Tracking guitars with MEAT

[Ermz]

So I've noticed as of late that with almost every 'check out my tone' clip I've heard around this place, the tones are pretty heavy on the fizz. That's cool, if it floats your boat, but seriously, are there any people left around that still like Clayman? Are there some of us that like some meat and balls in our guitars? I get that the fizz thing is a new trend, but have any of you stopped to think whether those absurd amounts of higher frequency spikes actually sound beneficial to a mix?

I was browsing through some of my ancient recordings and I found a clip of one of the first times I mic'ed an amp. Would've been maybe the 3rd or 4th recording I did. I booted it up and was amazed to hear that the tone blew away everything I've come to expect in reamps these days and it suddenly shed a light on me. It's not that I've become obsessed with over-processing in a mix, but rather the tones are so far off the mark that I'm forced to. Listening to this clip made me remember instantly what the amp sounded like in the room, and IMO how a tone needs to sound.

Granted this was captured when I was still rather noobie, with a single SM57, but even listening now I'm a little impressed, because I certainly haven't had tones of this caliber to work with since.

Amp was a Bogner Ecstasy into a Bogner 2x12 cab with V30s. Single SM57, probably close to Andy position, running into a Control 24 preamp, going into a 96 i/o. Totally raw.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/285689/Forum/Rhythm.L 2_04.mp3

It's the whole track, so give it a few seconds to fire up and actually start playing.

PS. I wasn't the one playing. I'm nowhere near that loose, even when I try to be.

 

[LosingReality]

Im trying to do this right now....i cant seem to get anything other then a thin guitar tone. Am gonna be working on placement today with a modded SM57 (no transformer.)

Sounds really good!

 

[nwright]

While I can agree with the idea of tracking guitars with meat, I still hesitate to herald Clayman as "good" guitar tone, personally. I think it's too scooped personally. Also, maybe it's the remastered (or remixed, I'm not sure) version I own, but I find it hard to even make out the tone at points.

 

[Dylan S]

I wish one of the first times I ever tried to mic an amp sounded this good! Nice tone man.

To be honest I'm a huge fan of meat - be it a steak on the grill, or a nice thick chunky guitar tone. To be honest, I think I am more of a fan of meaty tones than fizzy ones. I have always had an issue with having under-gained tones because I've always tried to have a nice thick sound, and as little high-end fizz as I can. I have since come to realise (by listening to a lot of tones here) that some of that fizz can be really good for certain things, and sit nicely in a mix, but it is something I have never really explored fully.

 

[Full_Tilt]

I'm hearing you about this processed slightly fizzy trend that's taken hold of so much music of late . I dont mind it ....I think its probably a sign of the times tonnes of music benefits from that production style but I cant seem to find a suitable bench mark for my own guitar sound . i dont want to learn how to make that scooped "perfect mix" guitar tone ,Ive already tried it ....its too smooth ,I could really do with some guidance on avoiding problem freq's and how to create a dirty bolder crunching onslaught with out it sounding out of place with the rest of the mix how to balance that with a suitable bass guitar tone and so on.
I'll have to post up something once Ive gotten a bit better at drum composition to see if you guys can see where im trying to go with this.

 

[Nebulous]

Man that clip brings back some memories.

I have to admit, that live room was still pretty decent for recording loud amps. Sure it had it's faults, but especially with Daryl there were some nice recordings done there.

Also, I'm sure you know that I'm still a sucker for those fat tones.

 

[Dexter_prog]

I don't like this tone at all. In fact, if I find anything in this tone is fizzyness, so I don't really get your point

 

[lolzgreg]

It's okay, Ermz, but nothing earth shattering.

 

[Ermz]

Haha! I'm gonna have to remix this track, aren't I.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

I get your point, I really don't like hearing fizz as well even though it seems to be the trend. When I post clips I am always getting, the "the low pass is too strong, I can't hear any highs" when in the mix you can't hear a difference when the pass is on or off. Anyway, I like high passing, pretty steep and bumping up the mids, I like to hear balls not fizz, I love to hear the fundamental note and lower harmonic clarity. I found out that type of no fizz tone helps the clarity and intelligibility of the entire mix since you are not clouding up the mix with fizz and noise.

Probably a reason why your track doesn't have fizz....its a raw bogner stack

 

[GarethSE]

Sounds like a perfectly mix ready tone to me.

 

[ahjteam]

Are there some of us that like some meat and balls in our guitars?

I actually did this for the song "accell", I used the Boss ODB-3 bass distortion as the frontbooster instead of the regular tubescreamer, split the DI-tracks into two and used different tones on them, combined them and I think it sounded pretty fucking huge in the end, but I like more bass than fizz in my tone in general, and the bass guitar fucking loud too:

http://www.ahjteam.com/upload/ahjteam_accell_rightgtr.mp3 (just the right guitar)
http://www.ahjteam.com/upload/ahjteam_accell_bass.mp3 (bass)
http://www.ahjteam.com/upload/ahjteam_accell-02.mp3 (in context)

 

[GuitarHack]

Capturing a fizzy tone is not a trend. Who the hell would deliberately try and capture a fizzy tone? HIGH GAIN AMPS ARE FIZZY! Some guitar signals/DI's are fizzy. Anybody can capture a non-fizzy tone by mic'ing the Cone but then the Mids will be cloudy and the overall tone is flat and muddy. A clear/defined tone is what most aim for, the fizz just comes along for the ride. It's a compromise between Fizz and Mud most of the time.

Granted this was captured when I was still rather noobie, with a single SM57, but even listening now I'm a little impressed, because I certainly haven't had tones of this caliber to work with since.

