Recording METAL GUITAR, help...

This is almost tangentially related to the topic at hand, but it's kind of a fun story. I may have told it around here before, but this is the long version. :)

Every year, my town throws this week long party called Duluth Homegrown Festival. It's like 200 local acts all playing at the same time and competing for crowds of people who don't come out to see them the rest of the year. I've played something or other in like 7 of the last 9. I've been running sound at least 3 nights out of the week for the last 5.

2 years ago I was booked to play at this tiny little art gallery where I had played before with a bunch of my punk friends who I had seen there before. These are the guys that come in and crank their amps all the way up even though none of the crowd can be more than 8 feet away. The acts where the guitars are louder than the acoustic drums even though dude is always hitting as hard a he can. And we went there and did that every week or two for months. In fact, the "house PA" there was something I had cobbled together:

-A MIDIMan line mixer that I've had since my dad sent to me in 1990. It has four mic pres with individual gain control, and 20 line inputs which can either be 20 mono or 10 stereo pairs with no individual volume controls because anything you'd plug in would have its own way of doing that. It has 4 effects sends with individual level knobs (the returns would presumably go to the line ins), and a left and right master output.

- A stereo 31 band EQ but I only used one channel cause it's only for vocals anyway. I completely neutered the low end with a curve starting around 300Hz and down toward nothing and the Low Cut filter engaged. The bass and drums are going to be louder in this mic than any vocalist really could be, even with inverse square law. Those instruments are already too loud, and we don't have to amplify them I also hacked down some of the very high highs. Partly the same reason - the cymbals are already at least too loud. Also, the speakers we're using aren't likely to give us much way up there so why create extra heat in the trying?

- A compressor set to limit like 6db before the amplifier did. It was all carefully gain staged and basically bullet proof, so I covered this and the eq with some cardboard (I thought part of a case of beer was appropriate) and duct tape.

- A 400W power amp into a pair of 15+horn speakers my bassist got from a cab driver for free.

Up until somebody tried to play karoake through the thing and figured out there wasn't actually any bass, but that they could rip the cardboard off and fuck with the EQ, we never had any problems getting the vocals intelligible over all the other insanity, and we had surprisingly little feedback.

BUT!!!

This show was a part of the festival, and remember how I said I run sound for shows at this festival? Well, the guy that pays me to do that was hired to provide sound for this show, and since I was playing the show in a room I knew with people I knew for people I knew... For most of it, we easily could have gotten away with what we had. We do it all the time, but the contract includes a PA, and I was like "You know, my band doesn't actually have amps or acoustic drums, but I'd like to be at least as loud as those other assholes." So we brought in a pair of newer, self-powered 15+horns that were just a bit more flat, with a bit more high end extension, and just a touch more overall wattage than my amp/speakers. I think I talked them out of a 12+horn, but I also got this nice little sub to work with.

But that ain't really the point either. I "mixed" the whole show through the same computer that my band plays through all the time, plugged directly into the new PA. For most of the other acts, it completely only needed a vocal mic through a clone of the same track I sing through - with the EQ and comp baked in.

Then one of the bands was setting up, and the guitarist had a problem with his amp. It wouldn't stay on or something. We only had like a minute and a half to get them rocking. I told him to just plug into the Instrument input on my Tascam US1641, and I'd bring up a sim and he'd be rocking. He started to turn up his nose like "Amp sim?!? This is punk rock!" Then I pointed at the Line6 amp he'd intended to play through...


Edit -

Which is to say that the "trick" is to hear and understand what each part and stage of the process has what effect, and learn to adjust the right thing at the right time. It's not "plug this and in and turn the knobs to here". It's "plug it and in and turn the knobs till it sounds good. If you can't, plug something else in, or plug into something else." Whether that thing you plug in is hardware or software means absolutely nothing.

Edit again -

Which is also to say that those dudes that everybody thinks sound so awesome were actually just working what they had and doing the best they could. They were building if not wishing for if not completely never thought of the things that we have available today. You still have to listen.

