It's how you play it!!!

[Glenn Fricker]

Apologies to the forum members for going off on a rant here:

I don't know why I've never really discussed this endless project I've been working on here in the forum before, but here goes...

I'm not going to mention any names, as the people involved are super nice & I do have a great amount of respect for them. The project: An epic, "Swedish Death Metal" album. The group consists of two guys from Canda & one guy from Sweden. Drums were tracked in the summer of 2004. They flew the drummer to Canada for some really amazing sessions. Aside from some very minor sloppyness, I thought they turned out great. Better than any other drummer I've ever recorded, anyway. Guitars were tracked later in the summer, bass in the fall. Keys for orchestral backing were added in early 2005.

Well, it's now January 2007, and it's still not done. Drums were replaced with DFHS, tracked at the drummer's apartment in Sweden on an electronic kit. Guitars were re-recorded, and after many, many, many test tones, (about 35) finally re-tracked a third time & reamped at my place. (I'm just finishing those up today. I didn't have reamp capability in 2004.) Bass, well, you can guess. To say these guys are nitpickers is the ultimate understatement.

That being said, the major issue has always been the guitar tone. There's no question in my mind that the guiarst/composer is a fucking genius. The songs are killer. He also wrote the next four albums in something like three months. That & he's got a serious set of guitar skills. He's classically trained & can play stuff that I can't even dream of playing. It's a real treat just to watch this guy do his thing.

The idea was to shoot for an In Flames/Dimmu Borgir type of sound. Well, with all the skill, it should be no sweat, right? Wrong.

There's two major issues:

1) The guitarist insisted on tuning standard, or A440. If anyone can name off a metal record that got Dimmu type guitar tone that was tuned to A440, please point me in that direction. I'd love to hear it.
"The riffs are heavy enough, the tuning shouldn't matter." Was his statement. It sounds like a great philosophy, but in practice, it didn't turn out that way.
I could be way off base with this, so please, enlighten me if I'm wrong.

2) This is the big one: He doesn't practice thru an amp. Ever.
Like I said before, this guy has amazing guitar skills. But, there's something wrong with the sound we're getting. More on this further down.

One more issue:
We're recording a Gibson Explorer with stock pickups. Beautiful guitar. Plays wonderful. He was going to drop in a set of EMG 81/85 back in '04, but unfortunatley, we both got some advice to not bother. In retrospect, that was some really bad advice! Trying to get Dimmu tone out of an Explorer's stock pickups has been challenging, to say the least!


But something occured to me yesterday as I was setting up for the reamp. The reason we're not getting the Dimmu sound isn't my fault. No, really, it's that simple. I've read Andy mention "The sound is in the hands" I don't know how many times on this board, but yesterday, that anaolgy became crystal clear. The sound is in the hands. The sound is in the hands. It's HOW you FUCKING play the goddamn instrument that matters! :zombie:
The only way we're ever going to get Dimmu tone on this record would be to kidnap Dimmu's guitarists, hand them some charts, & say "go."
It really became clear, as I set up things exactly the same way for my "Hellraiser Test Drive" tone (posted in the 'rate my tone' subforum) & started running tracks thru it. What was a wonderful tone that I'm very proud of degraded into a muddy & buzzy mess. Same amp, settings, cabinet, mics, preamp, OD pedal, everything. I can get something useful out of it, but it's gonna take some serious EQ to do it.
So why the big change in tone? Because the guy is playing his electric like a classical acoustic! Despite his awesome skills, he hasn't developed the finesse for playing amplified!
Messing around with settings didn't help. Changing OD pedals, mics, preamps, and even a guitar amp didn't help. It still had the same mud/buzz combination. All I could do was try to minimize it & hope for the best.
But, this is when I realized, that no matter what is said when this is all over, it's not my fault. The sound is in the hands, indeed. I think I'm gonna get that phrase tatooed on my ass so I can moon the next guy who asks me, "Why don't my guitars sound like band __?"

-0z-

 

[Andy Sneap]

yep its so true.

 

[KeithRT99]

1) The guitarist insisted on tuning standard, or A440. If anyone can name off a metal record that got Dimmu type guitar tone that was tuned to A440, please point me in that direction. I'd love to hear it.
-0z-

Dimmu's last two albums: PEM and DCA were in standard tuning. I'm pretty sure DCA was engl, and PEM was a marshal JMP pre into a marshall poweramp.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Doesn't dimmu play in standard tuning?

edit: keith, you beat me to it

 

[TheStoryteller]

But, as he stated, it's not really about the tuning either. It's how you play it. (Oh, how repetetetive of me... sorry.)

 

[Radd]

Why the hell can't they be satisfied creating thier own tone?
Are they insecure?
They create thier own music, they should create thier own tone to further create thier own identity. I'm sure Dimmu themselves would give this advice.
Maybe thier goal should be to get a tone that they like even better than Dimmu's. Since they are so nitpicky, they probably could do it. WTF?
Good luck Oz.

 

[sparkyness]

Reminds me of a friends gig a few years back where they had a fill-in guitarist. A "flamenco guitar genius" apparently, but most definitely not one on a les paul. It was a cheezy cover band, but lo and behold I found myself (primarily a bass player I might add) replacing the guitarist for the second set, purely on the basis that I knew what a palm mute was and he didn't. Touch is everything...

 

[Glenn Fricker]

Dimmu's last two albums: PEM and DCA were in standard tuning. I'm pretty sure DCA was engl, and PEM was a marshal JMP pre into a marshall poweramp.

Ok, thanks for the clarification. I thought one of their records might be in standard, but wasn't sure.

