Trying to poke holes in hi gain guitars :)

[Terminus]

Thanks for the tip. These are what I was using

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EENMDE/ref=wms_ohs_product

DR Strings Tite Fit Electric Round Core 12-52

What size should I use for Drop C do you think?

That set isn't bad but I'd go with a heavier low C, like a .56 or slightly bigger. You're basically in standard D except for that low C string so the rest are probably fine in regards to size. Usually these sets are named "skinny top heavy bottom" and are geared toward drop tunings and such. So you're fine on the unwounds starting at .12 but yeah a bit bigger on the wound ones would probably help.

I hate when I type your in place of you're

 

[infectdsniper]

daddario makes a drop c pack that is .012-.060 and i find that quite fitting

 

[CharlesMonroe1989]

daddario makes a drop c pack that is .012-.060 and i find that quite fitting

yepp. also ok for standard C

 

[infectdsniper]

wait my bad they make it for c standard. but will still work great for drop c i normally go for around 20 lbs or tension and daddario has alot of tesion info on their site to help you pick something that will work.

 

[JayB]

That set isn't bad but I'd go with a heavier low C, like a .56 or slightly bigger. You're basically in standard D except for that low C string so the rest are probably fine in regards to size. Usually these sets are named "skinny top heavy bottom" and are geared toward drop tunings and such. So you're fine on the unwounds starting at .12 but yeah a bit bigger on the wound ones would probably help.

I hate when I type your in place of you're

Awesome, didn't know they made specific packs for this! I found this on amazon, the one that said Extra Heavy pack has a sticker that says for Drop C tuning on it. The Light Top Heavy Bottom aren't big enough for drop c I guess

these are 12-60

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/DAddario-EXL110-3D-Electric-Strings-Regular/dp/B000EEJ91I/ref=sr_1_1?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1341085408&sr=1-1&keywords=guitar+strings+drop+c+pack[/ame]

 

[JayB]

Just bought those, hopefully they're good. Is D Addario considered a good brand? For some reason I always usually went with DR

I also always see those Ernie Ball Extra Slinkys, does anyone actually ever buy those? I'm assuming they're not for metal...

 

[Terminus]

Yeap D'Addario is my longtime string whore booty call. I've experimented with Dunlops and EBS but always come back to D'Addario.

Also you may need to touch up the intonation after switching to a bigger gauge.

 

[JayB]

Yeap D'Addario is my longtime string whore booty call. I've experimented with Dunlops and EBS but always come back to D'Addario.

Also you may need to touch up the intonation after switching to a bigger gauge.

Is intonation relatively easy to DIY? I've seen some YouTube vids but I've never really tried it yet

 

[RichS]

Is intonation relatively easy to DIY? I've seen some YouTube vids but I've never really tried it yet

I take all my guitars to a luthier. I never mess with intonation / neck adjusting, etc. at all, I leave it to the pro's.

 

[XxSicRokerxX]

12-60 for drop C ? Thats too thick IMO. I have 12-56 i bought on ebay on my jackson. Drop C. I have my action pretty low and I love the way it feels. Ive tried 12-56 in standard C, but it was too loose. Really depends on what type of music you're playing and how hard you pick.

 

[JayB]

I take all my guitars to a luthier. I never mess with intonation / neck adjusting, etc. at all, I leave it to the pro's.

This seems pretty straightforward, haven't tried it yet though

 

[JayB]

12-60 for drop C ? Thats too thick IMO. I have 12-56 i bought on ebay on my jackson. Drop C. I have my action pretty low and I love the way it feels. Ive tried 12-56 in standard C, but it was too loose. Really depends on what type of music you're playing and how hard you pick.

I pick pretty hard and use big stubby picks, 2.0 or 3.0 . I ordered the 12-60 so I'll see how it works

 

[JayB]

Just bounced this zip for Ermz because he said he'd be willing to give the guitar EQ a shot (thanks buddy!) but I figured I'd throw it here in case anyone else wants to mess around with it. Due to delay compensation, the bounced drum and bass wavs are slightly delayed from where the raw guitars start, but it should be simple to just tab to transient and align them. Tempo is 194

edit : revised zip folder

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2354806/Sn...rding/S1 Files EQ Thread Sneap Volharding.zip

 

[Clark Kent]

This poking holes thing needs some ears and you need to know what to cut out and what to leave in. F.ex. you never cut a frequency that's a part of the chord that's being played. That's kind of my rule of thumb. When something sounds out of tune or simply doesn't have a note, it needs to be cut. IMO what this will provide you is a tight low end. More space for bass etc. I dunno what Ermz philosophy on the matter is but I never plan to change a tone with EQ in post processing. It's all about making space for other instruments. If it was just a guitar track then I wouldn't EQ at all.

 

[JayB]

This poking holes thing needs some ears and you need to know what to cut out and what to leave in. F.ex. you never cut a frequency that's a part of the chord that's being played. That's kind of my rule of thumb. When something sounds out of tune or simply doesn't have a note, it needs to be cut. IMO what this will provide you is a tight low end. More space for bass etc. I dunno what Ermz philosophy on the matter is but I never plan to change a tone with EQ in post processing. It's all about making space for other instruments. If it was just a guitar track then I wouldn't EQ at all.

