high gain tone quest - input needed

[miche]

Hi everyone,

I have been struggling with reamping for quite some time now, unable to get the tone I wanted with high gain amps. I feel like I need some exterior point of view to try to unblock what is preventing me from reaching my dream tone (or something that moves towards it). I would be very grateful for your diagnostic.

Here is the gear:

- Schecter with 707
- signal is split with a radial jx2
- DI tone is sent to an API 512c
- the audio interface is a motu 24io
- the peak point of the recorded DI is ~-4.5db

That's for the DI recording. Now the signal is sent through:
- black reamp box: volume set to max
- maxon od-9, every knob at 12:00
- peavey 6505 with the settings:
[] rythm channel
[] pre: 4
[] bass: 6.5
[] mid: 1.25
[] high: 4.5
[] postgain: 1.5
[] reso: 7
[] presence: 8
- mesa os slanted
- single sm57: classic position pointing at the dustcap/cone junction, very slightly off axis (the head looks inside the speaker), standing on the quiet right part of the bottom right speaker at ~0.75'' from the grill (grill was removed, but it should be at this distance if it was still there).

Here is a improvised riff, with two guitars:
_reampPeaveyMesa_01.mp3 - 0.77MB

I feel like my tone has many fizz / resonating frequencies / harshness / no headroom / too dark. The bass frequencies are muddy, the 1k mids are not there, the 3k – 6k is very harsh with loads of fizzes and resonating frequencies. The highs are deafened, the tone is not bright. It sounds far away.

According to you guys, what is it I do wrong? Any ideas, hints, feelings?

What may be wrong? Mic placement? Room? Amp settings? Cables? Any gear? Electric current?

I need foreign and objective ears.

Again, I would be very grateful for any help.

Thanks in advance!






EDIT - NEW SAMPLES POSTED

Here are new samples with a few settings / placement changes that were posted below.

- maxon drive lowered to 0, peavey mids set to 2.5 and mic moved for like 3 millimeters. no treatment at all:
_reampPeaveyMesa_02.mp3 - 0.77MB

- same guitars but with bass and drums. No treatment on the guitars or on the master buss besides a gclip:
_reampPeaveyMesa_02_fullmix.mp3 - 0.76MB

 

[Maybelater]

I'm far from a recording guru but I feel you should judge the tone in a mix. You would be surprised what sounds good when everything starts to blend together. JMHO

 

[Jormyn]

That tone doesn't sound bad to me. A small cut around 600 and a small boost around 1k would probably give it a little more balls, but I'd be quite happy with it.

 

[HvO]

maxon od-9, every knob at 12:00

Drive too?? You should test it without Drive by the OD-9.
I think the fizz will be gone.

 

[ttrentt]

I bet would sound good in a mix.

 

[miche]

Thank you very much for taking the time to check my sample and giving me your impressions.

@Maybelater & ttrentt: you are right, it is always good to judge a tone in a mix as well. That's where your guitars are going to end, so most definitely: it is a good idea to listen to them with the rest of the instruments as well. I quickly programmed / recorded drums and bass lines. But still, I feel like it won't be enough. I really would like to listen to the guitars by themselves and find them exciting.

@: Jormyn interesting, that's not exactly where I would have cut (lower). I would actually have boosted that 600 area, I fill it quite dug in there. I played with your recommendation for a bit and felt I had to change something on the amp settings since the current EQ balance was wrong.

@HvO: I may be using the word "fizz" wrong. For me, it is the horrible series of hisses that kill my ears between approximatively 5k and 6k. There are always a few (resonating? that's how they are called?) frequencies that I want to notch in there. Can you hear those? They make the tone very aggressive and unpleasant. But if you remove them, you kill the sound. It goes too dark.

I lowered the drive to 0 as you suggested, it doesn't really help in this area. But you are right, the tone may be a little more "breathing" like that.

---

I moved the mic, so the position differs very slightly from the first post (less than 5mm). Still, my usual problems are still audible: sound is harsh, hisses between 4k and 6.5k, lacking low mids and muddy low end, lacking >6.5k brightness.

Adding some mids to the peavey head made the sound closer and fuller, so I set it to 2.5. The current settings are now:

- maxon od-9
[] drive: 0
[] tone: 12 o' clock
[] level: 12 o' clock

- peavey 6505:
[] rythm channel
[] pre: 4
[] bass: 6.5
[] mid: 2.5
[] high: 4.5
[] postgain: 1.5
[] reso: 7
[] presence: 8

Here are the two guitares by themselves, no post-prcessing:
_reampPeaveyMesa_02.mp3 - 0.77MB

Here they are "in the mix": I quickly added some drums and bass. The guitars are not processed at all and there is nothing in the mastering chain besides a gclip:
_reampPeaveyMesa_02_fullmix.mp3 - 0.76MB

Again, has anyone a hit on how to improve the guitar take? I am doing something obviously wrong to any of you?

 

[TheWinterSnow]

The Only thing you really have left to do is to hone in your mixing skills. Your unprocessed guitars are a great starting point, my taste would be to increase that level knob all the way up or increasing the pre-gain, both methods will have a slightly different sound and its all preference, but I feel that the tone could use a little bit more saturation on the palm mutes.

This is echoed a lot around here so remember this: Tone comes from the hands, if the tone sounds sloppy, 99.9% of the time you played sloppy, and I could hear that in the mix. You have to articulate and play more dynamically in order to get the tone to stand out.

Other than that, like I said before, you have good sources, its just time for you to begin the nightmare of mixing.