Systematic Mixing Series #1: Poking Holes in High-Gain Guitars

I'll agree with that qualification of it, then - keeping things as high quality as possible throughout the entire process is going to ensure the best possible outcome given the set of circumstances you're provided with for a tracking/mixing session.

It's not a dig at your methods, Ermin - you just really apparently don't see the irony of giving tracking advice on guitars when the majority of your projects utilize outsourced reamps. Yes, this is largely a circumstancial thing, but I'm also not going to ask Joey Sturgis on snare mic positioning for similar reasons. The only project you've recently posted where you reamped yourself was, by your own admission, less-than-stellar, and that's when you can hear the guitars at all.

Not only that, but why would a thread dedicated to documenting your methods be the wrong place to critique them? If there's dissent about a method that's posted on a discussion forum, then let the discussion come out. If what you're really looking for is a place to simply document your methods, posting a .pdf document or blog would be more suited to your goal.
 
Ok Ermz so you were actually talking about a 10 m2 room, and not a 10x10 m (which would be 100 m2). This makes more sense.

This tutorial is very nice and you have a great sense of explaining things with cool images (dude that Hummer thing killed me), but what I'm afraid of (for you) is that I believe you are over-intellectualizing everything (doesn't surprise me when you say that you had 80 revisions of your own mixes). You seem to use your brain/logic more than your ears/heart, and I believe this is ears/hearts that got those top guys where they are. Look at Andy, do you really think he's measuring 38% and all that stuff? No, he's just doing what sounds good to him (and Testament "The Gathering" is a tribute to that, given how it was recorded and mixed in less than stellar conditions, yet it's still one of the best sounding album of all times). Look at Colin, does he really care about the "always use subtractive eq"? Fuck that, if it sounds good boosted then it's good. People claiming that they only (and solely) use subtractive eqs are probably lying anyway. Those "rules" have been established by smart people, are maybe great on the paper, but those smart people are not making the best sounding records. To use an image like you, it's like this gym teacher who's fat as hell, can't run, but is explaining to you how you should do it. Rules are made to be broken, this is how new standards are set as you say. Theory is one thing, but practice is more important. So I agree with the statement "don't blame the room" if the sound is bad, there is so much more to blame before that element, and so many things to improve (I'm talking about reamping guitars, not drums or vocals recording where the room is more important). Well actually I believe the right state of mind would be to never blame anything except yourself, but fuck that, we're humans and like to bitch :)
 
(whoop, skipping over brett's post, as this was mostly in response to Jeff)

This is why it's a mixing guide. The tracking section was included out of pure necessity, as we have to detail the starting point in some shape or form.

Regarding critique: because this is intended as a guide, not a debate. We all know that for each person that has one set of working methods, another 20 advocate different ones. It's obvious that this is centered around one individual's approach, and if everyone were to start voicing their dissenting opinions the thread would turn into a mess. I'd rather people just continue asking for clarification on certain concepts, and perhaps suggesting elements I may have overlooked, which I can add in a later amendment. I'm glad Brett pointed out the 10m2 thing, for instance, because looking back, it was quite excessive in my haste to make the point. If there are valid concerns about blatant misinformation to be voiced, sure, but for instance disputing the validity of sufficient space when tracking isn't one of them. I'd like to think that the majority of ideas expressed are somewhat universal, and not in need of debate. Record the best sound, minimize post-processing as much as possible & work to the benefit of the song/mix. The rest are simply guidelines on where to look if problems persist.

The record you mention had a lot of limiting circumstances surrounding it. Given those, the end result is actually stellar (IMO), but I wouldn't expect most to care - especially since the overwhelming feedback received on our part has been regarding how 'large' the record as a whole sounds - guitars included. It's fairly tangential and doesn't relate very well back to this thread, beyond the idea that without using many of the mixing methods listed in this thread, the end result would have been much less desirable.

That's about it anyway. I should get back to finishing the drum tutorial. It's proving to be a lot larger than I imagined and will take significant time!
 
Thank you Ermz, I learned a lot thanks your posts, you'r really great to share all this experience
 
I love this kind of guide-threads, where people actually add their perspective on things even if it means disagreeing with the OP. I'm reminded of the Drums guide Glenn started way back and how J. Murphy provided a completely different view on some of the approaches.

There's definitely food for thought in this thread and although I imagine it's frustrating to write a guide and then have to defend your views over and over again I think it's more helpful than those articles where someone says something and it is to be regarded as an axiom of some sorts.
 
Wow, didn't mean to start a huge debate, I was just posting that so people know that they can still achieve a stellar tone in less-than-optimal conditions ;)

And I agree that practice is so much more important than theory.
Think about it- Is a studio more inclined to hire a person who has a 2-4 year degree in Audio Engineering but has never recorded an actual artist in the real world at all, or a self-taught engineer with no more than a high school education but has proven himself with a couple stellar releases and has been recording since he was an early teenager?
Education/Theory is great, but it has no use unless you know how to actually apply it and get good results from it.
 