Edit again cause I'm not goonn double post -

Which is to say that if it's worth recording, it doesn't matter how you catch it. Somebody will be happy you did. More importantly, if it sounds exactly the way you (as artist and/or producer) want then it doesn't matter where your compressor's threshold was set or how many decibels you boosted the 3K on the kick drum/. Nodbdy cares if you ran through a Neve or a Nady. Turn the knobs til it sounds good. Helps to know which knobs to turn...
 
Last edited:
Nobody that listens may care how you did it...but it still matters how you did it. :)

Like for instance...placing a mic just the right way in front a cab and amp that you dialed in just the right way and got the sound you wanted...VS... doing neither of those things right and not getting the sound you wanted, and instead needing to use several plugs and spending three times as much effort and time with some jury-rigged approach in order to try and get the sound you really wanted...
...may seem like the same thing in the end, but it's really not. ;)

But hey...everyone can choose what works best for them.
 
Nobody that listens may care how you did it...but it still matters how you did it. :)

.
no .... no it doesn't ...... the only thing that matters is the end result .... the only exception to that is IF you or someone else wants to replicate it.

Otherwise the final result is all that matters.

And as much as I found ashcats mistaken denigration of Greg's skills ridiculous the fact is he's right about one thing for sure.

The guys back in the day did not really know what they were doing ..... at least the musicians anyway.
I was one of them and I played with some of the 'names' and I can tell you flat-out ..... we just turned knobs.
 
I have to kind of disagree, semantically.

How you get the sound doesn't matter, as long as the result gives the effect, conveys the emotion, and/or serves the purpose that it needs to.
 
...ashcats mistaken denigration of Greg's skills...
I never really said anything about his "skills". Was talking about his attitude and "philosophy".

But you know, back in the day, the people doing the recording were Engineers with a capital "E". They did know what they were doing. They developed your "established techniques" and some of the gear that we still use today based on an actual understanding of acoustic and electronic principles. They saw obstacles and figured out ways to overcome them. They hypothesized, experimented, learned, and built. They couldn't just jump on the internet, ask the opinion of a bunch of strangers, and then have Amazon send them whatever those folks told them to buy. They worked with what they had or built what they needed.
 
You guys are focused purely on the listener's experience of the end result....and from that perspective you can say that no one cares how you got there.
I agree with that...listeners don't care.

I was talking about the recording process side of the equation. The execution of techniques as you record.
There are techniques that work, that have been proven...and then there's the fumbling around that requires many more steps, to correct what was wrong up front, so that it sounds right at the end....which is what you see with a lot of newbs and novices.

That is a difference.

Also, from the audio signal perspective...getting the tone right at the source is always more desirable and easier to deal with later on...than getting the tone wrong up front, and then trying to EQ/process what is wrong with it.
Layers of processing to correct problems is always more detrimental to audio signals...and I'm sure most of the people who are forced to use that approach, end up often "settling" with the end result they get. Again, they don't know what they don't know.

I see that as a big difference...and considering how many newbs and novices struggle...I think it has a lot to do with not learning and following known, basic techniques, and instead simply tossing random unorthodox solutions at something until "it works".
 
But you know, back in the day, the people doing the recording were Engineers with a capital "E". They did know what they were doing. They developed your "established techniques" and some of the gear that we still use today based on an actual understanding of acoustic and electronic principles.

Right.
I see that as a major difference from how many younger guys these days haven't got a clue about those things, nor do they care to, and it's more about rolling dice until the right thing comes up.
 
But is telling these kids the "right way" to do it and the "right things" to buy actually helping that?

Anyway, today more than ever the line between "source" and "processing" is pretty blurry. More importantly, everybody is coming from and shooting toward something different, and there really is no all encompassing process that will work for everybody. At best, established techniques can work as reasonable starting points, but when it doesn't work, it doesn't work, and when you need something else you should figure out how to get it and not worry too much about Internet bullies trying to tell you that you're completely wrong.
 
You're right that the lines have gotten blurry about source and processing.
I get it, people are living ITB, and that almost forces the "process it later" mentality...but you can't honestly say that it's the same thing to screw around with processing to make something sound right...than to simply know/understand how using a certain technique at the start would have already gotten you what you wanted.