At least now I know for sure that the tuning wasn't the issue. After all, there were some really goddamn heavy riffs on this record.

I stand corrected!

-0z-

 

[-Gavin-]

I can testify to this.


BAnd i was recording, Catharist. Really REALLY cool tracks, great drummer, great rhythm guitarist, AMAZING vocalist....

Shitty lead guitarist and worse bassist.


BAssist insisted on playing finger style but problem is he doesn't have the ability to do so so all i got were muffled notes, the sound of overly loose strings hitting the fret wire and his timing was atrocious.
Even after several retakes, he just sucks at bass


So, after spending HOURS EQing and mixing his basslines to get them sounding halfway clear and i buried them a bit in the mix. Work my ass off and give them the finished CD, i see on their myspace "Due to bad mix with almost no bass, the CD will be rerecorded"

I coulda fuckin' killed someone.

I did a 6 song CD with 2 weeks recording for £50 as 2 of them are bro's... and the shit bassist nitpicks about my work cause he himself cannae play.



Oz, bro.. I hear ya.

 

[-Gavin-]

Oh and all dimmu (dunno about PEM though, that album sucked so never actually bought it) is in E

 

[Mutant]

1) The guitarist insisted on tuning standard, or A440.

?????

Stupid question:
What is wrong with this tuning ?

I like to use Gvst GTUNE for tuning my 7 string to AEADGBE - GTune has 11 settings (435 to 445) how am i supposed to tune my guitar to something other than A440 ?
Just enter something other than 440 and then do everything like i always do or are there any special procedures needed ?

 

[JBroll]

A440 usually just means the thing is set up so that A will be exactly 440 Hz, not that A will be W. There are a number of instances where that A will be set elsewhere (usually not far, within about 5 Hz) but those aren't too common, and now the important thing is to have all instruments at the same frequency. That said, proportionality won't change a whole lot. With that tuner you'll get plenty of notes that aren't A, so going to a nonstandard tuning should be handled. The purpose of changing between those 11 settings, for our intents and purposes, would mainly be fitting an instrument into some place like an old classical recording where stuff just happened to be A438 or something like that. Unless you have some amazing ears (like the marketed 'Perfect Pitch', which I can say from experience is just a pain in the ass if you're not surrounded by people who fucking love tuning) or a reference pitch at a different A, it's not much to worry about - some people enjoy tuning down to Q flat and still referring to all of their strings as if in standard tuning, so to accommodate them you could move A down a lot and feel odd (if you don't feel like just transposing in your head, which most people wind up having to do) but in most cases it's not worth getting all wound up over.

Jeff

 

[Mutant]

not that A will be W

some people enjoy tuning down to Q flat

OK this is even more confusing to me !

If 440 is not good for metal then what should i do ? Go lower ? 435 ? Or is it too low ?

I'm a complete newbie to all this non 440 tuning so don't be afraid to explain it like you would to a complete idiot.

 

[Glenn Fricker]

440 hz is a reference to what "A" is tuned to. That's all. You've never heard the phrase "A 440" before? No big deal, I didn't know Dimmu tuned DCA to standard, either! If you're tuning your 7 string to an "A" you're in good shape. That's really fucking low.


-0z-

 

[everybody's x]

I had a session in october, the guitarist was using my rig. I spent a couple of hours getting sounds by myself before he showed up. killer tone, no mud clean pick attack while maintaining balls. did a quick quad track over a couple verses of their drum tracks when the guy shows up. I play that back to him, he's digging it. I tune up my goldtop and hand it to him and we start rolling.....

total useless inarticulate shit.

It's amazing, like a having another guy soundcheck the drums, it just doesn't work.

 

[Glenn Fricker]

I tune up my goldtop and hand it to him and we start rolling.....

total useless inarticulate shit.

It's amazing, like a having another guy soundcheck the drums, it just doesn't work.

Tell me about it. What's really frustrating is that the guy I'm working with is fucking unreal on guitar. I've worked with many talented guitar players over the years, and this dude takes the cake. If only he'd practice thru his fucking amp!
I don't know how anyone can constantly practice on electric & never bother plugging the goddamn thing in!

 

[Mutant]

440 hz is a reference to what "A" is tuned to.

Yes i know, but i don't know why (and when) should i use for example 439 and not 440 ?

 

[everybody's x]

Tell me about it. What's really frustrating is that the guy I'm working with is fucking unreal on guitar. I've worked with many talented guitar players over the years, and this dude takes the cake. If only he'd practice thru his fucking amp!
I don't know how anyone can constantly practice on electric & never bother plugging the goddamn thing in!

Yeah that is weird :Smug:

I'm not saying the guy I was tracking couldn't play he's quite good. I just had the amp set up to respond to my technique, I guess

 

[everybody's x]

Yes i know, but i don't know why (and when) should i use for example 439 and not 440 ?

dont get too worked up man, Ive been playing guitar for 22 years and never even once thought about that

 

[JBroll]

The point is that you shouldn't worry about it. Keep using 440. Changing that to something else won't put you in a different tuning, it'll just make you a tiny bit more flat or sharp (hardly even noticeable to the vast majority of people) - 440 is fine for metal, because in metal when we tune down we don't change the A frequency, we just tune to different pitches entirely (like going to C# instead of E) and that's pretty much it. What's probably not good for metal in this case is using E standard (not that Megadeth, Dream Theater, Dimmu, or dozens of other bands have EVER gotten good sounds out of that tuning) and not going at least to Eb, if not lower. This is why I said not to worry about that - it's all but inconsequential and if you want a heavier sound you're going to get it out of stronger pick attack, thicker strings, and tuning to notes lower than E.

Jeff