Vinny said:
Wow, didn't mean to start a huge debate, I was just posting that so people know that they can still achieve a stellar tone in less-than-optimal conditions ;)

And I agree that practice is so much more important than theory.
Think about it- Is a studio more inclined to hire a person who has a 2-4 year degree in Audio Engineering but has never recorded an actual artist in the real world at all, or a self-taught engineer with no more than a high school education but has proven himself with a couple stellar releases and has been recording since he was an early teenager?
Education/Theory is great, but it has no use unless you know how to actually apply it and get good results from it.
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+1 definatly,

ermz guide is a great look at things i think, and me and alot fo other people seem to have found it helpfull so far, although it is a mixing guide and he did say in the first post that this is all assuming you already have great raw tracks, i think your room size and the method of recording a great tone is for another thread i.e. lolz gregs guitar tracking thread which is sure to be awesome when he continues, i think paired with this thread any small time amatuer guy like myself will get a huge boost of ideas and methods to make guitars stronger in their mix,

thanks for the threads ermz, looking forward to more
 
^ Yeah, that's it. This was in some ways intended as a complementary guide to others. There would be no way for me to cover everything unless I wrote a whole book, and why bother when the bulk of tracking information is already here.

The drum guide is taking longer than I expected. I'm roughly halfway through, and it's quite sizable. May take a few posts to fit it all in. I actually wonder whether I can get it all written tonight before the urge to fuck it off and just play Assassin's Creed instead gets overbearing.
 
Ermz said:
Do you look to the future with the ambition of improving the craft of engineering across the board, by setting new standards, or are you content being an imitation of the guys who are currently at the top?
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I see what you did there. Slick, sly and smooth.

Beef burger for you, son.
 
I think you've just got to do your best with whatever you've got to hand, at any singular point in time, for each project. You'll always find holes that you missed, and you'll always be improving - if you're straight up honest with yourself.

But being individual about this stuff is important I feel. Having conversations, reading guides, and being communal is all really good. But you shouldn't use it as a crutch. Education like what Ermz is helping to provide isn't so you can follow rules and do it the same way each time. It's to help provide the tools for you to know what to do in each situation. That's why you should read as much as possible, and practice as much as possible, and find your own workflow and ideas of what sounds good. Use other people and their ideas as a diving board, not as a pit stop.

Just my 2p.
 
drew_drummer said:
I think you've just got to do your best with whatever you've got to hand, at any singular point in time, for each project. You'll always find holes that you missed, and you'll always be improving - if you're straight up honest with yourself.

But being individual about this stuff is important I feel. Having conversations, reading guides, and being communal is all really good. But you shouldn't use it as a crutch. Education like what Ermz is helping to provide isn't so you can follow rules and do it the same way each time. It's to help provide the tools for you to know what to do in each situation. That's why you should read as much as possible, and practice as much as possible, and find your own workflow and ideas of what sounds good. Use other people and their ideas as a diving board, not as a pit stop.

Just my 2p.
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Totally agree with you!

I'm always lurking all these forums and try to read as much as possible. 9 out of 10 times I read stuff where I think: Why would I want to know this?. Then one month later during a project I remember something I read and use it. Useless information and first sight might became very useful later. Another reason to use the search function instead of making a new topic: you'll see lots of interesting existing threads with lots of information which you might use later.

And Ermz, I really appreciate how you give an insight to your own work. Your willingness to share this stuff is really social. :worship:
 
Ermz said:
Ermz, this is a great read, no doubt about it. I agree wholeheartedly with most of what you said and it's definitely a good move to turn this forum back into a more knowledgeable place.

But in regards to what you just said, I agree with you, but I remember you were always trying to achieve something related to what someone at the top was doing (andy wallace, etc). So your possibe rhetorical question may not apply to the preacher as in this case, unless you've changed your mind or ways.

I'm not hating, just pointing out!
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Thanks a lot Ermin.

I was just wondering if it would be a good thing to extract all of your articles and pin them in a single thread in the production tips sub. (Without all other posts).
You know, for a better overview / to make them more findable. I agree the contribution of other members is also very interesting - guess that's why you made individual threads for the single parts of our tutorial. Linking them in the complete "Systematic Mixing Series" Thread is probably a good way to read about other guy's opinions and your own replies on your threads.
 