It doesn't change anything for me or you how someone else chooses to do things. It's not about "bullying"...:D...it's about promoting the doing and understanding of more established ways...though I get the feeling that along with the unintentional rejection that happens with some newbs...there's also some intentional rejection going on because it's "old-school" or what have you. :)

If you know the established, then any departure from that is done with a sense of conscious intent and knowledge...instead of guesstimating until you stumble on a solution...at least that's what makes sense to me...YMMV.

So I guess the OP got his answers, since he never came back after his first post, even though many responded before we segued into this side discussion.

I gotta go cut the grass now...using established techniques. :p
 
personally I kinda hate the idea of "this is the right way to do it" ..... to me that's why music has gotten so homogeneous ..... everybody follow the 'rules' and everything sounds the same.
Kinda like amp modeling ..... a very large number of players use whatever presets they like .... tweak them a bit and then off they go. The next guy does the same and so on and everybody sounds the same.

Bleh ..... who needs that?

This is personal taste here and I realize many will disagree ..... but I am actually from those times and I did actually work with some 'names' back in the day and there was a LOT of "let's try this and see what it sounds like" going on.

Actually it was like that in a lot of areas.
I see young players obsessing over biasing an amp after every tube change.

NO one did that back in the 60's and 70's ..... we just pulled into a drug store ( you could buy tubes anywhere back then) ... buy some tubes on the way to a gig ..... put them in and play.
That's just how it was ...... personally I hate 'rules' and I hate 'labels'.
 
Like for instance...placing a mic just the right way in front a cab and amp that you dialed in just the right way and got the sound you wanted...

The reason I ditched source recording (as you're calling it) and jumped headlong into fully digital, virtualized recording is that my idea of what is "right" often changes as the song evolves. Maybe I need a bit less bite on that guitar, well oh fuck it's recorded with a mic in front of an amp, so that perfect take is history or I settle with the tone the way I thought would be "right". The flexibility virtualization affords me is an easy trade off for that tiny bit of quality I may be missing out on. Now that I don't have thousands tied up in gear nor the space needed to store it all, I feel rather content with my decision this many years later.

This discussion feels like deja vu.
 
Actually it was like that in a lot of areas.
I see young players obsessing over biasing an amp after every tube change.

NO one did that back in the 60's and 70's ..... we just pulled into a drug store ( you could buy tubes anywhere back then) ... buy some tubes on the way to a gig ..... put them in and play.

I'm sure they did that back in the day (and I'm sure many still do). But in the case of biasing, small changes make such a massive difference in the tone coming from the amp--more I imagine than the quality of the tubes themselves. There must have been a lot of guys back in the day wondering, "why does my amp suddenly sound like crap?"
 
This discussion feels like deja vu.
Yep!

The reason I ditched source recording (as you're calling it) and jumped headlong into fully digital, virtualized recording is that my idea of what is "right" often changes as the song evolves.
The argument I've heard most often against this is that if the song is still evolving, then it's not ready to record, and you should figure all that stuff out and then hit the big red button. According to this line of reasoning, if you don't suck at your instrument, then you should be able to get a "perfect" take again without much trouble.

I can see both sides, and can go either way depending on what I'm doing and who I'm working with, but I also know for a fact that a crappy performance will ruin a perfect tone a lot faster than a less-than-ideal tone will ruin a perfect performance.
 
The problem just never really comes up in my experience. How often do you track a guitar and then realize you really wanted a totally different tone? Don't we all have a handful of bread-and-butter guitar sounds that we wind up using again and again? And what's the worst that can happen? You just retrack. I'm not paying a studio cat to track my guitars--I'm the cat, and the studio cost is my mortgage.
 
The reason I ditched source recording (as you're calling it) and jumped headlong into fully digital, virtualized recording is that my idea of what is "right" often changes as the song evolves. Maybe I need a bit less bite on that guitar, well oh fuck it's recorded with a mic in front of an amp, so that perfect take is history or I settle with the tone the way I thought would be "right". The flexibility virtualization affords me is an easy trade off for that tiny bit of quality I may be missing out on. Now that I don't have thousands tied up in gear nor the space needed to store it all, I feel rather content with my decision this many years later..