Ermz, maybe you should re-acquaint yourself with a 5150, Cab and a Mic and try out some of your own DI's.

 

[Ermz]

GH, I would love to do that, but I don't have the opportunity to do it anywhere. Certainly don't have a mid-size, fully treated live space in my house unfortunately.

TheWinterSnow: You are absolutely correct in that observation regarding fizz and mix clarity. It doesn't help whatsoever with the intelligibility of cymbals, the air of the vox etc. If you listen to top-tier stuff like Nickelback, Breaking Benjamin, Disturbed etc. there is no fizz.. it's all meat, and those hard-core mofos at the top use dual-mic'ing to kill all that stuff at the source, then they give it to CLA, Randy or Ben Grosse and they outboard the turd out of it and sculpt it to perfection.

 

[GuitarHack]

Yeah, I understand that. As I have said before, I truly think the only way you will be satisfied with a guitar tone is if you actually do it yourself. Only you know what tone you are after. That is definitely a hard thing to describe to anyone else. When quoting your jobs maybe add on another day or two studiotime where you can do some reamping. Or, maybe, one day spent getting a tone right with you reamping may save you one day mixing time. It may not have to be an extra expense for the band and could make your life easier.

 

[Ermz]

I completely agree, that's an entirely reasonable approach to future projects, and a great way to ensure a less stressful mix process. That's most likely why I won't do it for some reason or another

 

[GuitarHack]

You have issues dude. I think you like the self-torment.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

You are absolutely correct in that observation regarding fizz and mix clarity. It doesn't help whatsoever with the intelligibility of cymbals, the air of the vox etc. If you listen to top-tier stuff like Nickelback, Breaking Benjamin, Disturbed etc. there is no fizz.. it's all meat, and those hard-core mofos at the top use dual-mic'ing to kill all that stuff at the source, then they give it to CLA, Randy or Ben Grosse and they outboard the turd out of it and sculpt it to perfection.

good examples, I could add Linkin Park, Opeth, Devin Townsend (while has the fizz, its diffferent), Staind, Behemoth (Evangelion), Evergrey (Torn) just to name a few off the top of my head. I always keep coming back to it although everyone seems to bitch, but the tone on the new behemoth is crazy, the actual tone itself is nothing special but they have no fizz have absolute clarity and intelligibility and have tons of low mids just enough to have a warm sound. Now while some are saying its bad tone because it sounds nasally, it really doesn't, it does at moments, but those moments are too few, and I really think those moments of wooly nasal sound are totally worth the clarity.

On the other extreme you have bands like Dimmu Borgir and In Flames wherer the guitar make some much noise there becomes a point where you can not longer hear the guitars but it just becomes noise, yea it may sound extremely heavy, but its not very clear, you can't hear the notes and subtle articulations that show the skill of the play, and even so it ruins the articulation of the other members, especially the drummer, because for some reason, everyone likes to keep the drums quieter than the guitars and with the noisy guitars, the articulation is gone. I get bitched at if my snare is the same volume as the guitars or my drums cut through decently I simply get, oh the drums are too loud or the synths are too loud, you know to get them cut and be heard. When your guitars are noise makers, you have to bring up the other instruments more to get the same amount of punch and still the clarity suffers.

 

[nwright]

I think it's a little too easy to point to tones from Nickelback, Staind, Breaking Benjamin, etc. as examples of meaty tone on a forum like this, as the music can sometimes dictate what you can get away with. All the bands I listed above do NOT play that fast with a lot of staccato picked, palm muted runs or death metal alternate picking, etc. I think if you took the tones from these bands and applied it to a lot of the more extreme modern metal, it would be waaay too much to try to tame for the sake of clarity. Also, maybe I have a narrow scope of "good tone", but a lot of Nickelback I've heard doesn't impress me...Granted I don't listen to Nickelback at ALL, and the last stuff I've heard from them is a few years old...But that one song about beating up women or whatever, IMO, has complete shit tone. The rest have that "90's Recto" wall of meat sound to it which is cool and all, but IMO would not necessarily fit as it in a lot of the more extreme stuff.

I think getting a tone without fizz - if that all you are looking to do - isn't near as hard as getting the "right" tone for the music. In a lot of cases for metal, I think, as others have said, the fizz is part of the game, and is almost necessary.

I wouldn't consider any of Andy's mixes to be too fizzy, it's actually one of the things I like about his mixes. The tone is definitely saturated, but it's smooth and aggressive.

 

[Metaltastic]

Capturing a fizzy tone is not a trend. Who the hell would deliberately try and capture a fizzy tone? HIGH GAIN AMPS ARE FIZZY! Some guitar signals/DI's are fizzy. Anybody can capture a non-fizzy tone by mic'ing the Cone but then the Mids will be cloudy and the overall tone is flat and muddy. A clear/defined tone is what most aim for, the fizz just comes along for the ride.

Agreed - this tone sounds more rock oriented to me, and the lack of fizz comes because of lack of saturation IMO; what palm mutes there are sound a bit weak, and if it were more chug intensive music that effect would be amplified IMO. The same goes with the Nickelback/Disturbed/Breaking Benjamin/etc., it's just lower gain, but I wouldn't want to hear it on a metal album (the palm mutes in the bridge of Breaking Benjamin's "Blow me Away", for example, are horridly weak IMO). So far, in this thread I feel Clayman is the only fizzless tone that's been mentioned that actually has sufficient gain for metal, and I guess that was the dual-mic trick that did it (and whatever other magic Freddy has/had up his sleeve).

I've actually been listening to Disturbed's newest album a lot recently, and the tone is full, but still undergained IMO (and even has some fizz all the same).