Your Best Guitar Tone Thread

[digitalmikey]

A lot of us are always searching for the best or damn near best guitar tone we possibly can find. For me it's been a two month long struggle to get something that sounds halfway decent. There are a lot of guys on this forum that have figured out how to get great tones, and for us that have not we ask for your help and tips.

Is there a right and wrong type of tone? What works best for you, duel or quad tracking? In what instances do you determine when to quad track?

People that create amazing music on this forum work in layers upon layers making it hard for us smaller home project studios to hear clearly what makes a guitar sound full. Most of the answers to "How do I make my guitars sound "big" or "full"? Get replied with "Try quad tracking.". The problem with this is what if our guitar sound is not up to par to begin with. Quadding will only give us four instances of shitty guitars panned repectively.

What I am curious the most of is how a single guitar track tone sounds like before getting retracked multiple of times. To hear the raw tone before it turns into something full and big. Maybe other newcomers will be interested in this as well.

Let's hear a raw guitar track from a song you have posted.

 

[nwright]

my favorite guitar tone I've achieved has been with my XXX and my Maxon OD808 miked with a single 57 on my Madison 4x12 with V30's...Here's the clip (in the mix):

http://geetarguy.tripod.com/newsong1.mp3

here's the same preamp signal fed into Kazrog's Recabinet impulse demo (the 4x12):
http://geetarguy.tripod.com/recabtest.mp3

*EDIT*
these are raw tones in the mix. I did HP and LP at 80 and 12K, but I don't consider those EQ tweaks, as I don't hear a difference doing this.

 

[digitalmikey]

Sounds great nate.

Would love to hear more before and after guitar tones.

 

[nwright]

before and after what?

 

[digitalmikey]

Guitar tones by themselves without duel or quad tracking, drums, or bass. The guitar tone you used just by itself then mixed in with the rest.

 

[nwright]

ah. I guess I could see that, but usually I try to get my recorded guitar sound with the idea being that the quad tracking is PART of the sound, as is the mix, so I wouldn't ever consider 1 track out of the group THE one, if that makes sense.

 

[Ermz]

Here's one tracked some time last year from memory: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/285689/mymachine-rawguit.mp3

Sample of those rhythms in the finished mix: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/285689/Music/Supersonic-MyMachine.mp3

A more recent tone here: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/285689/Orpheus/mark-iv.mp3

That one wasn't done all by me though. Melb_shredder had the mic all ready to go, I merely tweaked the amp until we thought it sounded good enough to roll with.

 

[digitalmikey]

nwright: I get you. I'm just more curious with opinions on what is the "norm" for a good guitar sound before layering.

Moonlapse: Thanks for the links bro. Sounds excellent.

 

[cobhc]

You can check out the clips that Andy did of his Krank (I think it was his Krank?), that's a single track. Although you won't get the after side of it (in the mix and quad tracked), you can see how a single guitar sounds, that is tracked as per Andy's usual process.

P.S The link is in the FAQ sticky on the front page of the forum.

 

[cobhc]

my favorite guitar tone I've achieved has been with my XXX and my Maxon OD808 miked with a single 57 on my Madison 4x12 with V30's...Here's the clip (in the mix):

http://geetarguy.tripod.com/newsong1.mp3

here's the same preamp signal fed into Kazrog's Recabinet impulse demo (the 4x12):
http://geetarguy.tripod.com/recabtest.mp3

*EDIT*
these are raw tones in the mix. I did HP and LP at 80 and 12K, but I don't consider those EQ tweaks, as I don't hear a difference doing this.

Dude, settings again please! And which impulse miking position did you use? Which guitar as well, pickups? Lol, sorry for the questions, but I love this tone.

 

[digitalmikey]

Awesome, thanks cobhc. I'll check it out.

 

[006]

I think you will find a LOT of things are only double tracked, meaning there isn't layered guitars, just one track per side.

~006

 

[Chryst Krispies]

Dude, settings again please! And which impulse miking position did you use? Which guitar as well, pickups? Lol, sorry for the questions, but I love this tone.

I agree. This one of the best miced XXX sounds I've heard.

 

[Metaltastic]

Yeah, +1 to NWright's XXX tone stomping monumental amounts of ass. And I'm still REALLY proud of the Tiny Terror test (going through my Mesa Stiletto cab mic'ed with a 57 with a TS7 in front) on the soundclick player on my myspace in my sig.

 

[MetalJonesy]

yeah man its a pretty sweet tone you got from that tiny terror!

 

[nwright]

thanks guys.

For the miked clip, I described the miking setup in my first post with it...The impulse clip was the 4x12 cab impulse from the recabinet demo. I think I used the EL34/sm57 impulse?

Settings were (off memory):

Crunch channel
channel volume - all the way up (needed it high for the direct out volume)
Master volume - 9-10:00
bottom - 2:00
body - 10:00
hair - 1:00

*edit* Doh, forgot the gain...I had it set pretty high considering the Maxon is in front.

Gain - 11:00

On this clip the amp was running 6L6GC's

maxon OD808 - level 3:00, gain 9:00, tone 10:00

I like the tone, but my ultimate goal is to use my 6505+ with this mic position. I haven't got around to trying it out yet with my 6505+, but I will soon. Also, I'm thinking of selling my XXX to get another Divinity. I regret selling my first one.

 

[Metaltastic]

yeah man its a pretty sweet tone you got from that tiny terror!

Thanks Mark!

 

[kickinwing65]

I was bored a few weeks ago and tried to copy the tone on Parkway Drive's Horizons album which I believe is a Framus Cobra, I used a 5150 with most likely the original tubes. (bought it on ebay) The song is Boneyards, I did a quick mix with superior2. There are subdrops, but are 40hz so require some subs to hear them.

Anyway, I don't have a raw track but I just used the preamp out into voxengo boogex with one of the guitarhack impulses. Not quad tracked. Very sloppy because i was learning the part before recording each section.

---> Right Here

If it dies, let me know, every site keeps crying about copyright infringement.

 

[Machinated]

This is my favourite tone

Posted it about quite a bit now - you should know the rig by now!

This one is a second place for me - 6505 through Marshall Cab. Chuggy Chuggy.

This is my favourite tone done with a Pod

 

[Notuern]

I haven't worked that much with recording real amps, but the best recorded tone I've ever head was recorded through a cheap Randall RX100-head and matching cab.
Sadly though, I've lost the recording, a friend of me might still have it though.

This is stuff i think you guys would like:

http://media.putfile.com/5150-84 (Pod XT)
http://media.putfile.com/5150-preset-Pod-XT (Sameclip, mixed differently.)
http://media.putfile.com/Master-of-Muppets (Pod XT)
http://media.putfile.com/tuggande (Pod XT, Recorded without click.)

80's Heavy Metal, the one I'm most proud of my self(Most of you probably hate it!):

http://rs556.rapidshare.com/files/143320657/wild_blood.mp3 (Ignore the mix, its been polished like hell.)