Recording Punchy Guitars for Death Metal! (done research, need help!)

[spiderfingerz]

Hey guys!

(sorry if this is a bit long, first post! I've also read through the forums and couldn't find any definitive answers so sorry if someone's asked this before!)

So I've been studying audio engineering over the last year or so at uni, and I've gradually been getting better at mixing. The problem I'm having is I can't get that real punchy, in-your-face guitar sound like, for example "Vicious Circles" by Veil of Maya.

At the moment, this is the best I can get with my current gear:

http://soundcloud.com/remnants-of-the-rising/greed-final-mix

I've recorded the guitars using:

-Pro Tools 8LE w/Mbox Mini 3
-Shure SM57
-Peavey 6505 w/4x12 cab

I try and get the best possible sound out of the guitar before it's in the mix, and I positioned my mic 20cm from the cab grill just off the center of the speaker cone.
I also read somewhere that to get that 'big' guitar sound you have to record somewhat loud, and the way to tell this is that your cab will just begin to 'thrum' when it's at this level. Plus the whole deal with the amp needing to be loud for the tubes to open up, blah blah. So I recorded with my Pre gain on 5, and my post gain on 3.

As far as mixing goes, I've re-recorded both guitar parts twice, so that's four guitar parts recorded in total, two panned left, two panned right.
I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to EQing, as I said I try and get my guitar EQ as spot on as I can before I record it (I DO NOT SCOOP MIDS!) and I don't know much about compression, which I've seen a lot of people talking about when they discuss mixing guitars, but no-one ever goes in depth with it.

The drums in the song are atrocious too, they're just MIDI imported from Guitar Pro and I've used Xpand2! to sample them and I went and individually cut and pasted kicks in (I know they're too loud in the mix).
I'm in the process of saving for an Alesis DM10 and ToonTrack EZdrummer to record some decent stuff with my current Alesis Trigger I/O module.


Anyway, I think my problem lies in either, or a combination of:

a) I'm overlooking something simple yet critical.
b) I don't know some sort of genius guitar recording technique.
c) I don't have ridiculously expensive pro gear.
d) I'm a dumbass.

So, sorry for the long post, and sorry again if someone's already answered this question 200+ times. Thanks for hearing me out and hopefully someone can help me!

 

[Ngoc]

I guess the problem lies in the distance of the mic to the grill... seriously, 20(!!!!) cm ?!
This is too far away... just try 3-5cm, this should get you a punchier sound.

 

[vespiz]

The 6505(+) starts to open up around post gain 3, I usually have it somewhere around 3,5 - 4, ie. loud!
I rarely use compression when mixing guitars, sometimes multi-band comp to tame the low-mids, but mostly EQ. Read Ermz's "poking holes in high-gain guitars".

Bass guitar. Good bass sound is essential for a good guitar sound.

 

[ttrentt]

Is it just me or is something odd, phasey, mono about the guitars?

 

[Tommy Evans]

I guess the problem lies in the distance of the mic to the grill... seriously, 20(!!!!) cm ?!
This is too far away... just try 3-5cm, this should get you a punchier sound.

Good god yes 20cm is waaay too far back. I'd start with the 57 right against the grill then slowly move it back until you get the sound you need, i wouldnt go past the the 3cm-5cm mark as mentioned above. And personally I think 5 is too far away to get anything "punchy".

 

[Paulie!]

+1 to all of the above, I'm usually between 1-2 inches from the grill... never needed anything futher..

Note: Unless I was using a second mic for some natual roomyness on a clean tone or something, but I still use a close mic.... and this would really only be once in a while....

 

[ashgallows]

try to capture the tone as close to what you want as possible, if it still lacks low end punch add some in at around 100hz and maybe around 400hz if it sounds too scooped. your guitars sound like they could benefit from a bump down at 100 and a cut somewhere up around 2-4k. compression is usually necessary to even out the punch, not to get it. guitars dont usually handle compression the same way your rythmn instruments would, and shit why would they, solo your guitar buss sometime, it's the most naturally anemic sounding instrument we use. your mix ultimately will dictate how the guitars are going to sound.

I would approach death metal like this:
throw the mix up, and get the guitars eqed close to where you want them.

then solo the bass and guitars up to equal volume and eq the bass to blend in as best it can with the guitars with eq/comp/splitting (there are threads on here for this). esp for death metal you will find yourself cutting a lot of lows in the bass, but enough low mids to fill out the dips you made in the guitar. the goal is to make one solid sound thats going to react properly with the drums.

then add in the kick/snare and make necessary changes to make sure there is nothing clouding them up too bad. and then fill out the rest with your keyboards/oh's/vocals.

 

[spiderfingerz]

I guess the problem lies in the distance of the mic to the grill... seriously, 20(!!!!) cm ?!
This is too far away... just try 3-5cm, this should get you a punchier sound.

Sorry, I meant mm, so roughly 2cm. It is up nice and close!

 

[spiderfingerz]

The 6505(+) starts to open up around post gain 3, I usually have it somewhere around 3,5 - 4, ie. loud!
I rarely use compression when mixing guitars, sometimes multi-band comp to tame the low-mids, but mostly EQ. Read Ermz's "poking holes in high-gain guitars".

Bass guitar. Good bass sound is essential for a good guitar sound.

Awesome, my next recording I'll try and do a little louder. Thanks for the link, I'll give it a good read!
I'm having trouble recording bass, I hate D/I'ing because I suck at EQ'ing dry signals so I just recorded with the XLR out of my bassist's Eden Nemesis. Again, I think it comes down to my lack of knowledge with EQ. Thank you though!

 

[spiderfingerz]

Is it just me or is something odd, phasey, mono about the guitars?

There is some guitar phasing going on there, as I said I recorded the two different guitar parts twice, rather than simply duplicating the tracks. I don't know where I read up about it, but apparently it's a commonly used technique. So Guitar 1 and 1a (the second recording of Guitar 1) are panned left, and G2 and G2a are panned right.

try to capture the tone as close to what you want as possible, if it still lacks low end punch add some in at around 100hz and maybe around 400hz if it sounds too scooped. your guitars sound like they could benefit from a bump down at 100 and a cut somewhere up around 2-4k. compression is usually necessary to even out the punch, not to get it. guitars dont usually handle compression the same way your rythmn instruments would, and shit why would they, solo your guitar buss sometime, it's the most naturally anemic sounding instrument we use. your mix ultimately will dictate how the guitars are going to sound.

I would approach death metal like this:
throw the mix up, and get the guitars eqed close to where you want them.

then solo the bass and guitars up to equal volume and eq the bass to blend in as best it can with the guitars with eq/comp/splitting (there are threads on here for this). esp for death metal you will find yourself cutting a lot of lows in the bass, but enough low mids to fill out the dips you made in the guitar. the goal is to make one solid sound thats going to react properly with the drums.

then add in the kick/snare and make necessary changes to make sure there is nothing clouding them up too bad. and then fill out the rest with your keyboards/oh's/vocals.

Sweet! I'll test this approach out with my next mix. Thank you!