Metal-Modelling vs. Micing...

[EtherealEntity]

Hi there. I'm an engineer in training with a fair bit of experience with acoustic drum recording, just starting to delve more into guitar for my own purposes...

I am into extreme metal , technical death stuff etc with blastbeats crazy riffs and powerful solos - I am currently using a 7 string Ibanez with a Peavey 6505+ and an Orange 4x12. Pretty plain stereotypical setup which doesn't tend to go wrong..

However, I've seen a fair few very impressive "full cover" videos going around youtube of metal covers made with programmed drums and recorded guitar. All these players seem to be using some kind of direct in guitar modelling units and it sounds great to my ears.

From what I understand, these units are very easy to get a great recorded tone of out, and micing up an amp seems a lot more difficult to get my desired sound. I don't particularly want to use a modelling unit, and I find the idea of experimenting with mics etc much more satisfying.

I would like to know what your opinions are on the following:

1) What sounds better if both are done to a professional level?
2) Which is easier?
3) Which do you prefer and why?
4) What do YOU think I should go with when I begin my solo project and why? Understand that I am NOT looking for an easy way out. If it takes a year of moving mics infront of my amp to get the right sound, so be it.

Thank you for your opinions and advice

 

[DrewPeterson7]

It really depends what you mean by "extreme metal."

In general, you're better off with a well-mic'd amp, loud enough to move some air, in a decent room through a decent pre. However, there are exceptions. Digital modeling by and large can't hang with the real stuff, but for certain genres of metal - say, electronica/metal stuff - that's kind of a good thing, where the cold, clinical, artificialness of the upper-mids and mids sort of add to the overall vibe.

Alternately, if you're into the "djent" thing, I'm no Meshuggah expert, but the only times I've gotten ballpark to that vibe have been with speaker emulation - even the Marshall TSL100 I used to own got pretty djent-y if I stopped ising my cab and ran a line from my emulated output. Something about the slightly overly present low end really worked for that staccato, super-low tuned riffage.

If you're thinking more like Soilwork or Nevermore or Strapping Young Lad or something in that vein, then definitely go with a mic'd up amp, if you can get the hang of it. More extreme than that, well, it probably begins to matter less - most of the really absurd death metal I have on my iPod (I'm thinking Mithras, here), the recording quality is so shitty that a well-produced demo in that genre just wouldn't sound right.

 

[EtherealEntity]

Hey, thanks
I guess most of the time I'd be doing technical death metal, though not the awfully produced stuff you speak of Perfectly clear, well produced stuff.
Nevermore would be a sound I would be happy with for a lot of stuff, as I write things like that too.
I guess your right about the Meshuggah sound being emulated, after all their whole sound is rather..false or machine-like..I don't know. I guess I can see myself dipping into that now and then but with you saying;
"If you're thinking more like Soilwork or Nevermore or Strapping Young Lad or something in that vein, then definitely go with a mic'd up amp, if you can get the hang of it."
I guess a miced up amp is what I want

I guess this isn't a bad place to ask something else that I was thinking...
It seems (atleast in the environments I have found myself in) that MANY bass players are recorded direct in...
I was wondering about this, as I've got a nice bass rig at home. What do you reckon as to micing that up, or taking the direct out from the amp, or plugging the bass straight in and forgetting amps all together, and processing it with a plugin (I don't have any physical modelling units like a Bass Pod).

 

[DrewPeterson7]

Hey, thanks
I guess most of the time I'd be doing technical death metal, though not the awfully produced stuff you speak of Perfectly clear, well produced stuff.
Nevermore would be a sound I would be happy with for a lot of stuff, as I write things like that too.
I guess your right about the Meshuggah sound being emulated, after all their whole sound is rather..false or machine-like..I don't know. I guess I can see myself dipping into that now and then but with you saying;
"If you're thinking more like Soilwork or Nevermore or Strapping Young Lad or something in that vein, then definitely go with a mic'd up amp, if you can get the hang of it."
I guess a miced up amp is what I want

I guess this isn't a bad place to ask something else that I was thinking...
It seems (atleast in the environments I have found myself in) that MANY bass players are recorded direct in...
I was wondering about this, as I've got a nice bass rig at home. What do you reckon as to micing that up, or taking the direct out from the amp, or plugging the bass straight in and forgetting amps all together, and processing it with a plugin (I don't have any physical modelling units like a Bass Pod).

Ok, yeah, so we're talking about completely different degrees of death metal.

Definitely go with an amp - a 5150 should treat you pretty well, though the Nevermore guys have, aside from a brief endorsement-related Krank experience, mostly been TS9-into-Rectifier guys. Andy Sneap posts a fair amount on his forum and has definitely posted settings and mic positions here and there in the past, so do some reading there - he's also a sometime-5150 user, so you should get something to start with. Basically, though, it's less hard than you think, assuming you're a pretty tight rhythm player with a good picking hand - a couple tracks left and right, SM57 on the grill, and you're good to go.

