To the Mastering Engineer: A question about mastering distortion guitars

LeeRosario

LeeRosario

New member
So I'm listening to a few reference finals of commercial rock music and I'm curious as to what's going on with the guitars. Pick any major song done within the last 10 years.

They seem to come out in front without interfering with the mix at all.

I would think that conventionally, any kind of heavy compression on a mix closes (or gives the illusion of closing) the stereo field, losing some of that clear width in a mix. Yet I listen to these mixes and the guitars are blaring right there, almost separate from the mix.

To me it feels like some kind of M/S technique is being used to process the guitars separately in the mix...

Is there such a thing as specifically processing guitars in a separate stem during mastering? If not, does the mix buss quality at the mixdown level attribute to this?

Could it be simply just the right amounts of compression and EQ?
 
Getting the guitar's to sit right is a combination great playing, production, recording, mixing and a little massaging in the mastering stage but nothing special..

Distorted guitars rarely need much compression, because that's already inherent in their sound, but
in my experience, when used in mastering, good compression tends to open up or widen a mix rather than close the stereo field.

On a guitar driven songs, when mastering, it's worth paying attention to the overall e.q. in the guitar region and how that interacts with the other important elements of the mix. Making sure the mids are filled out can add to the bigness of the sound. To many high's and it starts to sound like a mosquito.

I rarely use any kind of M/s technique. On occasion if the mix is not very good, I will resort to that.... but not much.

The main thing to watch out for when if layering guitar's is tuning and rhythm tightness. For stereo recording it's good to pay attention to the phase.
 
I personally think Mid/Side processing could be useful.. I'm a total amature in mastering, but I use mid / side in ozone 4 a lot.. maybe I shouldn't be as much, but the results I'm getting sound pleasing to my ear.. I think it can certainly give you that up front sound on guitar when it's lacking in the mix.. I suppose that's really more fixing something that should have been addresed at the source or in the mix.. but to me.. if all else fails.. M/S it.
 
are you saying that you like the sound of the guitars being upfront separate from the mix? i understand what you mean, i hear the same thing when i hear the music produced on major labels and on commercial radio stations, but i don't like that sound. to me bass is lost on alot of commercial rock records. it's the guitar hero culture. For the average Shmoe they listen for guitar and vocals, but as a musician i've always listened to records as a whole (as i think most people on this site do). I wouldn't worry about what commercially is going on in music. It's all crap, with a few exceptions, just mix the way you think works best. I've heard your stuff lee, it sounds exceptional. I wouldn't worry about the commercial crap.
 
With alot of bias, I'd say it's just good guitar playing.
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Cheers to that, Bob :D


John and Tom, I think what you guys mentioned are some of the answers I was ready to hear.

It's like one of these 50/50 things I hear in mixes. Sometimes it's just like a "pow, right in the kisser" kind of feeling with the guitars. I guess coming more from guys who are known for their guitar tricks.

Terry Date seems to do this alot in some of the Deftones stuff I've heard. Hugh Padgham seemed to get more extreme guitar separation on 311's Soundsystem album, but I still favor Ron Saint's work with their other albums.

greyharmonix: thanks man for that comment. I guess it's like the saying, "If it ain't broken...."

I really do agree, it is like this guitar hero culture, the bass gets thrown to the back of the bus and it just seems to end there. I personally don't like it when the guitars are EXTREMELY seperated from the mix. Creed's Human Clay felt like that and I hated every minute of it.

But I think I like just enough to clear out some space for the bass, drums and vocals...all that center channel stuff. A perfect blend of outside/inside the mix.

Perhaps it happens if any stereo widening happens during mastering, which I've heard of, but don't really agree with.

But then again, it's just a curiosity I don't see myself dedicating too much time to. :D

Good insight here.
 
LeeRosario said:
Perhaps it happens if any stereo widening happens during mastering, which I've heard of, but don't really agree with.
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I'm with you that phase widening is not something I like or use very often or very strongly, but it can give "room" to the "inside stuff".

But then again, just hard-panning alone can have such an effect, especially if you're not washing it out with stereo reverb or room modeling on the gits. I've helped out with a couple of raw mixes here where the OP had kind of the reverse problem; they were having a hard time pulling the center vocals forward in the mix. It turned out the problem wasn't with the vocals, but that the hard-pan gits were so prominent that they created a "frame" that just distracted too much from the picture in the middle. By just pulling back a bit on the git gain (and maybe just a little HF scooping , I don't remember for sure) the center lead vocals suddenly seemed to leap forward in the mix to proper balance, but without losing the impact or "meat" in the gits.

G.
 
Hey Lee,

I think I know the sound you are talking about. Its usually a Mesa amp with lots of distortion, double-triple-quadriple tracked, with multiple mics on each track...sometimes multiple amps and cabs as well. and yes the guitars are probably bussed as well. But I think adding a 2nd mic a few feet back might be all you need to do. maybe a bit of delay
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
I'm with you that phase widening is not something I like or use very often or very strongly, but it can give "room" to the "inside stuff".

