Palm mute butchery

S

Spyk Saturn

New member
I am having one heck of a time trying to get a nice chunk tone out of my palm mutes when mixing. The tone stand alone is fine and sounds great recorded as well, however, I find when I pan the two tracks left and right to make it sound fuller, the quality chunk of the palm mute is gone and it turns to mud. Almost as if you switched from using your bridge pickup to your neck pickup. I am recording through an interface direct into my pc using cubase. I don't know where the problem is but have tried a million things including cutting the gain. I use the poulin effects and the free ts808 effect as well with impulses but again I think the problem is somewhere in the mix and not in the gear. Something happens when you pan these tracks left and right to the tone that I just do not get.
 
Just a thought . . . but it sounds like what you're saying is that the doubled guitar sounds fuller when centered instead of spread. My suggestion would be to either record it two more times and double it for each speaker, lock the two in the center or pan both of them slightly in the same direction and fill out the arrangement some other way.
 
It sorta sounds like a timing issue to me. I think you're talking about hard rock/metal style guitar, and if those chugs aren't pretty much exactly on time with each other, it can get messy. Especially if they're in fast bursts like triplets, etc.
 
I find that banging your scrotum on the guitar strings produces the thickest palm mutes you'll ever get. It's an industry trade secrete that only real professionals know about :guitar:
 
FoulPhil said:
I find that banging your scrotum on the guitar strings produces the thickest palm mutes you'll ever get. It's an industry trade secrete that only real professionals know about :guitar:
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So that's why some guys wear their guitars so low.
 
Both tracks are actually recorded. One is not a copy so we can rule that out. Timing is perfect. Not just saying that because I recorded it but the guitars don't sound hollow. The rest of the rhythm that isn't palm muted sounds very full and nice. I will do a recording of something for an example as soon as I can to give you guys an idea. The best way I can describe it for now is it sounds like I don't have enough high end in it when the 2 guitar tracks are panned but if I add more high end to get it where I want then I have no balls to the track. A good example of what I am trying to get is that palm mute chug arch enemy had on rise of the tyrant? But I am getting more of that typical palm mute sound you hear in most metal. Maybe I am wrong but it seems like an eq issue. I will get a track ready asap and post on here.
 
Maybe it's a guitar tone or performance issue. I doubt the band you're trying to emulate used a bunch of free plugins on their guitar tracks. Maybe they did? I don't know. Try a real amp.
 
ocnor said:
So that's why some guys wear their guitars so low.
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No, that's mostly to hide their swollen testicles. The down side of the technique is that it leaves them massively swollen for months after the recording session :P


On a side note you could try cutting the palm mutes out and dragging them to a new track and adjust the volume accordingly. Just remember to use the right amount of fading in and out to keep it from sounding cut off randomly.
 
His writing style may not be for everyone, but this is an absolute goldmine of information, and the impetus for the whole thing was how to deal with large volume swings on "chugs" on the guitars.

Slipperman's Recording Distorted Guitars From Hell

Any number of potential issues and solutions to your problem, most of which you can find in that link, but you might want to start by rolling off the bass on either your amp/modeler or simply high-passing your guitars and letting the bass do the dirty work. This isn't a Recto model you're using by chance is it? Those things (as a Recto owner myself) have so much low end in Modern mode that you really DON'T want much bass at the amp - for leads mine's usually at 0, and for rhythm generally under 9 o'clock.
 
So I found that it was mostly tone issue here is the thing. I still can't get what most people get with a recto but I am using an engl sim. Seems to be there is a contour dial and that helps you keep the low but makes the highs that I want shine through. Sorry it took me so long to repond with work and all. I was going to do a recording but finding this contour button is really helping. I guess if you don't over exaggerate what you are looking for, when you pan, nothing but bass comes through. Also found if you palm mute anything on the lower octive e string anything besides open or first 2 fretts, palm mute sounds muddy. Ugh why can't this be more simpler. Thanks guys. Advice was appreciated and used twords finding the problem.
 
Glad you found the problem. Something else to think about if you're getting mud in the sides would be to sum your low end to mono. That also makes life slightly easier for the limiter.
 
use one track for strait in or three channel stereo mic technique for a cab, but not both.

compress the living daylights with a 1176 plugin, route to out and send to another buss that routes to out, compress with another 1176 plugin and EQ buss different. pan them 50 to 75%

use the phase scope on the out and make shure your correlation is beween 0 and 1. if you want it wider, use a stereo width plugin on the out.
 
Greg_L said:
Gee I wonder who that is....:facepalm:
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Really? That would explain it. I happened to cross about 5 of his posts in the last half hour and every one of them was complete non sense, but I didn't want to say anything. Now it all makes sense. Mods, are people allowed to have 2 accounts?
 
RAMI said:
Really? That would explain it. I happened to cross about 5 of his posts in the last half hour and every one of them was complete non sense, but I didn't want to say anything. Now it all makes sense. Mods, are people allowed to have 2 accounts?
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I don't know for sure it's "him", but it's just a guess.
 
drtechno said:
compress the living daylights with a 1176 plugin, route to out and send to another buss that routes to out, compress with another 1176 plugin and EQ buss different. pan them 50 to 75%
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Realizing I'm feeding a troll, wouldn't that cause all sorts of nasty phasing issues?
 
RAMI said:
Really? That would explain it. I happened to cross about 5 of his posts in the last half hour and every one of them was complete non sense, but I didn't want to say anything. Now it all makes sense. Mods, are people allowed to have 2 accounts?
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The style of writing is similar, but the IPs are different.
 
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