Awesome stuff dude.
I suppose not everyone has been around that long, but for those who've been around a bit longer and really pay proper attention to your posts, I suppose that basically sums up a lot of what you've said in the past. Which is not a bad thing by any means at all of course.
I remember some thread from ages ago, where you said something like you were working on a particular project and took out 12db from 7KHz onward to try to approximate the Killswitch Engage "End of Heartache" tone and how it didn't sound smooth enough. You also mentioned it sounded as if the EoH tone sounded like it was basically just low passed at 7KHz, so I was kinda just thinking "Well, could just low pass it to see if it would have gotten a bit closer lol".
At the time, I didn't understand much about guitar tones at all, but I took what I read in, but actually decided to just go straight to low passing at 7.5-8.5KHz and found that it worked wonders for removing a lot of high end crap if I didn't need/want it there.
I was basically just using amp sims, and I found that by doing that to the guitar tracks it made it sound a bit less digital and more pleasing.

All over the forum, I had seen "low pass at 10-11-12KHz" and never brought up the topic of low passing at a lower frequency point, because I figured no one would take me seriously.
I made that thread about low passing lower, as expected I got kinda bashed for it.
And then you made that thread about dark guitars and the wonders of the 7Khz low pass and then quite a few people were suddenly trying it out haha.

Regarding the whole extreme upper air thing, it seems like it definitely works better for certain kinds of music.
For example, the track by the Deftones "Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away" has this fizzyness to the tone, in the upper frequencies, almost like just a whole layer of it.
It's not textbook 'perfect' guitar tone at all if one is to aim for the most balanced mix ever, but somehow it really adds to the atmospheric nature of the song, as the fizz that has this droning effect that somehow emphasizes the minimalistic nature of the song.
The band Isis uses this too, very noticeable on the track "Altered Course" when the heavy guitar kicks in. This layer of fizz, like they let through enough of the frequencies above 7 to about 11-12KHz or so to give it this atmospheric feel, but not so much that it pierces your ears like Pantera's Cowboys From Hell album.

Whereas I suppose, if you're working with a band like Gojira, where that control and tightness is so heavily emphasized, you'd be definitely looking at a much more tightly controlled guitar tone in the top end.
 
JeffTD said:
Julien, I really love apQualizer for this type of notching. It's super cheap and you can create any amount of whatever kind of eq band you want. It's CPU friendly, and I find the built-in spectrum analyzer to be extremely helpful in locating problem areas, as well as quickly locating things like fundamental frequencies in drums.
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Thanks for the kind words, Shadow_Walker :D

Very well written Ermz. I think this is a fantastic tutorial. I'm just a little amazed at how much processing you really do. I remember reading in the Orpheus thread that 14 plugins were used on the guitar bus. I don't even own 14 plugins :lol:

I thank you, Jeff, for turning me on to that plugin; it has been monumentally helpful. I see myself doing a HP/LP, making a few minor, surgical cuts in the high end, and OCCASIONALLY scooping out around 500hz, and calling it a day.

Also everyone, don't for even a second think that all EQs sound the same. Experiment with different ones to see what you like.
 
When you say you use a wide scoop for low-mid range guitars how many decibels are we talking about? Like are you most often cutting as much as 12-24dB for general purpose surgical EQ and 2-6dB for wider scoops? I'm just trying to get a sense of how many decibels you typically take away, because I often get confused about how much is too much or too little.
 
Shadow_Walker said:
I love this kind of guide-threads, where people actually add their perspective on things even if it means disagreeing with the OP. I'm reminded of the Drums guide Glenn started way back and how J. Murphy provided a completely different view on some of the approaches.

There's definitely food for thought in this thread and although I imagine it's frustrating to write a guide and then have to defend your views over and over again I think it's more helpful than those articles where someone says something and it is to be regarded as an axiom of some sorts.
Click to expand...

Well-put, and completely agreed - I think the discussion and debate in threads like this is crucial, as it allows the OP (in this case Ermz) to respond to points that are brought up and defend his reasoning, which in turn makes it easier for people to decide whether or not they find the advice useful and helpful (and I think through your excellent defense, Ermz, your credibility is further strengthened - not like you probably care, but hey, if you took the time to write and share all these guides, you must at least somewhat hope that people will take the suggestions in them to heart, and after the way you responded to critiques, I imagine they will :))
 
I appreciate the vote of confidence, Marcus, and respect that a fair few of you believe discussion and debate is vital here.... the only issue is that writing these things in itself is a consuming endeavor (as I just painfully discovered), and I honestly don't want to be tied up defending every point I make when I could instead be amending the OPs with stuff I missed (or fapping).

If you guys feel it necessary to poke holes in it (ugh, terrible) then please, but I can't promise I'll have the fortitude to sit and defend each point. It's a bit much to ask of a single person, with limited time, over the span of what's soon to be 4 or 5 quite comprehensive threads.

@right to rage: If we're talking an ideal raw sound, then no more than 2dB, if that's even needed. It's so dependent on the source tone, it's almost not worth answering, to be honest. The best way is to put up what you have to work with in your own personal thread, and get some advice from people who are willing to help. Only way we know where to take it, is to learn where you're starting from.
 
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