Why do you seem to always reference money...or "breaking the bank"...in these discussions?
Did someone say you needed to do that, and you're bothered by it...or are you bothered by not doing it?

I also think you're misinterpreting my meaning. I don't see why you would have to go purely virtual in order to do that...to make changes....?

I'm not talking about capturing the source as-is and then not touching it later with any processing.
Also...there's not set "rules" about how you do your tracking. I never suggested that...rather it's simply about following good form...good techniques...but you have a lot of freedom in how you approach that.
To me, the whole focus in the "source" is about getting the best sound, and as closest to the right sound that I want.
Otherwise...there's nothing wrong with applying processing after that during the mix stage.

I do all kinds of adjustments to my source recordings. Never had a problem with making guitar tracks brighter/darker, more bit/less bite, or changing my mind about overall tone...but I like to work with a good amount of the production already in mind when I track (nothing written in stone, but a fairly solid idea of what I want)...so any changes I make, work cohesively with the original source tracks. I also tend to commit to things maybe more than most people do these days, and even when in the DAW, I will delete tracks or part of tracks when I decide on something.

For the times when things just aren't working...I go back to the tracking, rather than trying to process something into submission.
For me...the best and most fun part of music production has always been the tracking. It's what makes recording interesting. Hearing the interaction between the tracks as I add them...and feeling that in real time as I'm playing and recording the next track.
I also thoroughly enjoy working with the mics, dialing in the amps, tuning a drum kit...etc...and in my case, working with the tape deck, loading the machine, watching them reels spins. It's all a very hands-on, "real" experience. :cool:
I already spend way too much time later on at the DAW in virtual reality land...:D...and I can't wait to get out of there and to a new tracking session. It's just what I really like doing. :)
 
Most famous bands and musician did it "their way" no matter what others thought or said about it.

You can make some damn shitty noise which no one can handle, and if you like that what's wrong with that?
If you want many others to enjoy it you have to make something they dig. If you don't want to be "like those others" you have to put something in it from yourself.
Who will be "the judge"? You? Or others who you want to listen to your music? So in the end for you nothing is wrong as long as you follow your goals.

I previous in this topic advised mic recording because i like it, with (my personal) reasons. And i said that because it was asked. If others like plugged-in and edit with plugins to get the sound they want then that's fine too. I still do that too once and a while.

Do whatever you want. That simple.
 
There are no rules for creativity, but as soon as you decide what type of sound you want, you are pretty much stuck using the techniques that will create that sound.

That's where the "rules" and "established techniques" come in. There is no sense reinventing the wheel. The rules have nothing to do with creativity, they have to do with making the vision a reality.
 
I'm sure they did that back in the day (and I'm sure many still do). But in the case of biasing, small changes make such a massive difference in the tone coming from the amp--more I imagine than the quality of the tubes themselves. There must have been a lot of guys back in the day wondering, "why does my amp suddenly sound like crap?"
I'm gonna have to say that unless the amp was badly biased in the first place, I can't agree that biasing makes a 'massive' difference ..... same with the different brands of tubes.

I'm NOT saying there's NO difference but I don't find it to be massive and is always just a matter of adjusting the settings on the amp to compensate.

To this day I don't bother biasing when I change tubes and my tone is one of the things I always get compliments on.

meh ..... I'm also not against biasing before anyone accuses me of saying that. I just personally don't bother.

Whatever works for you and is important to you is fine by me .... we all have different tastes and opinions.

Do whatever you want. That simple.

^^^^^^ this ^^^^^^^^^^
 
You can make some damn shitty noise which no one can handle...
Thanks, but I never asked your permission. ;)
Farview said:
There is no sense reinventing the wheel.
...Unless you don't have a wheel, can't afford a wheel, don't have room for a wheel...then you want a bigger wheel, or a dirtier wheel, or a browner wheel sometimes but then...
 
Back
Top