Poking Holes in High-Gain Guitars - Case-in-Point Tutorial

[Pedro Teixeira]

I don't get why people are so shocked. I do feel guitars need that kind of treatment as well, and what was shown in this thread is half or less than half of what I usually do. Sometimes it's not about the amount of dB your pulling, but the amount of notches etc.

Good thread Ermz, I definitely thought I was kind of alone on this

 

[TheDude]

I don't get why people are so shocked. I do feel guitars need that kind of treatment as well, and what was shown in this thread is half or less than half of what I usually do. Sometimes it's not about the amount of dB your pulling, but the amount of notches etc.

Good thread Ermz, I definitely thought I was kind of alone on this

So basically people record with an SM57 and you process the guitar tracks into a LDC combined with a ribbon?

Sorry, carry on.

 

[Ermz]

I'll quote something from the original guide, which will hopefully put some of this discussion to rest.

Ultimately all you can do in mixing with guitars is to reveal that inherent character in its pristine form. You do this by subtracting the junk. If the raw sound is bad, then your final sound will also be bad. Guitars are notoriously poor at taking processing. Second perhaps only to vocals in this area, they absolutely need to have a good character when raw, otherwise this entire exercise is pointless.

Always remember, guitars take processing very poorly. So get to where you need to go in as few moves as humanly possible. Always have that in the back of your mind, reigning you in. Do more with less.

 

[dcb]

just to add this (a little off topic) :

if you try to make your own vocals , recorded with an sm 57 sound like, a million equalizers wont give you the sound of an u87 through a fairchild (and also people will still hear you, not whitney houston (rip).
like ermz said, its all about " revealing that inherent character in its pristine form"
in my humble opinion, a guitarsound has to be set WHILE producing a song, not in the mix.
i wasted years, trying to get my sounds to where i wanted them with eq and never got satisfied, until i found out id love my tones more if i WROTE the song with them.

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

So basically people record with an SM57 and you process the guitar tracks into a LDC combined with a ribbon?

Sorry, carry on.

Like I wrote on my post, I'm talking about getting rid of junk etc.. Fundamentals that cloud and/or clash against other elements and I'm not talking about notching 10dB and stuff like that.
I actually never did that, rather more precise cuts, but sometimes quite a few of them.

So no, your reply actually made no sense.

 

[jangoux]

Exactly. I usually do a couple of 5-6db notching to get rid of resonant areas and then a few 1-2db cuts to help it fit better on the mix.

Btw, Ermz, I am not amazed by the number of cuts you did, but how wide they were. I remember you saying on a thread a while ago you usually did a bunch of narrow cuts , but by these pics show they're a lot wider than I thought.

 

[Nuno Filipe]

I used 5/6 bands in last mix and I thought that was too much and were just a few cuts here and there!lol Very useful info, but I am using impulses so not that much for me. Btw the song even without vocals is awesome.

 

[rcg]

nice EQ

 

[Charles J]

nothing is ever too much if it sounds good in the end..... case in point, right here.

Ermz' chain looks similar to a lot of my mixes.... lot's of processing on lot's of things *where needed*.

it's all about going as far as you need to go to get it *THERE*. no worries about TOO MUCH.

it's art!

Imagine someone telling Dali that one of his works was 'too much'. hahaha, fuck that.

 

[deffpony]

I made a thread about this but no one understand what im asking.

How do you find the right freqs to cut boost Ermz. Your tutorial is awesome, but what if my ears arent as trained as yours and I cant just know exactly what freqs needs taming. And once you find it how do you determine what Q and how much reduction to apply. Thanks in advance.

 

[mva801]

I made a thread about this but no one understand what im asking.

How do you find the right freqs to cut boost Ermz. Your tutorial is awesome, but what if my ears arent as trained as yours and I cant just know exactly what freqs needs taming. And once you find it how do you determine what Q and how much reduction to apply. Thanks in advance.

Great questions. The answers are PRACTICE and LISTENING. That's the only way to learn how to mix in context. You need practice to train your ear. A whole lot of knob twisting and listening will start to uncover the secrets of which frequencies do what to your sounds. There's no shortcut really. It's something most of us are still getting, even those who have been working professionally for some time....

 

[deffpony]

Ok practice seems to be the consensus.

Do you guys ever imply the sweep technique to find troublesome frequencies??

 

[mva801]

^^ Pretty sure every one of us does this every day. You can't know exactly which frequency you want to manipulate every time you hear something. I'm sure if you watched Ermz eq, you'd see him sweep around a specific area with a little boost, then cut it, then try again, then solo it, then try again, then play with how much the cut is, then listen in the mix, then bypass, etc...... Every engineer I've ever seen work will try a few different things. It's not like we hear a guitar tone and go: "yeah that totally needs a 3.4 dB cut at 5.4 kHz with a Q of 3.6." You just have to fiddle with shit and judge it against the other instruments. As you get better you'll recognize what it needs easier and make better decisions.

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

^^ Pretty sure every one of us does this every day. You can't know exactly which frequency you want to manipulate every time you hear something. I'm sure if you watched Ermz eq, you'd see him sweep around a specific area with a little boost, then cut it, then try again, then solo it, then try again, then play with how much the cut is, then listen in the mix, then bypass, etc...... Every engineer I've ever seen work will try a few different things. It's not like we hear a guitar tone and go: "yeah that totally needs a 3.4 dB cut at 5.4 kHz with a Q of 3.6." You just have to fiddle with shit and judge it against the other instruments. As you get better you'll recognize what it needs easier and make better decisions.

Well put! And I'll just emphasize that I've always found sweeping while boosting to be the most useful in discovering what I want to cut, cuz it'll let me hear an exaggerated version of what too much of a certain frequency sounds like, so I'll have an easier time identifying the particular offensive ones

 

[Uros]

Both cutting and boosting while sweeping are totally legitimate techniques, and I find myself juggle between them a lot.
For ex. as said, sweeping with big tight +18dB boost is useful for finding troublesome freqs in distorted guits, while sweeping with shallow 2-3dB cut is really useful when vocals and guits/etc. are clashing, and lots of times a single shallow 2-3dB cut will do the trick.
There is no the be all end all method, you just try a lot different things. There are many ways to skin a cat, like with composing music for ex.

 

[Headof75]

One thing I forgot to mention.

Taking this approach on impulse-based guitar sounds will NOT WORK. I repeat, using convolution-based cabinets and taking this approach to processing WILL NOT SOUND GOOD. This is where current technology falls flat on its face - only properly mic'ed real cabs, driven by actual amps will be able to tolerate this degree of tinkering.

Would you include the Kemper and Skaldir's Nebula Cab in this?
Using the latter I find it takes EQ much better than regular IRs, but then it sounds much better than regular IRs to begin with...

 

[Morgan C]

Missed this the first time round. Interesting to see you cut tight holes in the highs for the fizz.. I've always found this, and doing similar things to eliminate ring in snare drums, always compromise the tone too much. I might try it again based on this.

That said, I think you've scooped the guitars a little too much here. I don't know what the finished mix sounds like, so it's really hard to say, but the original guitars had a little more girth to them, they were a little more upfront - that got lost in the processed guitars. I'd be interested to hear the final mix (if it's done already?) to see how they fit, maybe its just what such a complex mix needs. But even so I'd maybe consider automating some more mids in when the orchestra goes away.

edit: not that this is a 'rate my mix' thread, just thought I'd throw my 2 cents in regarding processing guitars.

 

[HostileEx]

I will definitely be referring to this when process my next guitar track. Excellent information here!! A+ work.