Help with guitar tone

[Kryaxysa]

Hey guys. I'm having a difficult time getting a good sounding rhythm tone out of my agile 725 with EMG 707's. It just doesn't sound pleasing to my ears I guess, and I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong. I guess in this clip I'm kind of going for a tone that's something like this:



and here's what I've got right now:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23873874/Guitar tone.mp3

If you've got any other critique of my mix, just let me know. Thanks.

 

[Rendered]

Are you low/high passing the guitars any? I found that helped a ton on my mixes. If the guitar and bass are playing similar or the same part, let the bass do the "work" and provide the lows. On my eqs, I usually cut all of the lows out of my guitars from around 230 and under. I can't remember what I cut out of my highs. But that just may work for my situation. Also, are you double tracking? Quad tracking? If you're layering multiple guitars, all of their eqs and gain will build and cause mud. What you want to do in that situation is lower your gain on all of your guitar tracks. With all of this hi/low passing and reducing the gain, your guitars will sound tiny and icky on their own(God knows mine do), but when you add them all together and then have the bass driving underneath, it'll create a solid, clear, and cohesive sound. The tone on that particular song sounds slightly scooped in the mids, so you may want to try that as well, BUT BE CAREFUL. The golden rule I've come to live by with guitar recording is that moderation is not only key, it's the freaking door, too. That goes with eq,gain, compression, reverb, everything.
Also, what kind of gear are you using? A pod? AxeFX? Amp Sims? I've got experience with a lot of them except for the Axe.
Here's a clip of some of my stuff so that you can judge my advice as helpful or crap.http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38852223/Progressions.mp3

 

[Kryaxysa]

Are you low/high passing the guitars any? I found that helped a ton on my mixes. If the guitar and bass are playing similar or the same part, let the bass do the "work" and provide the lows. On my eqs, I usually cut all of the lows out of my guitars from around 230 and under. I can't remember what I cut out of my highs. But that just may work for my situation. Also, are you double tracking? Quad tracking? If you're layering multiple guitars, all of their eqs and gain will build and cause mud. What you want to do in that situation is lower your gain on all of your guitar tracks. With all of this hi/low passing and reducing the gain, your guitars will sound tiny and icky on their own(God knows mine do), but when you add them all together and then have the bass driving underneath, it'll create a solid, clear, and cohesive sound. The tone on that particular song sounds slightly scooped in the mids, so you may want to try that as well, BUT BE CAREFUL. The golden rule I've come to live by with guitar recording is that moderation is not only key, it's the freaking door, too. That goes with eq,gain, compression, reverb, everything.
Also, what kind of gear are you using? A pod? AxeFX? Amp Sims? I've got experience with a lot of them except for the Axe.
Here's a clip of some of my stuff so that you can judge my advice as helpful or crap.http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38852223/Progressions.mp3

I've got my guitars high passed at 80hz, low passed at 12khz. They're double tracked and panned hard left and right. I'm using pod farm with a tubescreamer, diamond plate amp with the treadplate cab. My gain is only at about 30% on the amp, and any lower I start to notice a serious loss of distortion. Then, it's going into c4 with something like the andy sneap preset. I've made a couple of notches in my guitars where I noticed I got a lot of fizz or unpleasant sounds, but I'm still not satisfied. then I've got it going into an SSL EQ that just adds some presence to the guitars. then waves s-1 imager, and i end it with l2.

Here's what my EQ looks like:

 

[Firaxis]

Haven't been able to listen (sorry) but that EQ looks way too radical, I think that might be where your problem lies, if you are finding unpleasant things in the areas you have notched maybe try not taking as much out? The starting tone should never need that much post EQ.

If the track is muddy, it might be from the boost you've got around 300-700Hz?

Have you read up on Ermz guide to guitars? It's brilliantly detailed and should really help out. http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...-series-1-poking-holes-high-gain-guitars.html

Sorry it's probably not much help but that much EQ is surely taking away a lot of the sound and possibly making it sound wierd and maybe phasey (again, I haven't listened so I can't be sure).

I'll listen later on tonight and see if I can give any better tips.

 

[Rendered]

I agree with Firaxis, that curve is a bit extreme. Maybe try not taking away as much Db during those notches? As for the rest of your chain, sorry I know pretty much nothing about Waves except that C4 is a compressor and that Sneap has a legendary preset for it.

 

[Firaxis]

It definitely sounds like an issue from the amp stage, way too much mids clouding everything up. What chain are you using Kryaxysa? I'd recommend trying to find the tones you like on their own and bringing it into Cubase and comparing to your own. Tweak from there!

 

[Kryaxysa]

It definitely sounds like an issue from the amp stage, way too much mids clouding everything up. What chain are you using Kryaxysa? I'd recommend trying to find the tones you like on their own and bringing it into Cubase and comparing to your own. Tweak from there!

I'm using an agile intrepid 725 with EMG 707's into a presonus audiobox, then into cubase and into podfarm. My settings for pod farm and the rest of the chain are up above. I don't know how I could be getting so much mids...

 

[Rendered]

It could be any number of reasons. It could be anything from how the amp itself is eq'd to the mic or cab model you're using. If anything I'd try cutting that 300-700hz curve you have in FabFilter. You could too wide of a notch on it. I'd play around with it. Narrowing the notch and sweeping through frequencies or cutting very carefully.

