Guitar EQ/mixing

R

Robby Suavé

New member
I'm working on a new album, and more than anything, I want the guitars to sound better than they usually do on my albums. Even after playing with the EQ for what seems like hours, I can't get it to sound right. Maybe the raw recording is bad, and no amount of EQ can fix it. I've never been able to get a good guitar sound in my recordings.

Below are links to a short excerpt of a demo I'm working on. The first link is drums and guitar. The second link is the guitar by itself. Can someone help me out? I feel like I make subtle EQ adjustments, but I can't get it to sound the way I want it to. I want it slightly scathing. Right now, it's muddy but also too bright. I want it to be more clear, I guess.

Drums and Guitar:


Guitar Alone:
 
Have you thought about playing the guitar part twice and panning them? The tone isn't horrible. Not great but widening it up and having two tracks would be where I would start first to see how that sounds.

Having a bass guitar in there will really help as well. There is a reason for bass players. It not just to hoard all the ugly girls... lol
 
Yeah, I was planning on doing that, adding another guitar and bass to the mix. I guess I just watch YouTube videos of people recording guitar, just one guitar, and it sounds awesome. Maybe it's just chorus effects and reverb or something, but I feel like they sound way better than this. So I wanted to figure out why that is.

Thanks. I'll check back in with another guitar mixed in.
 
Be careful making judgments from what you think you see/hear on Youtube... Just be aware that it not always what it seems...
 
I think the tone is pretty good. Doubling and hard panning would definitely improve things. The one thing that makes it hard to judge is that there isn't a bass in the mix. I noticed that there was quite a bit of low end in your guitar tone. If a bass is also in the mix, it might muddy things up. Maybe that's what you don't like about your mixes? Not sure. Just a thought.
 
TripleM said:
I think the tone is pretty good. Doubling and hard panning would definitely improve things. The one thing that makes it hard to judge is that there isn't a bass in the mix. I noticed that there was quite a bit of low end in your guitar tone. If a bass is also in the mix, it might muddy things up. Maybe that's what you don't like about your mixes? Not sure. Just a thought.
Click to expand...

Maybe. I'm not new to recording, but it seems like whenever I do get a good guitar sound, it's just luck. I know a single guitar track isn't going to sound amazing, but like I said above, I'll listen to people's raw guitar tracks on YouTube, and they sound way better. And again, they've probably got a lot of fancy effects going on, whereas I just have a little reverb. My goal was to get a good sounding guitar track, layer it with another one, and then add bass.

I'm going to try to scoop out the low end some more on this guitar track, record another guitar to double it, pan them, and see how it sounds. Hopefully I can throw that together later tonight and I'll post the results here.

Thanks everyone for you help.
 
Are you able to play in the room and get a tone you like? If so I'd just worry about figuring out the mic choice/placement, if not I'd try to fix whatever it is you don't like about the sound you hear in the room. Sounds like eq isn't getting you the leverage you need so you'll have to go further back in the chain.
 
What easlern said. Guitar should need little or no EQ in my experience. A high pass just to filter out low frequency gunk is all I ever use. You will never be able to take a bad tone and make it good by adding EQ in the mix. Capture a tone that works in your mix and do as little as possible to it.
 
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Robby Suavé said:
Maybe. I'm not new to recording, but it seems like whenever I do get a good guitar sound, it's just luck. I know a single guitar track isn't going to sound amazing, but like I said above, I'll listen to people's raw guitar tracks on YouTube, and they sound way better. And again, they've probably got a lot of fancy effects going on, whereas I just have a little reverb. My goal was to get a good sounding guitar track, layer it with another one, and then add bass.

I'm going to try to scoop out the low end some more on this guitar track, record another guitar to double it, pan them, and see how it sounds. Hopefully I can throw that together later tonight and I'll post the results here.

Thanks everyone for you help.
Click to expand...

Fancy effects do not make great guitar tone. Finding what it takes to get great guitar tone before any effects is what is most important. Then the room it is recorded in and the mic used come in to play. BUT-and a BIG BUT- you can't fake great guitar tone!

There are obviously techniques that are used with guitars that may or not be used with any given genre, but any of them only work with understanding of how and why. And if the guitar tone sucks to begin with (which actually I think you are on the right track here - I have heard much worse) then it is more of fixing crap tone.

I suggest you take the advice given so far and move forward. :)
 
Good advice from jimmy. I've also found that when I think it sounds OK in the room, I need to back off the gain just a little so it still sound good when recorded
 
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