Electric guitar causing problems at mastering

D

davecg321

New member
Hello all,

I recently recorded a song with a finger picked, clean/slightly overdriven guitar sound (recorded in with some reverb on the amp, and a touch of delay from a pedal)

The rest of my track is basically ukulele, some sampled ez drums and vocals.

Now, at the mixing stage everything sounded good and nicely balanced. The guitar sounded how I intended, maybe a bit too reverby, but it was too late to rectify this.

When mastering my track (gentle compression, tape emulation, limiting) the guitar track in question - at its loudest points - sounded like it was clipping/overloading. To stop this I'm having to back up off the limiter considerably. However, with the guitar track muted I can push my tracks into the volume I desire without excessive loss of dynamic range. It is not a question of the guitar track just needing to be turned down, when I do this the guitar disappears from my mix (with the clipping sound just less noticeable)

I am thinking that the culprit here is the way in which I recorded the guitar amp. I used a rode M3, close miked (1inch away from the speaker cone) I did not switch in the 10db pad, which seems to be the preferred method for engineers when using condensers.

Could it be that the mic was being overloaded? Bearing in mind the recording was made using correct gain structure, and at no point clipped on the preamp, or the DAW.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Many thanks

Dave
 
If that guitar track is very dynamic, you might need to compress it some in the mixing stage to level it out so it doesn't get murdered by your master limiting.
 
davecg321 said:
Could it be that the mic was being overloaded? Bearing in mind the recording was made using correct gain structure, and at no point clipped on the preamp, or the DAW.
Click to expand...

Does it sound bad before the mastering processing is added? If not then the mic probably didn't overload. In that case compress the guitar in the mix as Greg_L suggests.
 
It sounded fine at normal monitoring levels. And yes, I did apply some compression to the guitar track, maybe it needs more? I might also listen to the mix at higher monitoring levels to check again for and signs of detrimental sound annomilies.

Could the amps reverb be to blame for spikey dynamics? I will use a plugin next time I track electric gtr. I also expect that a dynamic mic would deal with more drastic dynamic changes, thus needing less compression?
 
applying limiting at mastering stage,
can cause 'upwards compression'...

this is a mixing and tracking issue, not a mastering issue.

when tracking, you have to recognize and nuke those freqs,
otherwise they will come back to haunt you.

and did.


apply a limiter across your master bus while doing mixdown,
just to get 'mixing issue elements' to rear their ugly heads.


go back and fix the mix, run it thru again, then take it off when you are ready to bounce down your final mix,
to THEN be mastered.
 
Ok. Thank you for all your input. Is it safe to assume that - providing the clipping sound isn't caused from tracking - it's caused by the guitar track peaking too high within the limiter, essentially causing unwanted distortion. And that more compression/e.q can fix this at the mixing stage
 
if the track is not clipping when solo'd....

and if your levels are not peaking on any effects you are adding on mixdown...

chances are, that it's just inherent in the track, like, say the sound of the nails on the strings,
and that when mastered, those specific sounds are being amplified.

i'm saying, nuke that sound at the track level,
and to check it, put a mastering limiter across your Master bus while MIXING, just to see what is going to pop out.

a completely different scenario, and i'm afraid i just wasn't clear
 
The tape emulation can be contributing as well. If in mixing you do not hear any overload, and in mix the compressor is not creating any overload, but in master it sounds like it is overloading- it is likely not the preamp, so not the pad, and not the mic. Tape saturation (good tape saturation) can gently increase the perceived volume without harming transients, but lower quality emulation or overloaded saturation (of any kind of distortion) can make it sound unpleasantly driven instead of simply bigger.
Another thing to consider- are there specific portions of the song that this guitar needs to be louder and others where it need to be quieter? Dynamics could work to your favor. If there are nice dynamics going on- that can be a result of good playing and mic'ing. If you need it more steady throughout the entire track, then you can see if you can eliminate some unwanted spikes in the guitar track. What can happen is that it sounds good on its own, but when mixed with other instruments, reverb, timing, etc., the frequencies from multiple instruments overlap at certain points and can push the signal over- if a tape emulator and then compressor are pushing this back down- they may be overloading at the input. You can actually reduce the input stages of both, and slightly increase the compressor ratio or threshold to taste- see if this reduces the problem. If it does not- go back a step to the mix, place a high quality, well-featured digital eq on the guitar track and solo the track.
Make a narrow band eq, reduce the volume so it doesn't hurt your ears or monitors, boost the eq a lot, and sweet this very narrow "Q" from low frequencies to high frequencies. Look, and listen, for a leap in volume, suggesting where you may have frequencies that are out of balance that could be reduced by a small amount. There can be more than one range of frequencies- and you do not want to necessarily reduce the entire narrow notches, but you can slightly widen the eq to do some reduction. The goal here is to reduce little portions of eq on the guitar that are out of balance with the overall sound of the track. This can make the track sit better in the mix before compression is added- giving the compressor less work to do and giving better results. If this works- get it to sit in the mix as you like once adjusting the eq, and then reduce its volume in the mix by about -3dB. Now, mastering the same as before- is it sitting better and not distorting? That should help.
 
I've narrowed down the issue further. Basically I'm starting to think this is a build up of peaks during the guitar part and not exactly the part itself. The ukulele shows more transients/dynamic range than the guitar part during the guitar part, so maybe I should compress the ukulele instead (Low threshold and ratio perhaps?)

Note: ukulele is double tracked

Maybe e.q is need to free up some frequencies..? If so where about should I cut and on what instrument.

Also, how is it possible to hear clipping artifacts/distortion without my metres clipping into the red?
 
I've done some further tests.

1. soloed a drum sample (ez drummer) and pushed the limiter up, no audible distortion, although the sound does become fatigued and clearly squished.

2.soloed all microphone (separately) recordings and pushed limiter up, I can only raise it so far without causing the distortion I have spoken about - no visible signs of clipping

Note: no other effects were used on the master busts or the individual tracks.

Any ideas

Tah ;)
 
davecg321 said:
Also, how is it possible to hear clipping artifacts/distortion without my metres clipping into the red?
Click to expand...

Many times manufacturers skimp on meter development. That's why a lot of people use -1 instead of 0. The math can get iffy, too, so it's possible to clip and a meter doesn't show it. I think the issue is you used a SDC without a pad. Did you try turning down the trim on that track? Maybe do -10db trim for that channel and see if that helps. What does the wave look like? Does it have transient or is it a big block?
 
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