How do you know THE MONEY TONE?

[Clark Kent]

Your mix sounds like you are over-doing everything. I downloaded you guitar tone and looked through my meters and listened to it and you know what... I wouldn't do anything to that tone. It's good... no EQ. I know Ola uses EQ a lot and no offence to Ola but his EQing makes every amp sound exactly the same. You might want that but generally I'd say it's not something everyone will like.

In the words of the master: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX2ewPLxq5k&feature=player_detailpage#t=432s

Do less with plugins -> concentrate on volume balance.

 

[Clark Kent]

Tips on the mix: you have guitar way too high in the mix. Lower it down A LOT. You need to have a good understanding on how to build a mix. The best place to start would be vocals but it's rare that they've been recorded first.

KICK, SNARE and VOCALS should be loud in a mix. Everything else is not as important. You bass sounds weird. Like the lows are under your kick. They should never cross. If you need to have them crossing EQ-wise then you need to sidechain the bass. But I'd say just low cut it until you bass is tight. The kick low end is 60hz-80hz... so low cut the bass steeply at 70hz-90hz.

And BTW I've owned Mesa 4x12 and 2x12 cabs and also the Harley Benton 2x12 v30 cab and I'm not kidding, the HB2x12 is VERY VERY GOOD! I'd say it's not a tight cab but a more creamy or round sounding cab. Certainly made me rethink why the Mesa 2x12 costs like 5 times more.

 

[lolzgreg]

KICK, SNARE and VOCALS should be loud in a mix. Everything else is not as important. You bass sounds weird. Like the lows are under your kick. They should never cross. If you need to have them crossing EQ-wise then you need to sidechain the bass.

a.There are no rules. You never NEED to do anything aside from use your ears.

b. Bass guitar has a fundamental in most cases reaching down to around 40hz; there is definitely frequency content in bass guitar that is useful that is below 80hz; most kick drums sit anywhere from around 50-80hz. If you have a low end conflict, you can notch, sidechain, or whatever. Again, there are no rules.

You'll know the "money tone" when you actually know what you're looking for, and you make an active attempt to achieve the capture of "the money tone." Experiment, be persistent, and don't be afraid to reference other tones you like.

 

[Ngoc]

Your mix sounds like you are over-doing everything. I downloaded you guitar tone and looked through my meters and listened to it and you know what... I wouldn't do anything to that tone. It's good... no EQ. I know Ola uses EQ a lot and no offence to Ola but his EQing makes every amp sound exactly the same. You might want that but generally I'd say it's not something everyone will like.

In the words of the master: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX2ewPLxq5k&feature=player_detailpage#t=432s

Do less with plugins -> concentrate on volume balance.

Oh man.... You are soo f*ckin right haha

I've tweaked soo much on the guitars and now, as I A/B-ed unprocessed and processed guitars the difference is soo f*cking small in the mix. You nearly hear no difference .....


Man, thanks for your advice, it was really helpful


And yesterday I remixed all of it again and already turned down the volume of the guitars.

But still, one mistake while reamping was that I had too much mids on the amp for my taste. But as I had reamped it, it soundes pretty good, but after several days it has too much mids.

And BTW I've owned Mesa 4x12 and 2x12 cabs and also the Harley Benton 2x12 v30 cab and I'm not kidding, the HB2x12 is VERY VERY GOOD! I'd say it's not a tight cab but a more creamy or round sounding cab. Certainly made me rethink why the Mesa 2x12 costs like 5 times more.

That was my impression too that the HB sounds somehow "not that metal" like a Mesa

You'll know the "money tone" when you actually know what you're looking for, and you make an active attempt to achieve the capture of "the money tone." Experiment, be persistent, and don't be afraid to reference other tones you like.

I do referencing... but I guess a lot of the refence tones are already processed so that it's a little bit harder to compare to a completely raw tone, or am I wrong?

BTW, does anybody have some raw guitar tracks of the bands Andy Sneap tracked?

 

[Ozterkvlt]

If you mic at semi-low volume, try placing the mic a bit further away from the amp, like 1 foot. Might make the sound fuller and less harsh/fizzy. Was actually wowed the first time I tried this trick.
Might also be that your amp naturally has a lot of fizz. I'd still say that the most important aspect is playing around with the mic-placement. Don't settle for half-assed sounds.
And I think Ola's raw tone is actually pretty damn awesome. Could easily hear it fitting into a mix without any major problems.

 

[Clark Kent]

a.There are no rules. You never NEED to do anything aside from use your ears.

b. Bass guitar has a fundamental in most cases reaching down to around 40hz; there is definitely frequency content in bass guitar that is useful that is below 80hz; most kick drums sit anywhere from around 50-80hz. If you have a low end conflict, you can notch, sidechain, or whatever. Again, there are no rules.

You'll know the "money tone" when you actually know what you're looking for, and you make an active attempt to achieve the capture of "the money tone." Experiment, be persistent, and don't be afraid to reference other tones you like.

Sure there are no rules... once you are on a level where you have the knowledge and expertise to do more advanced mixing. However there are good guidelines of what defines a proper mix. Ofcourse the most important part of it is that all instruments can be heard on both high and low volumes. That automatically means that KICK, SNARE and VOCALS should be higher in volume.

About the bass part... it's very hard to explain how the low end should pump with different compressors etc. However the most common problem I hear in mixes are that people think of bass as "just" BASS. (especially when a guitar player is mixing) I think a good bass tone is evenly decending from 80hz to 4khz. The most successful engineers like Chris Lord-Alge, Jack Joseph Puig, Andy Wallace etc. are all former BASS PLAYERS. They understand how a bass should sound.

Bass determines the whole ENERGY of the mix and fine tuning it can go as deep as feeling the resonance of the floor with your feet. So my personal tip for beginners would be to high pass a bass until it's not messing up the kick. It will give you a punchy mix at least.

Peace and love,
CK