What to do next? Help mee.

[eʍʍy]

edit: removed the link since a lot is going to be different in it now.
I'm trying to find a decent guitar sound. The bass was re-done completely and sounds much different. and I might wind up making some changes to the drums.

For now, I'm trying to get a decent guitar sound.

I know it's probably not worth the time but if you'd like to see what you can come up with from the DIs then here yoou go:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14476391/FF DIs.zip

I know the playing isn't the cleanest or tightest and there's some errors (like the way the notes ring out in the breakdown. who knows what's up with that.) but I'm not going for anything professional.
I just plan on sharing it with friends and uploading to a few places so Final Fantasy fans can listen to it. So I just want it to sound as good as it can for what it is.

Sorry I didn't include the bass with the drums in that link. I know it'd help so you can see what sounds fit best but don't worry about that I guess.

oh and ignore the fade-in part at the middle of the track. I plan to re-do that completely.

 

[Plankis]

Final Fantasy and its soundtracks are incredible! I've done a few FF-covers too. You'll find plenty of fans around here.

Guitars are the big let down here. Pod perhaps? They're a bit too middish and sounds like they go through a light telephone filter.
But I guess it sounded completely different when you mixed it. So next time focus on getting a better guitartone. Best way is to record DI's and tweak accordingly with drums and bass and everything else until your satisfied. A wonderful way of throwing away hours/days.

 

[metalmonster34]

by any chance did you mute the bass or have you not gotten around to record it yet? it'll sound better with bass. also, what are you recording with as your interface and DAW?

By the way, in the middle section where it fades in it in can be tweaked a bit better so it sounds like an actual crescendo. not bad, though

 

[eʍʍy]

There's bass in it. The guitars have like no low frequencies. I had the bass up louder but it seemed so overpowering then. Whenever I played the sound back on any system, it seemed too loud even with my subwoofer at minimum volume. I compared it to a few basic pro mixes and there was more bass in my recording than theirs.
I guess I turned it down too low now.

I'm recording direct through some pretty high-end gear. The quality is fine, but I can't seem to get a guitar sound I'm too satisfied with. I have the DIs and have been trying a ton of amp sims using the Catharsis Studio Mesa impulses. I tried some other impulses like the guitarhack ones and they just sounded absolutely horrible. If anyone knows of some decent ones then let me know.

oh and about the fade-in section, yeah I wanted to fix that. it just doesn't really build up powerful enough.
it's a little better with the leads because there's a lead part playing still when everything drops out. but I'll probably re-do that.

 

[metalmonster34]

yeah i think the guitars need more lows as well as the bass. I'm listening the tracks through my samson resolv50a studio monitors. i turned the volume and notice the bass now haha. they just need more beef if you know what i mean, both guitars and bass. try bringing down the mids a bit on the guitars and bring up the lows a tad bit. what software you using to record and mix?

 

[Brandon E.]

What's the guitar chain? I don't have any idea how you could get a guitar tone like that using Ryan's impulses without putting a highpass at 400hz or having some really messed up DI's...care to post them? You need way more low end and gain in both the guitars and the bass IMO. The drums sound halfway decent in comparison. If the mix sounded better before...maybe you should examine the settings on the EQ you had turned on while you were mixing and take some hints from there.

 

[eʍʍy]

@metalmonster
Okay, thanks for the tip.

I mostly use Reaper apart from cleaning up the tracks.

@Brandon, yeah I know. I cut out too much. I was just worried about the guitars being too muddy. I didn't really pay attention to how much I was taking out I guess because at the time it sounded fine. :[

I was thinking that about the EQ. Like possibly eq'ing more like it had sounded to me.

I could post the DI's if you want.

oh and the basic tone chain was TSS, Nick Crow 7170, kefir - spreshigh.

 

[Brandon E.]

I would say take of ALL of the post EQ on the guitars, try a different amp sim...7170 isn't that great. Lepou Legion and TSE X30 are pretty solid. You should be well on your way to a passable guitar tone at the default settings. You shouldn't need any serious post processing on your guitars at all, just boost, preamp, cab, and SLIGHT EQ. In general for guitars you want to keep your chain really simple, heavy post processing is more often than not destructive, rather than helpful.

And if mud becomes a problem, you might want to try a cut at 300-400hz with a narrow Q instead of low-shelving the low end or something

 

[eʍʍy]

yeah, I have all of those. I was trying a bunch earlier but nothing seems to satisfy me. they all sound so fizzy to me. :\
especially TSE X30.

I'll see what I can come up with though.

thanks for the tips.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

My question is what monitors do you have? I know having professional reference monitors make a huge difference compared to cheap hi-fi or desktop speakers. I remember how much my mixes improved when I got actual reference monitors and got my ears adjusted to them. Guitars need a fair amount of low end and bass really needs to have a lot. Getting good tone for every instrument in the mix takes years of mixing and listening to many reference mixes (bands/mixes that you enjoy).

yeah, I have all of those. I was trying a bunch earlier but nothing seems to satisfy me. they all sound so fizzy to me. :
especially TSE X30.

Fizz is easily removed with a low pass filter.

 

[eʍʍy]

Uhh Roland RSM-90s I think.

Sounds very plain through them without the EQ. I think my issue is I'm not used to that.

I guess I shouldn't worry about fizz so much.
But no matter what I try, it all seems to sound the same.

How on earth do you get a sound like this?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/425433/MP3/Amp test/RAW/ampsimtestnoboost.mp3
It was done with the TSE X30 and who knows what else.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

That tone. Erik as far as i know at that time was using X30, Recabinet and very minimal eq as in a small cut around 250 and 4K. You could add a low pass to get rid of fizz. You wouldn't hear the fizz int he mix generally but they can come out at less dense sections which could benefit you if they are dealt with.

 

[eʍʍy]

alrighty.

DIs are here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14476391/FF DIs.zip

 

[Brandon E.]

Well right off the bat the DI's are really messed up, they should be way hotter. I had to give them about a 10db boost to get them up to a reasonable level, and some of them are different levels then others. I'm not sure if this is due to how you bounced it or how you tracked it, but when you track them, they should peak at -2 or -3 db on your hardware when you hit the strings as hard as you possibly can.

Anyways, just the drum mp3 and DI's doesn't give a lot to work with so I just loaded up some guitars real quick:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3597430/Emmy song.mp3

That's: ReaGate -> Pod Farm's Tube Screamer -> LeGion/Pod Farm's Cali Diamond Plate (on the inner panned tracks) -> Greg's Rectifier cab impulse -> ReaEQ (high pass at 80hz and low pass at 11khz)

 

[eʍʍy]

I have no idea what happened there then. All the levels were recorded the exact same. Not the tiniest move of any knob or button was made throughout the whole process.
I'm pretty sure my hardest hit would bring it up to around -3db and the average was around -6 or -5ish on my hardware.

When I did a full mix of it before with the leads and everything, the rhythm guitar tracks remained around 0 the whole time and were plenty loud enough.

I think it was an issue with how Reaper was set up.

Sorry about all that.

but anyways thanks
much appreciated

 

[Brandon E.]

It was how you exported then, I know what you did wrong. When you export DI's in reaper, all of the tracks have to be panned center or else you'll lose half of the volume. Since some of your tracks were panned 100, and some panned 80, the 80 tracks were slightly louder.

 

[eʍʍy]

ah. that makes perfect sense about the different volume levels too.
you see, I always double click the middle before I export. I guess I only centered the actual volume rather than the panning as well. I was really exhausted when I did it so it just slipped my mind.

well I feel pretty dumb now :]