 

[prostetnic]

First, cut back on all that eq. A hi-pass at 80, a lo-pass at 10-15k and a substantial cut at 3k should get rid of the "digital" sound and leave you with a workable tone.
Second, try a different ampsim, or at least a different cab sim. POD Farm cabinets suck. I recommend Onqel's TSE X-50 and TSE 808, or LePou's stuff, and GuitarHack impulses. Gets you a sick modern metal tone in 60 seconds.

 

[Shinozoku]

Do a bit of mid scooping. When I hear EMG707 I think of this tone.





Sounds like you either need to do the aforementioned scooping at the source, or switch to some 81-7's.

 

[Virgil.]

First, cut back on all that eq. A hi-pass at 80, a lo-pass at 10-15k and a substantial cut at 3k should get rid of the "digital" sound and leave you with a workable tone.
Second, try a different ampsim, or at least a different cab sim. POD Farm cabinets suck. I recommend Onqel's TSE X-50 and TSE 808, or LePou's stuff, and GuitarHack impulses. Gets you a sick modern metal tone in 60 seconds.

+1. LePou amp sims + Onqel's TSE 808 + Impulses are going to get you a MUCH better sound than anything in podfarm. For impulses, I find I really like to blend ones from GuitarHack, Catharsis, as well as Recabinet (www.recabi.net). Some of "God's Cab" impulses are pretty fine too.

As others have said as well (except the tard above me), ease up on the EQ, you DON'T want to cut/scoop all the mids out of your tone and leave you with something thin, washed out, lifeless, and useless. The midrange is where the majority of guitar tone character comes from. A scooped sound may sound somewhat nice if you're a dungeon warrior and play by yourself, but in a mix or a band situation, the midrange is where you actually hear the guitars.

Once you get a good tone, some good multi-band compression will go a long way as well.

 

[Rendered]

Yeah, Lecto is a great plugin. Just about anything by LePou is great.

 

[Kryaxysa]

How do you guys feel about combining a lot of different impulses? Currently, I've got it set up with catharsis's s-preshigh, combined with god's cab sm57 1 inch cap, U87 2 feet, and an NT5 stereo dead room. It definitely feels more rounded, but I'm having a hard time telling if it's just the added volume or if it actually feels more full.

Here's the same clip except with the impulses I described above, and the only EQ is hpf, lpf, a cut at 3k and at 2.1k
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23873874/Guitar tone2.mp3

 

[Rendered]

Could you lower the volume to match the volume of the original setup you had? That way you could compare and see it is volume or if you have achieved fullness. As for mixing impulses, you could do that, but I don't really have any experience with that. I'm more of the find one setting use across the board type of guy. One trick I do to achieve fullness in my recordings is to quad track. Although if I'm using a 7 string I may not do that as a 7 already takes up massive amounts of space. Once I've tracked my guitars I set up two buses or tracks in Reaper (I'm not sure what they're called). On these tracks I set a decent amount of reverb and delay. For the right guitars, I send them to one of the reverb buses and pan it to the left, and for the left guitars I send them to the other reverb track and pan it right. That way both sides of the guitars kind of overlap each other, creating this huge sound. I learned it from this video or a related one.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K0LAE-Fel8&feature=related[/ame]

I had read somewhere that Van Halen would only single track and send all of the reverb/delay/fx on his guitar to the other speaker, which helped fill everything out. I just took that and ran with it. This is all assuming of course you're going for a massive wall-of-sound guitar sound.

 

[blue_fAng]

I wouldn't recommend starting blending with different impulses if you are still learning how to get a nice tone but:
different impulses have their own strengths and weaknesses, and you have to play with the amp eq rather than with post eq if you hear an impulse very boxy then scoop the mids in the amp if you hear another impulse very boomy then lower the bass a little and probably better if you cut 0-80 hz later with an eq, etc. Also, i would strongly recommend recording two exact rhythm guitars with DI pan them left/right (there's no point in doing four guitars if you are still learning) and then using a tube screamer->amp->impulse loader->eq (to remove very low and very high freqs) and try monitoring your tone with your favorite amp. The point is to PRODUCE a great tone with your amp, mic+speaker/impulse, tube screamer, playing technique, new strings, new batteries, great interface, etc. When your mixes start getting bigger you will naturally hear freqs in the guitar that you can be cut/boost but if your guitar tone is good enough, the cuts or boost are going to be minimal for example 2 dbs lower in the 300hz if theres a lot of mud in the mix, AND THATS IT. Try to keep the post eq as flat as possible. And for plugins use other amps that are free trust me, those things are way better instead of using pod and if you are into high gain, add more gain until the chug of the guitar is enough and then back it up a little bit, try scooping your mids and dont go crazy with the treble and prescence unless you are into crazy death metal tones and if your guitar is lacking definition lower the bass. Forget about using compression in any stage (the tube screamer is kinda compressing your tone anyways and distorted tones are already compressed naturally) maybe multiband compression in the bass when you get experience.

 

[Rendered]

I agree with everything this guy said. Seriously, I used to be a major Podfarm endorser/fanboy, but when I built my new machine I severe compatibility problems with it, which Line6 did not help with at all except for giving me vanilla answers that I had already tried a hundred times (I'm an IT major). I was forced to go the free amp sim route, and honestly I couldn't be happier. I've tried alot of the amp sims out there and LePou makes the best hands down.