to do going in.

If you don't know how to compress, learn the general case before going specifically for multi-band. If you don't know how it works before you start, you're just going to be overloaded because obviously there are more variables involved with multi-band compression. If the 'woofing' is quick and sharp, you need to be really picky about attack and just make sure your release isn't too fast to sound unnatural; if it's pretty constant, consider a straight cut with an EQ in addition to compressing it.

Jeff
 
about compression, kinda hard to tell if i understand but i try

threshold: dB level where the compressor starts "working"
a ratio of 4:1 would mean if the in-signal is 4dB "louder" then threshold, then compress to 1dB ->reduction of 3dB.if 8dB then reduction of 6dB
attack: hmmm time after the compressor starts to compress/alter the in-signal (if in-signal "is higer" then the threshold)
release: after this time( if the in-signal is lower then the treshold) the compressor sets the ratio to 1:1
hopefully im right.

i think a me33 CANT sound like a real good amp

beeing picky about attack? i guess i try

about the ts, ive read through some threads (through some other forums too)
a friend of mine has a dual rectifier. if you play at a "bedroom-volume" its kinda fucking hard to play (especially legato: picked notes sounds A LOT more overdriven than pulloffs) i wanted to know if things like that could be "fixed" with a ts
 
Eh, not really...the problem is the "bedroom-volume," cuz if you wanna play that soft, get a low wattage practice amp! The Dual Rec is a 100-watt demon, and it's designed to be cranked to get its full potential. And your understanding of how a compressor is exactly right, so good job dude!
 
too bad....

so could someone explain to me how to multiban compress properly/things i should consider >_<?
 
First off, it's 'multiband'. Searching for things is much easier with the right terminology.

Second, there are two ways to do it: the first is with a nice, simple plugin, and the second is doing it manually with lots of track combining and tinkering. You could plunk down a hefty sum for something like C4, but there are freebies that do the job if you don't want to do it manually. If you don't mind reading a bizarre and long-winded explanation that basically comes down to describing simple algebra without ever touching numbers, here's what you do to isolate one range that needs to be compressed:

Make two copies of the track. Label them 1 and A (because we don't want to hurt either of their feelings) and don't get them mixed up or we'll have a mess on our hands.

Identify the band you want to be compressing, and cut the fucking shit out of everything else around it in track 1. Your EQ curve should look like a hump of some sort, centered around the range you want and with everything else raped, pillaged, and burnt to the ground.

Copy track 1, invert the phase, and combine it with track A. Now you have a track that has everything but what you're going to be compressing in track 1, so you can add the two back together with literally nothing changed or compress one and then combine them. I'm assuming you're going for the second one, since this is a multiband explanation (and you'd be very silly to spend that much time to wind up with no change whatsoever), but it's helpful to know exactly what's going on so don't be afraid to tinker with this nonsense.

Pick whatever tool you're going to use to compress/limit/clip/trim/redraw/have a romantic candlelight dinner with/mute/maximize/whatever track 1, and do the deed with it. Make sure it still sounds natural.

Combine tracks 1 and A, making sure to take great care in finding the right volume for them because if you have somehow changed the dynamics of track 1 you're going to notice a difference in how loud they seem relative to each other.

This is a little more time-consuming, granted, but it does give you a hell of a lot of control in the end. It's a very special case of what I spend a lot of time doing when I'm bored - cutting tracks up, taking the guts from this one and the tits from that one and the legs from the thing over there, making little Frankensteins out of this and that, and throwing it all out and trying it again - and I'd recommend thinking about that procedure for other things if something bizarre is needed (one thing I remember tinkering with was sharply cutting a pair of adjacent one-octave ranges, pitch-shifting the lower one up an octave and the higher one down an octave, and putting them back in... no, I don't sleep much) or if you can't find a good tool to do something right.

You're probably going to just go for C4 or something like that, which is perfectly understandable - I can't say I blame you. Personally, I'd rather spend my time on something a lot more fun than splitting tracks apart, like... I don't know, perhaps cooking air, or watching quadruple-amputees play hopscotch. But you should at least take from that the impression that nothing is ever as complicated as you're going to think it is, and you should spend more time experimenting and less time worrying about 'is this right?' because nothing works in formulas anymore.

Jeff
 
LOL this one: taking the guts from this one and the tits from that one and the legs from the thing over there, making little Frankensteins out of this and that/reminds me of cadaver mutilator - six feet under

I HAD to write this shit because everyone i asked on other forums said: you dont know the basics bla bla bla go read through some books bla bla bla..best thing to do is studying mathematics, physics, bla bla bla put your stuff on ebay and go kill yourself ...and stuff like that

@jbroll: beeing picky about the attack time was the best tip i got in the whole web. now the guitars sounds 1625345 times better

the missing d was a typo

i think i try this shit out

thanks
 
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