needs life. Advice please

[tomrip]

http://soundcloud.com/tomrip/needs-life

Ok all. I will start off that i have played around with amp sims, but would be ok beign called a complete noob. here is what i have. the above track is quad tracked with guitars, and a bass track done with my guitar and octave sim. for my guitar i have a les paul, and emg 81 85 pickups. this plugs directly into my presonus firepod. For signal chain i have a tse 808 with drive on 0, volume at 10 and tone in the 1 o'clock position. the next thing in line is the tse xgo b3. here is the settings i have for that.
power tubes 6l6
red channel mod checked
bias -51
input 5
output 9
pre gain 5
low 6
mid 4
high 6
post gain 4
low end 5
presence 4

impulses
sneap -1 1 inch ala sneap pic.wav

the tracks ar l and r at 80% pan
and l and right at 100% PAN

the drums are xln
For me i think this sound has a good tone to it. i write in the style of breaking Benjamin and three days grace. I am looking for a similar sound, but i don't want to just copy their sounds. I am wondering what effects i should add to guitar tracks and main to bring this to life. is eq and compressign ion every track or just the main, do i need a reverb for this style of music. Do i master in reaper, or use another program. does reaper have every thing i need built in to master a track, or do i need another program. I hear your guys recordings, and it blows me away. i want to learn to do the same for myself. I appreciate any advice you give me.
This is off topic , but i use line 6 for effects only, are there free vst that can sound lie line 6 effects, im looking for good delay as well a sweeping phaser, chorus and all that good stuff. thanks again guys. tom

 

[ZanetheVocalist]

Welcome to the forums man. First of all dont quadtrack the guitars... sure it'll sound fat by itself but it takes up so much space in the mix and you'll have to tweak it forever to get it sounding right. Double tracked guitars are plenty enough.
Also are you using the same impulse for each take? If you are its gonna sound too much alike even tho its different takes. Use a different impulse for each track and blend to taste.

 

[wetpenny]

welcome...

http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/vst-effects/ <<all awesome plug ins but check out the nasty dla :chorus/echo/delay thang

http://www.simulanalog.org/guitarsuite.htm <<some cool fx in with this bundle :univibe and phaser

enjoy

 

[John_C]

Welcome to the forums man. First of all dont quadtrack the guitars... sure it'll sound fat by itself but it takes up so much space in the mix and you'll have to tweak it forever to get it sounding right. Double tracked guitars are plenty enough.
Also are you using the same impulse for each take? If you are its gonna sound too much alike even tho its different takes. Use a different impulse for each track and blend to taste.

A little bit opinionated to be general advice...... quad tracking has worked out amazingly on many records, often with a very similar setup for all 4 tracks. Not to say that 2 tracks can't sound great and that using different impulses doesn't sound good sometimes, it's just more of an artistic choice than a goto solution in order to get good tone.

 

[tomrip]

Thanks guys for your replies. i am so impressed with all of your stuff. www.myspace.com/page13 here is the last recording s we did. i was impressed with those till i found out about impluses, then x50 and many other ampsims. We used pod xt, it did ok, but i want better and i feel liek i am in the right place to learn. What do you guys use for signal chain. im as much concerned is to what settigns you use, but liek what vsts. i like to turn knobs. right now i have tse 808- tse x50- lecab2- rea eq. is that good, or do i need more to get it a more professional sound? i was using toontrack ezmix, and at first i thought i really brought the mix alive, but then i thought if it did good just imagine what i can do with tools inside of reaper.

 

[grywolf627]

Welcome to the forums man. First of all dont quadtrack the guitars... sure it'll sound fat by itself but it takes up so much space in the mix and you'll have to tweak it forever to get it sounding right. Double tracked guitars are plenty enough.
Also are you using the same impulse for each take? If you are its gonna sound too much alike even tho its different takes. Use a different impulse for each track and blend to taste.

Such an authoritative post from someone so new here himself...and yet, so full of b.s. Something I'm really getting tired of seeing around here, the blind leading the blind. No...post count has nothing to do with your actual knowledge. But very low post count means your credibility is (and should be) yet to be proven. And by your advice...you proved my point. Before posting "advice"...learn some things yourself and keep quiet instead of doling out misleading and inaccurate information.

A little bit opinionated to be general advice...... quad tracking has worked out amazingly on many records, often with a very similar setup for all 4 tracks. Not to say that 2 tracks can't sound great and that using different impulses doesn't sound good sometimes, it's just more of an artistic choice than a goto solution in order to get good tone.

This!

 

[ZanetheVocalist]

A little bit opinionated to be general advice...... quad tracking has worked out amazingly on many records, often with a very similar setup for all 4 tracks. Not to say that 2 tracks can't sound great and that using different impulses doesn't sound good sometimes, it's just more of an artistic choice than a goto solution in order to get good tone.

Yeah John, you're right. I know it sounds awesome when done right but time after time I've recorded bands that were lucky to get one take right. Much less 4... Its just alot of extra work that I'm not getting paid for so I don't bother. Not to say I wouldn't if a group came in that had their shit together. And as far as impulses go I prefer to blend impulses instead of using a heavy amount of parametric eq to get the tone right. Just my method but not the only one of course.

Such an authoritative post from someone so new here himself...and yet, so full of b.s. Something I'm really getting tired of seeing around here, the blind leading the blind. No...post count has nothing to do with your actual knowledge. But very low post count means your credibility is (and should be) yet to be proven. And by your advice...you proved my point. Before posting "advice"...learn some things yourself and keep quiet instead of doling out misleading and inaccurate information.

Being a member for 5 years doesn't give you the right to bully people around. I stuck my neck out to try to genuinly help the new guy. If flaming is what I get in return then maybe I should keep my methods to myself. These are my ways of doing things, I never said they were the best or only way.

 

[ZanetheVocalist]

Alright Tom, to pick up where I left off:
The first thing is there are no set rules in mixing, only guidelines. Do whatever it takes to get the sound you want.
With that being said, regarding compression: High gain guitars are already heavily compressed to begin with so you have to be very careful not to squeeze the life out of it...slow attacks (30-40ms) generally work, release to taste. I only compress clean guitars but like I said, do whatever sounds good to you.
Reverb: Most metal is inyourfacediediediemofucka kind of vibe, so if you want the guitars less upfront you can add a little reverb or eq out some 3K... I will assume you want the "in your face sound" so if you want to use reverb do it sparingly. mono spring reverbs sound good on guitar, or atleast its what we've come to expect because thats the reverb type built-in to amps.
Mastering: You can do pretty much anything in Reaper and buying another program isn't necessary. However, I use Izotope Ozone 4 to master (its a vst plugin) and it has everything I'd ever need for mastering. But mastering is more about ears than anything else (and GOOD monitoring) and honestly its better to get someone else to do it for you because they will have fresh ears and an non biased outlook on the music. I always tend to spend way too much time mastering my own shit because I'm a perfectionist.

If there is anything else you want to know feel free to ask. I've been recording metal for years and although I'm no Andy or Joey I do know a few tricks.

 

[grywolf627]

Being a member for 5 years doesn't give you the right to bully people around. I stuck my neck out to try to genuinly help the new guy. If flaming is what I get in return then maybe I should keep my methods to myself. These are my ways of doing things, I never said they were the best or only way.

Edit: On second thought...never mind. I don't care anymore. Continue spreading your "knowledge".