For bass... Something I struggle with too, so don't take this as gospel. If you absolutely love the sound of your amp, then use it. However, if there's any way you can do a split somewhere, and run one direct signal plus another mic'd through your amp, give that a try. In particular, if you're working with distorted bass, my experience has been this really helps a lot as it allows you to really capture the deep low end through the direct track, but gives you a great, naturally-compressed high end with some nice grit through the amp on the other.

What do you have in the way of recording gear? I'm guessing if you've been recording acoustic drums for a while, a good room, a SM57, and at least one decent pre aren't an issue?

 

[Tadpui]

While I'm a pretty traditional tube amp purist, I think that death metal is one of the few areas where amp modelling can actually produce a very convincing tone. Maybe its because I'm no conneseiur when it comes to death metal/high gain tones, but that's one of the 2 areas where a modeller can fool my ear when done well. Clean guitar and high-gain guitar are those two areas.

I think that the key to success in using modelling technology is to resist the urge to use all of the bells and whistles and to create your own presets from scratch instead of using the factory presets.

But your current setup is a high-quality guitar rig. I have a feeling that modelling is only going to disappoint you now that you've experienced a real rig that's capable of generating a good metal tone.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

While I'm a pretty traditional tube amp purist, I think that death metal is one of the few areas where amp modelling can actually produce a very convincing tone. Maybe its because I'm no conneseiur when it comes to death metal/high gain tones, but that's one of the 2 areas where a modeller can fool my ear when done well. Clean guitar and high-gain guitar are those two areas.

Within reason, yes - you have to be VERY careful with the high end on high gain modeler patches, because a lot of the time you'll get this fizziness that does sound very "direct," but I agree that the mid-gain, edge of breakup to touch-sensitive overdrive is far and away the hardest to get out of a modeler.

Ironically, the best I've really played is the "Blackface" model in a Johnson J-Station, which is several generations removed from what's out there now. It had a very convincing sponginess to the low end... Go figure.

 

[EtherealEntity]

Thanks again for your responses.
I will have a look around the Andy Sneap forum, I remember seeing some good stuff there a while back.
I heard TS9s are pretty good with a 5150 also, might try that.

In the way of recording gear, I have 8 good pres at home on my interface and currently 2 SM57s. Not really much recording gear but a good amount of nice music gear. The room is a standard bedroom, this isn't where I have experience recording drums. But I have an amount of acoustic foam I could use around my amp if that helps. Though I thought, does room really make that big an impact for close micing a blaring loud guitar amp?

What you said about splitting the bass - I don't have a DI box or whatever at the moment for doing that BUT I can take a DI signal out of my amp as well as micing it. Would this be close enough or does this work best with the pure signal from the bass guitar? Thanks

 

[DrewPeterson7]

Thanks again for your responses.
I will have a look around the Andy Sneap forum, I remember seeing some good stuff there a while back.
I heard TS9s are pretty good with a 5150 also, might try that.

In the way of recording gear, I have 8 good pres at home on my interface and currently 2 SM57s. Not really much recording gear but a good amount of nice music gear. The room is a standard bedroom, this isn't where I have experience recording drums. But I have an amount of acoustic foam I could use around my amp if that helps. Though I thought, does room really make that big an impact for close micing a blaring loud guitar amp?

What you said about splitting the bass - I don't have a DI box or whatever at the moment for doing that BUT I can take a DI signal out of my amp as well as micing it. Would this be close enough or does this work best with the pure signal from the bass guitar? Thanks

I'm actually kind of curious on the impact of the room on a loud close-mic'd amp, too - I'd think the (seriously loud) sound coming directly out of the speaker should more than drown out the (way less loud) reflections from the walls and floor and that any phasing issues should be minimal, but then again maybe even having the reflections there is enough to make a difference... FWIW, John Petrucci (who's favorite mic setup is a SM57 and a e906 up close) swears that the room does make a difference and a large room just sounds way better with that pair, and the guy has recorded some seriously good tones in his day so I'd be inclined to at least consider that it makes a difference. However, I record and mix in my bedroom too, and moving my setup is such a pain in the ass I haven't done much experimenting. At the very least, I could see how even quieter reflections could cause slight phasing issues with the main signal even close-mic'd, though obviously WAY less so than with a distance mic.

Acoustic foam, more likely than not, probably won't make a difference - one of the board truisms here is that "foam" is pretty much worthless and that really what you need is mass to absorb low-end energy.

I'd say just go for it, with your amp - I assume that the DI is post-preamp, so you can't split between a gainier and a cleaner signal, but the more options you have to work with in the mix the better, and it's certainly worth experimenting with them and seeing what happens.