Hello and Guitar Mixing question

[Ken6800]

Hello, and boy was I glad to find the man responsible for some of the best sounding metal albums ever had a website with a FORUM!!!!

I would like to ask a question about mixing if I may, bearing in mind that I am a rank newbie with a Line 6 POD and very little experience LOL.

The question is about guitar mixing. I am having a real problem at the moment- what I am doing is using the Line 6 Insane setting, give or take, panning one guitar hard left and 50% to the right and the same for the other in mirror. Was hoping to try and get that Killswitch Engage sound but have failed miserably, everything just sounds muddy and I dont know what to do. All the tracks are at the same volume.

Could you please help me out here chaps? How do you get that great sound that so many NWOAHM bands like Chimaira, Killswitch, God Forbid, Lamb of God, Unearth and so on in your mix? Keeping in mind this is for my band and I am really trying to preserve that separate guitar for each ear feel to it!

Thanks very much for your time!

 

[ThomasT]

panning one guitar hard left and 50% to the right and the same for the other in mirror.

What do you mean with one guitar hard left and 50% right?
You need two guitars to do this. So four guitars in the sum.

Panning one signal hard left and (copied or routed to a second mixer channell) hard right is only a more complex way to pan this signal in the center...
If you increase the volume of right side the phantom source moves to the center.

 

[Ken6800]

Let me elaborate, I have guitar one and guitar two.

Guitar one is recorded with two takes and two separate tracks.

Same for guitar two.

Hence, yes 4 guitars I suppose, is that what you mean?

Sorry for the newbie questions, I realise a lot of you are professionals- thanks for taking the time!

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

Copying the guitar part to the other channel is just the same as centered... i'm confused... can you tell? haha

Edit: oh i get it now.

Are you using 2 guitar tracks (both left and right) with the SAME sound?

because that'd create a kinda natural chorus effect and sound nasty.

 

[Ken6800]

Sigh... LOL okay lets start again because I am getting confused now!

I have tried just having two guitars, one panned all the way left, the other all the way to the right. It sounds majorly thin and I am looking to get that fabled "wall of guitars" but keeping the two guitars separate, one for the left ear and one for the right ear ala Machine Head and all these new bands!

Can you guys help out? I am very sure this is to do with my panning and mixing and the number of guitars so perhaps if you'd care to share exactly how you mix two guitarists?

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

Which POD are you using? (i assume its a POD because you named a Line6 preset)

 

[Ken6800]

The original Pod, not the new one. Cant exactly remember what settings offhand though.

An analogy- say you had Robb Flynn and Phil Demmell, how would you mix their guitars if they were playing the same riffs? I assume its not as easy as just pan hard left and pan hard right!

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

well the original POD is hard to get a good sound out of to be honest.

But to answer your question:

They take one side each, left and right. Pick two different guitar sounds that compliment each other, they both play one track of each.

They end up with two tracks each, one all the way left and right and one 50% of the way left and right.

 

[Ken6800]

Ahhhhhhhhh right I see thats how it works then. Right i'll try that, thanks very much!

 

[SickBoy]

Was hoping to try and get that Killswitch Engage sound but have failed miserably, everything just sounds muddy and I dont know what to do. All the tracks are at the same volume.

A wild guess, but you may be putting too much bass freqs on those guitars.
Most newbies do that, they feel the sound is thin (since they listen to it without the bass) and it takes some time to be able to judge how the guitar would sound once the bass comes in the picture...
The mud you mention is somewhere in 200-300 Hz area and that's where you should look to get rid of it. Also, do a search on this forum for Andy's C4 preset which should tame raging low-mids...

 

[Ermz]

well the original POD is hard to get a good sound out of to be honest.

But to answer your question:

They take one side each, left and right. Pick two different guitar sounds that compliment each other, they both play one track of each.

They end up with two tracks each, one all the way left and right and one 50% of the way left and right.

Does that mean you overlay the two sounds that complement each other both in the one speaker, or is it one 'sound' for each speaker?

So:

Tone 1 - Hard left
Tone 1 - 50% left
Tone 2 - Hard right
Tone 2 - 50% right

OR

Tone 1 - Hard left
Tone 2 - 50% left
Tone 1 - Hard right
Tone 2 - 50% right

 

[dill_the_devil]

I've got a feeling this guy's using the same tone for all four guitar tracks...

