I hope someone can help and I hope I posted this to the right forum. When I record and mix a song I always have this grainy plasticy kinda sound to my guitars. When I listen on headphones or earbuds its worse. I use reference tracks and they sound good on speakers and headphones. In this song its a single recto going thru a Suhr reactive load but it sounds the same mic'ed. Is it in the mix? What am I missing. Thanks.BreakingTheSilence71.mp3
Help!!! My guitar tone sucks!
- Thread starter Andrew S
- Start date
I've literally tried every common setting there is. This one was probably Bass 10:00 Mids 1:00 Trebble 12:00 Presence 9:00. Its going through a load box into some IR's. I've got a set of 6l6's and El34's and tried both.
Can you explain what you mean? Here's what I'm thinking after sleeping on it. The Recto's sound is in the lower mids and also has a lot of lows. I've been cutting a bunch of that out to fit the bass guitar but in the process neutering the guitar sound until only the fiz is left. What do you think? And Its got way to much bass. I'm still learning so go easy on me. Thanks.
Kaza
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- Mar 8, 2017
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how you have to look at it, andrew is this:
each frequency ( you can divide this by the hundreds.. so 100hz, 200hz, 300hz and so on,) should be "dominated" by one instrument at a time.
so in your case, you have a low end heavy bass guitar, guitars, and toms and kick. thats why you are clipping and thats why it sounds like 20 fat guys in a closet. your mix doesnt suck.. you just need to learn to balance everything. just think of the music and forget the technicality.. what do you want this song to sound like? do you want this song to have a bassy ass kick!? and a grindy bass and mid punching guitars? or do you want a rumbly bass with a clicky kick with some razor cutting guitars? ... now that doesnt mean one frequency should only carry ONE instrument...no.
for example...i like a bassy kick AND a bassy BASS guitar... but i want the kick to be more bassy. so ill make the kicks low end the dominant and ill make the bass guitar still a bit heavy on low end ona neighboring frequency and ill blend until my ears are happy. yes my bass will be lower in the mix at this point.. BUT i want my bass's hi mids to cut through and i want the string grind in the high end.
i hope this makes sense.
if anyone starts making fun of me for saying things like bassy or talks about my spelling....suck it.
each frequency ( you can divide this by the hundreds.. so 100hz, 200hz, 300hz and so on,) should be "dominated" by one instrument at a time.
so in your case, you have a low end heavy bass guitar, guitars, and toms and kick. thats why you are clipping and thats why it sounds like 20 fat guys in a closet. your mix doesnt suck.. you just need to learn to balance everything. just think of the music and forget the technicality.. what do you want this song to sound like? do you want this song to have a bassy ass kick!? and a grindy bass and mid punching guitars? or do you want a rumbly bass with a clicky kick with some razor cutting guitars? ... now that doesnt mean one frequency should only carry ONE instrument...no.
for example...i like a bassy kick AND a bassy BASS guitar... but i want the kick to be more bassy. so ill make the kicks low end the dominant and ill make the bass guitar still a bit heavy on low end ona neighboring frequency and ill blend until my ears are happy. yes my bass will be lower in the mix at this point.. BUT i want my bass's hi mids to cut through and i want the string grind in the high end.
i hope this makes sense.
if anyone starts making fun of me for saying things like bassy or talks about my spelling....suck it.
Kaza
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your plasticy tone youre refering too is just a certain mid frequency is somewhat dominant. i never got this problem with a 57 or sm7b on a good ole guitar cab and a tube head. make sure the cab has V30 speakers...youll never have this problem.
but id start working on your mixing skills before worrying about guitar tone in a mix. without a good mix, your good guitar tone will not be legible to the ears.
hope this helps!
but id start working on your mixing skills before worrying about guitar tone in a mix. without a good mix, your good guitar tone will not be legible to the ears.
hope this helps!
Thanks for the responses guys. Its this damn Mesa rectifier. Its really fizzy up top and really bassy down low. When I cut some of the low end out to make room for the bass the guitars don't sound good. I'm gonna take out some of the bass guitar and see what happens. I think one of my problems is I'm listening to a reference track that has a bunch of low end but different guitar amp and I'm trying to match it.
Hey can you guys point me to some songs that use recto's for me to reference. Most stuff is usually a blend of multiple amps.
TRUIE
Member
I don't think your guitar tone suck at all. Maybe you just don't like the Recto tone ?
My advice would be to work a lot on the recording, don't rely too much on post EQ as you won't do miracle if you start with a raw take you're not satisfied with. Maybe try to use a bit less gain too.
Try to record a small section, dual tracked.
Listen hard panned LR, in context, with no processing on guitars.
Try to identify what doesn't fit well and what you don't like, then see what you can do to improve the take (on both amps settings and mic position).
Then, repeat all these steps, comparing to the previous take, until you're really satisfied.
And do some 5min breaks when you start losing perspective.
Then, you'll be able to throw some EQ and do some corrections if needed, with as less moves as possible.
My advice would be to work a lot on the recording, don't rely too much on post EQ as you won't do miracle if you start with a raw take you're not satisfied with. Maybe try to use a bit less gain too.
Try to record a small section, dual tracked.
Listen hard panned LR, in context, with no processing on guitars.
Try to identify what doesn't fit well and what you don't like, then see what you can do to improve the take (on both amps settings and mic position).
Then, repeat all these steps, comparing to the previous take, until you're really satisfied.
And do some 5min breaks when you start losing perspective.
Then, you'll be able to throw some EQ and do some corrections if needed, with as less moves as possible.
Hell no the recto is my all time fave. My main issue is I hate how it sounds on earbuds. I think it sounds pretty good on monitors. Just trying to get it to translate. I'm gonna work on the low end today or tomorrow and will post back up.
Kaza
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This guy i watch on youtube from time to time did a cool amp head and axe fx shootout with a peavey 5150, Mesa Rectifier, and a Framus something something... Skip the video to 2:23. He compares a mic'd rectifier to an axe fx 2...im not showing you to compare the two.. although the results are close, this is just to show you that a rectifier can sound good in a mix. i personally dislike them for live and recording in fact, i dont really like mesa - Period. but in the video ....Sample A: Rectifier Mic'd ... Sample B: AXE FX II
see? its all about technique. and if you dont like the amp sound in that mix, then you probably just dont like rectifiers. because thats one of the better examples of a mic'd rectifier.
see? its all about technique. and if you dont like the amp sound in that mix, then you probably just dont like rectifiers. because thats one of the better examples of a mic'd rectifier.
TRUIE
Member
OK I get it.
For this I do pretty often a small notch on the hi mids, just to remove some harshness.
Sweep somewhere around the 2-4K area in context while doing a 7-8dB boost with high Q, trying to find the most annoying harsh frequency.
Then do a 1-2dB cut (usually no more, as you'll easily loose some presence / nastiness), still with high Q and A/B with and without, and adjust the frequency if necessary.
Try to do another cut if needed, but resist the urge of removing all hi mids ringing frequency as you'll quickly suck all the life out of your guitars.
IMO all you need is a good take + some small EQ moves like this (and maybe some multiband in the lo mids if it's too messy around here).
