Live guitars are clashing

[Lakeside]

Hey guy's, I'm in a five piece metal band. We have been playing quite a few show's lately. I had gotten a bit of feedback from friends and they have told me that the guitars come across to muddy.

One time we played a gig and the other guitarist couldn't come so I played on my own. Everyone said that was the best we have ever sounded. Would it be an EQ issue or something else?

 

[Fragle]

probably a mix of bad choice of tones and not-so-tight playing.
try to dial in two sounds that compliment each other, but don't sound drastically different. maybe add some mids to the lead guitar, and let the rhythm guitar fill in with the chunk. less gain on the rhythm guitar also helps, so does less gain in general.
but regardless of the sound, the playing has to be as tight as possible or it will never sound really good. been there before...

welcome to the forum btw

 

[sebby123]

kick out the other guitarist? in all reality two blazing guitars live can be messy but just make sure your not stumbling on the bassist freq. tube screamers come a long way as well, i would just sit down and try to eq your tones together instead of trying to tweak them based on what you hear playing by yourself. Also theres alot of variables i think more info would help, is his equipment subpar? is he a subpar player? volume hog? etc.

 

[Lakeside]

The other guitarist is not as clean as me, I don't really think that his playing is bad enough to make a big problem though. I can't hear his amp when we play so I'm not sure about him being a volume hog and when we jam it sounds fine. I have had people who have watched us live watch us jam aswell and they say how much better it sounds.

 

[arv_foh]

most of the time this is a tone issue.. guys that just don't know how to EQ their amps to cut through the mix.

 

[bryan_kilco]

I seem to have this problem with our other guitarist. Seems like he always has a muddy tone for some reason.

 

[Nick M]

might as well toss some blame toward the sound guys

 

[Fama]

I've been wondering if you should intentionally cut bass in your live tone so you have a bit too "thin" tone when you play alone, and a good tone when you play together with everyone else. Or should you just set it so it sounds great?

 

[Firaxis]

I know someone who runs too much gain and bass, it sounds ok until anyone else plays then the tone is completely lost in the mix..

 

[guitarguru777]

For live you should run a tone that is mid heavy and not too much gain. Also be sure to move the mics that are on the amp to the appropriate spots on te speakers. Most sound guy in clubs have no idea how to mic a cab. Get it in the same spot you use for recording. In addition USE your monitors if you have them, keep the stage volume low and get as much guitar in your monitors as you need to be able to hear yourself on stage, this will clean up a lot of the SHIT in your tone.

What kind of amps are you using?

If you are using solid state amps or shit like a Vetta you are pretty much fucked. G0 T00BZ 0R G0 H0M3 !!!

In addition always et up your tones to it sounds best when EVERYONE in the band is playing. Fuck your own tone, its about THE BAND not you.

 

[ttrentt]

Less bass, more mids.

 

[B36arin]

Less gain, more mids... Rectifiers are king

 

[greyskull]

Okay; other than the obvious tone thing....
What you're playing might be a factor in this...

 

[egan.]

Turn down. No one has mentioned this but this is a pervasive issue in small clubs: guitarists roll in with their rigs too loud in a room (or on a PA) that can't support it. So you end up with a with a sound guy with no control over the guitars (eq or level) desperately trying to get everything else nearly as loud w/o hurting the audience.

 

[WarlockStudios]

I too used to have the same problem, mostly with my other guitarists tone as he had a shite solid state vs my beastly XXX, totally agree with:

G0 T00BZ 0R G0 H0M3 !!!

In addition always set up your tones to it sounds best when EVERYONE in the band is playing. Fuck your own tone, its about THE BAND not you.

Although he's now upgraded to a tube amp and it's solved half our problems we were able to make a passable tone with the crap amp.

First ditch a load of bass (but not all) as your bassist will do all of the work for you and boost those motherlovin' mids! as this is what guitars are after all. Definately reduce your gain as cranking the volume will help this out.... and clean = HEAVY!

I try not to max out my trebel so that it's not too thin or scratchy, but the other thing to consider which hasn't been mentioned yet is the room.

You WILL need to re-eq your amp for every venue because obviously the sound will act differently in every room. On a very basic level and as a rule of thumb if you're playing in a massive room stick that bass back up a tiny bit maybe up one or 2 and also check how it sounds off of the stage (if you can - use your singer or something). For smaller rooms your tone can probably be a bit more like when you're jamming but just play around!

When you said it sounds awesome in the rehersal space when jamming and shit live it's probably because practise room is tiny - and usually moderately soundproofed if in a studio. Venues will most definately have fuckloads of nasty reflections bouncing around. So to answer your original question EQ is the issue here.

Out of interest what amps are you running through? Hope this helps you out!

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

What are the amps and, very important and often overlooked, what are his guitar and PICKUPS?

 

[Lakeside]

Thanks for all the response guy's.

My Rig: ESP flying V with Lace drop in gain's in neck and bridge. Straight to my Peavy 6505, not running any pedals at the moment. My tone is set to Bass:4 Mid:6 Treble:9 Resonance:7 Presence:9

Throughout last week we changed my tone to this then made the other guitarists more bassy and less treble but still kept a fair bit of mid range. It seems to be better. He is borrowing my Randall RG75 at the moment.

We are looking into what amp he should get. I have a Randall V2 head that needs to be fixed. Do guys think that them two amps would work well together?

 

[Joel4662]

Not running any pedals at the moment.

t00000b screamer
In all seriousness that little thing adds so much clarity to your tone it's amazing.
And only $100 new

 

[WarlockStudios]

I'd say try getting that V2 fixed and you'll be in business, I don't know how well they will instantly compliment each other as I haven't heard a Randall V2 for years but you will be able to get a decent tone that will be miles better than what you're getting out of the practise amp. I personally use Peavey and my other guitarist now also uses Peavey and they work beautifully together (although they're prettymuch the same amp - XXX + 3120), and although i'm not a Marshall fan we got some nice tones when we rented a bunch of different Marshalls for practise. Maybe someone else can give you more input on what will work well with it, but the 6505 is a widely used and an awesome amp so i'd say you'll do well with most combinations.

In regards to your settings I'd say don't bass up your other guitarists tone too much as you may find he vanishes when your bassist adds to the mix. Our settings(other guitarist and I) are fairly similar to each others, but I have a touch more trebel out of personal preference and maybe 1 or even as little as 1/2 less bass (in terms of 1 - 10 on the dial). As Joel suggested the a TS9/808 is a great addition but I wouldn't say it's vital. If you have the cash go for it, I run a Maxon OD808 infront of the amp with the distortion set to 0 as the output buffer helps to focus those mids. But everything you need to know about that is here.

 

[zirkonflex]

For live you should not go for the "killer stomp guitar sound" but much rather dial in a lot of high mids and put some low ones and some base out.
Its not about volume or power, its just the physical waves you put out there should not clash with the other instruments, overpowering them will result in bad sound for both.
Being audible is far more important, you can try to make it sound awesome afterwards.