Dude, I'm almost as new at this game as you are, so here's some newbie-to-newbie advice - first of all, if you're using the Insane setting on POD hardware, turn the drive right the way down to zero, and create some grind for your tones by adding a Tube Screamer stompbox option to your settings - nothing over the top, maybe 15% drive, 50% gain, 50% tone. Secondly, crank your bass right down too - guitar tones don't need too much bass, because that's what the bass guitar is for.

Thirdly, and here's quite an important bit - create four seperate tones. Base 'em all on your existing tone, but maybe have a bit less mids and more treble and a different cab model in one, a bit less presence and a different head model in another - stuff like that. Then, use a seperate tone for each take.

Pan tone 1 100% left, and tone 2 100% right. Then drop the volume on those tones in the mix by about 2dB. This creates more of a sense of 'space' in the stereo field.

Pan tone 3 about 40% left, and tone 4 about 40% right. Now you've got your basic guitar mix ready. After this, it's pretty much all down to your EQing skills, pal.

Here's a couple of links to help you out with EQing - they've done wonders for me.

What is EQing? - http://www.homerecordingconnection.com/news.php?action=view_story&id=154

Key frequencies - http://www.homerecordingconnection.com/news.php?action=view_story&id=390

 

[Ken6800]

I've got a feeling this guy's using the same tone for all four guitar tracks...

LOL you're not wrong, thanks for the advice. I am a complete beginner at this but I am dedicated- all the money I spent on Logic Express and Drumkit from Hell is an indication of that hehe.

Yeah I am beginning to have serious doubts about my Line 6. Once I have recovered from open-wallet surgery Im gonna get myself a 5150 Mark 2 or something because my guitar is fine- ESP LTD with EMG-81s - but everything sounds horrible!

THanks for the advice guys, I very much appreciate it!

But regarding combinations of tones... where do I even begin? LOL.

 

[dill_the_devil]

Personally, I'd stop using Insane settings altogether - Treadplate Dual amp setting with different cabs seems to work fine for me...

 

[Leper_/-\ffinity]

Crap, so everyone here would advise against using the same exact tones to track all guitars?!? Cause that's what I have been doing, looking to keep a consistent sound, but is this not good?!

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

Tone 1 - Hard left
Tone 2 - 50% left
Tone 1 - Hard right
Tone 2 - 50% right

Like that, or it'd sound weird and unbalanced pan-wise.

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

Crap, so everyone here would advise against using the same exact tones to track all guitars?!? Cause that's what I have been doing, looking to keep a consistent sound, but is this not good?!

2 tracks of the same guitar sound just makes a kind of chorus effect occur, which ain't good.

 

[silverwulf]

2 tracks of the same guitar sound just makes a kind of chorus effect occur, which ain't good.

Yeah, it's an old thread, but I just noticed it...

Everyone complains about tracking the same guitar for doubling, yet Neil Kernon used the same set-up...amp settings, mic placement, etc...for all 4 tracks of rhythm on all the Nevermore recordings he did. I don't see anyone complaining about those.

 

[ATGuitar_NInja]

Ey,

Panning I know is a tricky task, so is getting 4 different rhythm tracks to sound good together in a mix. Those two links on EQing and what frequencies to boost or cut were some good stuff. Another thing to watch out for is giving the guitars too much bass on their initial tone when using the POD or any other emulator for home recordings. I use the Boss Gt-6 and it's taken me a while to to get the low end to be high but not boosted to the point where it's muddy as hell. Rolling off the low end and panning the guitars off center 30 - 40% usually makes for a quick decent mix. Hard left and right panning is ok...but it does make the mix sound thin, especially with the lack of thickness direct input amp emulation units provide. To beef it up you could use only two of the 4 rhythm guitar tracks instead of tracking each guitar part twice, just use one of each and double those up. Mixing the copy of each closer to the center with differnt EQ's than the outer tracks and perhaps some compression. If you're going for making the wall of guitars just remember that sonic space needs to be spared in the middle for the drums, bass, vocals, and leads to cut through clearly. A lot of it is experimenting...do a couple different mix downs to see what sounds best. And try it out on many different systems...especially car stereos.

 

[Leper_/-\ffinity]

Stupid question, and sorry that I have to spam up this thread to ask it, but how much difference is there between micing a 10" speaker for metal recordings vs. micing a 12" speaker?! Is the sound difference very drastic? I do realize that the 10 inch speaker will have less bass and have it's own set of differences in terms of frequencies, but are 10" speakers ever used for guitars in the studio?!