But then again, just hard-panning alone can have such an effect, especially if you're not washing it out with stereo reverb or room modeling on the gits. I've helped out with a couple of raw mixes here where the OP had kind of the reverse problem; they were having a hard time pulling the center vocals forward in the mix. It turned out the problem wasn't with the vocals, but that the hard-pan gits were so prominent that they created a "frame" that just distracted too much from the picture in the middle. By just pulling back a bit on the git gain (and maybe just a little HF scooping , I don't remember for sure) the center lead vocals suddenly seemed to leap forward in the mix to proper balance, but without losing the impact or "meat" in the gits.

G.
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oh yeah. And I think it's just that simple at the end of the day. I guess I think of hearing the feel of good separation as a "pleasant surprise" when it's done right. Helps me rethink my mixes. The less is more attitude...


Falken, I figure the insane layers of tracking is what happens alot of times in this era of production. To think that 5 years after reading the article, I still remember reading about an engineer who lined up something like 12 marshall 4x12 cabs side by side with 2 sm57s each. Way too over the top for me, but a great story for what I'm sure ended up being a uber insane guitar sound.

I don't know, it just blows my mind when I see these books on "recording awesome guitars in 47 easy steps". Just way over the top overkill stuff.


Chalked up to good recording/mixing is a totally legit explaination.
 
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I'd say mix and source sounds are the main contributors, but could also have something to do with how compressed masters are now. Distorted guitars are basically squashed already. So if you compress the master you're probably squashing drum transients, thereby pushing the drums back further relative to guitars.
 
PhiloBeddoe said:
I'd say mix and source sounds are the main contributors, but could also have something to do with how compressed masters are now. Distorted guitars are basically squashed already. So if you compress the master you're probably squashing drum transients, thereby pushing the drums back further relative to guitars.
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Are you saying you can use compression to determine the position of where an instrument sits in a mix?
 
NYMorningstar said:
Are you saying you can use compression to determine the position of where an instrument sits in a mix?
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Not determine the position in the stereo field, but in dynamic range. A common complaint is that people say the snare disappears in mastering. Usually this is because the snare at the mix stage was dynamic and poked out of the mix. So when the overall mix is compressed during mastering and the snare hits have the highest amplitude, the places where there are snare hits will be knocked down. Everything else might 'pump' to a degree in between these areas of gain reduction depending on how the compressor is set. One could argue that the mix should have been better to avoid this issue.

Disclaimer: I'm not a mastering engineer so anyone here is welcome to dispute these statements
 
I wasn't sure what you meant. So what you are saying is depending on the settings of the compressor you could massage the volume of different instruments to stand out or sit back more in the mix. Sounds like a job for a multiband compressor or like you said, fix the mix before mastering it(seems like that would be easier).
 
What I like to do is remove everything below 150 Hz.

Cut about 3-6 db from 300-700 Hz.

and Cut either the 4 kHz, 5 kHz, or the 6 kHz.

After all that is done, I also like to add diversity for my guitars.

So what I'll do is add an LFO equalizer on one of the tracks so that it'll be different from the other, but it won't lose its tone that badly.

And after ALL that, I make sure I compressed, add a stereo widening plug-in, and boom.

The frequencies frmo 1-3 kHz are VITAL if you want your guitars to stick out.

<33
 
It's interesting how much overthought goes into guitars! People love big, growly, gnashy guitars, but because there's such an easy disconnect between the bone-buzzing excitement of 'feeling' an amp pushing >100dB SPL and hearing a recording of that same amp played back at 84dBSPL on studio monitors, the convoluted, additive approaches start to build. More amps, more mics, more tracks, etc. are not always the path to better, bigger guitar sounds.

IME, it's often the simplest tracking approaches that yield the most satisfying results. One well-placed mic often sounds worlds better than several, on an amp that's been set-up more by listening than by feeling ... and a great guitar player will get you 90% of the way 'there' regardless.

In the mix, most of what drives this is simple level! ... Balances! When the guitars are big enough relative to the drums and screaming vocals (which our minds know are big and loud), they seem huge by that role they play!

Tone and frequency balance is important too, of course .. and while I agree with 1k-3k being key for the edge and articulation, the mid and lowermid of electric guitars is what I think separates the men from the boys. Working a mix so that there's room to have energy down in the meatier mids is something that can allow the guitars to convey some of that excitement and feeling you'd otherwise get from the bone-transmission of high-SPLs in front of the amp or at a live show.

Mastering is certainly a step that can embellish on good efforts that came before, and/or help to an extent, but I think it's safe to say that what you like so much about recorded guitars is not something that happened solely in mastering.

-dave
 
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