Good point of view, but I feel as though some things needed to be EQd out here. For instance everyone has said that the raws have a lot of honkiness, which when cut out greatly improved the tone to my ears. I probably eqd too much out of the tone, but that's why I made this thread so that people could give me their opinions on what they're hearing. Also not really trying to "change the tone" just cut out what's not contributing to the mix and clouding other instruments, and stuff like honkiness

 

[Clark Kent]

There are different schools to this ofcourse. One of them being (the one that I belong to) who still believes in rock'n'roll and thinks that a guitar amp and cab with all those "flaws" is a part of the game and character. F.ex. Jimi sounds amazing and if his songs would go through nowadays mixing it would sound like ass. So sure I use a lot of post-processing but it's all subtle. If a guitar tone doesn't sound good unprocessed it most likely won't sound good after it. Poop goes in, poop comes out. Another school is where the whole plan of mixing is to change things radically. No offence to anyone who belongs to this school but the great three-name engineers like CLA and JJP etc. belong to the first school as that's the way they've been doing it before the digital times and they "officially" make music sound best.

I took a listen to your clip and I think you need to balance the instruments properly before you can start talking about EQ etc. This is something that's hard to explain. "Make them sound right with just volume faders." One thing I do is to emulate the song being driver loud as hell to the point where it's not enjoyable. How? Put a limiter in the master and turn the threshold WAYY down. It should make the volume balance "mistakes" even clearer. Try to get it so that it doesn't bounce. Then remove the limiter and see how things sound.

 

[JayB]

I took a listen to your clip and I think you need to balance the instruments properly

I hear you on this, but once again this is a very individual-specific thing as well. Some people just like louder guitars, louder drums, etc- I don't feel personally that the volume levels are too unbalanced in that mix. Like I said, I think some things just need to be filtered out because the tone of the guitars, while great on its own, would have to be drastically turned down in the mix without some subtractive eq. Most opinions I was getting before were "the guitars are too loud" or "the guitars are eating way too much of the frequency spectrum". IMO the only way to get them at the volume I want and sounding more clear is to use some subtractive EQ. Not a ton, just enough. With some subtractive EQ the guitars immediately sounded more separated and tighter, and the drums became clearer

 

[Plankis]

Just bounced this zip for Ermz because he said he'd be willing to give the guitar EQ a shot (thanks buddy!) but I figured I'd throw it here in case anyone else wants to mess around with it. Due to delay compensation, the bounced drum and bass wavs are slightly delayed from where the raw guitars start, but it should be simple to just tab to transient and align them. Tempo is 194

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2354806/Sneap Forum Mix help/Song 1 For EQ Ermz.zip

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/933491/JayB.mp3
Best I could do OP. They were difficult ones. Going to be interesting hearing this with thicker strings.

 

[JayB]

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/933491/JayB.mp3
Best I could do OP. They were difficult ones. Going to be interesting hearing this with thicker strings.

Sounds pretty good, what did you do EQ wise? Did you EQ the bass at all or no? It's funny though, with the guitars lower in volume the snare verb seems out of control.

Also, this is the final guitars for this. I'll try the thicker strings for future stuff but this album has been in development for so long that I've had to just say "good enough" for now and wrap this up within the next month or so

 

[Plankis]

Sounds pretty good, what did you do EQ wise? Did you EQ the bass at all or no? It's funny though, with the guitars lower in volume the snare verb seems out of control.

Also, this is the final guitars for this. I'll try the thicker strings for future stuff but this album has been in development for so long that I've had to just say "good enough" for now and wrap this up within the next month or so

Yes, I did things on all the tracks. Here's what I did:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/933491/JayB EQ.png
Guitars: I began with some saturation to smooth the top end a bit. Then I wanted to remove the honkiness of the guitars. But noticed the high frequencies got harsh when I scooped out the mids at 479 hz about -6dB's, so I shelved down a few dB's from 6k Hz. When the guitars where playing those low pitched riffs, the low end went crazy. I highpassed around 117 hz and shelved a few dB's from 100 hz.

Bass: Was slightly too middy in my opinion so I scooped out some at 460 hz. The guitars are quite thin at this point so I had to add some lowend with the bass to compensate for that. I tried just raising the volume of the bass, but that didn't work so good as it got too present in the intro riffs. I also added the ThrillseekerLA because it adds a nice color and packs some more punch, not a major factor though.

Drums: Added a compressor because I think the toms are slightly too loud and the snare transient wasn't that pleasing. Maybe because it already was clipped and compressed?
I agree the reverb is way too loud with these settings. It's an easy change though.

There's some compression and limiting on the master bus as well. But they aren't doing much. So I didn't bother finding place for them on the pic.
Also, don't mind all the other channels in mixer, I just imported into my opened project. The interesting ones are to the right.