The New Tone Thread

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Mate of mine came over the other day - one of my best mates - we used to play in a band together... shit, 20 years ago! Anyway - back then we wrote this. I've tarted it up and re-recorded it :) Guitars sound a little boxy as usual, particular when only one of them is playing, but I shifted my mic between rhythm takes so they sound OK when they're doubled.

Very 80's metal sounding.

View attachment Traditional Metal.mp3
 
JDOD said:
Mate of mine came over the other day - one of my best mates - we used to play in a band together... shit, 20 years ago! Anyway - back then we wrote this. I've tarted it up and re-recorded it :) Guitars sound a little boxy as usual, particular when only one of them is playing, but I shifted my mic between rhythm takes so they sound OK when they're doubled.

Very 80's metal sounding.

View attachment 96844
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Lol. Holy shit dude, that sounds like it could be a Kill Em All outtake or something. That outro solo is spandex ripping!
 
Greg_L said:
Lol. Holy shit dude, that sounds like it could be a Kill Em All outtake or something. That outro solo is spandex ripping!
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Yeah, it does doesn't it! Alongside this in our set at the time we used to play Seek and Destroy! I took it over my mate's house earlier for him to have a listen and he said it sounded like early Diamond Head, that low gain sound.

What you think of the tone/mix though mate? That tip about moving the mic slightly between takes really seems to help.

The outro? Yeah, my boner nearly ripped through my catsuit... that's why those guys used to play like that wasn't it?
 
JDOD said:
Yeah, it does doesn't it! Alongside this in our set at the time we used to play Seek and Destroy! I took it over my mate's house earlier for him to have a listen and he said it sounded like early Diamond Head, that low gain sound.

What you think of the tone/mix though mate? That tip about moving the mic slightly between takes really seems to help.

The outro? Yeah, my boner nearly ripped through my catsuit... that's why those guys used to play like that wasn't it?
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Well the mix is very dark to me. The tones are dark, the mix is dark, all dark unfortunately. Your monitoring situation has got you misjudging low and high end. The levels seem okay, it's just very dark.
 
Greg_L said:
Well the mix is very dark to me. The tones are dark, the mix is dark, all dark unfortunately. Your monitoring situation has got you misjudging low and high end. The levels seem okay, it's just very dark.
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Hmmm, that's annoying - there's no EQ on anything yet. I know it sounds dark in the verses (the bits with the toms) that's just 'cos there's so much low shit coming through there. Surprised you think the rest of it is dark. I'm monitoring on shit headphones but prior to that I'm checking the tone on my AKG 701 headphones... mic placement isn't noticably dark, EQ on the amp is bright, mic is about 2cm off the grill. Sounds bright (but not in a fizzy sour sweet way) in the room. Will try a low shelf on it them.

EDIT - just checked, listening to the solo guitars and stuff as it does sound dark when I listen to it on my stereo.

I think the darkness is something to do with the reverb on the drums.

I did a fair bit of research before deciding on the AKGs, at the pricepoint they were given the best reviews as reference headphones; the only "criticism" of them was that they were lacking in "drama" due to their flat EQ so they didn't have much bass. That could also be contributing to my dark tone.

EDIT 2: Just done some freehand EQ and I've ended up with a long gentle hump in my EQ between 530 and 5K of 3db. Now tight bandwidth or anything so it is a gentle hump - it does add a touch of harshness but does also had a bright airyness. (I hate describing sound - it always comes out like waffle)
 
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Yes you have darkness. The best thing you can do is listen to something that you know sounds good. Say...Kill Em All or old Diamond Head since this is that general style. I checked them myself, and Metallica's "Motorbreath" and DH's "Am I Evil" are both way clearer and more detailed than your mix. Yeah their guitars are heavy and chunky, but they have clear top end. A little snap and sizzle. The drums have snap and punch.

If you gotta use cans to monitor, learn how they work against known good stuff.
 
I listened to your track, JDOD. It sounds pretty good for the style it is. :D I wouldn't add an eq hump to the master as it will adversely affect the cymbals, which are ok as is, just try a small hump at 2-5k or so to all the guitars. I think the bass guitar needs a little thinning between 100-200 Hz, too.
 
Cheers, I'll take a look, bubba.

Greg, I've never bothered to listen to stuff for reference, I'll make a start now!

I don't want to spend too much time on this as it's not really the style of music I'm into these days. Was fun writing those solos though - they must have sounded shit when I used to play them just hacking away at a pentatonic on my Indian strat as fast as possible.

I will post up a re EQd version later. Would be interested to see what you think.
 
JDOD said:
Greg, I've never bothered to listen to stuff for reference, I'll make a start now!
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Lol. Yeah, that's pretty much all you can do when monitoring through less-than-ideal methods. Your cans are lying to you, as most cans do. They're not really for mixing, not even good ones. But if you really get to know them, and how things sound through them, then you can eventually learn to work around their limitations.

This is why he harp on monitors and room treatments around here. Some people refuse to accept it and wanna buck the system, but it's just fact - Monitors are better. What might take 5, 10, 15, 20 mixes on headphones and multiple trips to the car and elsewhere, you can get it right in one or two tries with monitors and room treatments.

But not everyone can do that, so you gotta learn how to deal with whatever headphones you're using. Referencing known good stuff can help with that.
 
Greg_L said:
Lol. Yeah, that's pretty much all you can do when monitoring through less-than-ideal methods. Your cans are lying to you, as most cans do. They're not really for mixing, not even good ones. But if you really get to know them, and how things sound through them, then you can eventually learn to work around their limitations.

This is why he harp on monitors and room treatments around here. Some people refuse to accept it and wanna buck the system, but it's just fact - Monitors are better. What might take 5, 10, 15, 20 mixes on headphones and multiple trips to the car and elsewhere, you can get it right in one or two tries with monitors and room treatments.

But not everyone can do that, so you gotta learn how to deal with whatever headphones you're using. Referencing known good stuff can help with that.
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Yeah, dunno why I'd never really bothered.

Anyway - here's the EQ hump :)

View attachment Traditional Metal ReEQ.mp3
 
JDOD,
Dark it is but I hear that sort of metal as dark. The tweak worked. I used a stereo that I knew well for monitoring until I could afford "monitors". Even then mine are cheap but 100 X better than what I had.
 
2nd clip sounds much better to me Jdude...Nice lead licks man...

I do have some acoustic panels, but I have zero bass traps. Matter of fact, I don't even know how I'd begin with this room the way it's made/built. I do have 2 corners I could stuff 'em into, & I'm sure it'd help, but the other corners isn't an option (one "corner" is the doorway, & the other is a closet, but I might be able to make some small traps for the closet corner, maybe)...



The room is basically a small square, so there's not much more I could do to it really than I've already done. The panels I've got in here did make quite a difference in the flutter/echo sound though...

But, it may not be totally hopeless as I may not be at this place forever, matter of fact I'm looking to move after my income starts on a regular basis, so putting the traps in here now would be pointless really...Still doing the hurry up & wait thing over here, & still feeling like shit, but I'm hangin' on as best I can...
 
rayc said:
Here's an almost completed project for your tonal appraisal:
NOTE - there's nothing on the master buss of this project so you will need to do the old fashioned thing and TURN IT UP.

It's a collaboration as usual but with things slightly different.
The vocal tones are from a Mr Harris.
The bass tones are my Vantage through a Joyo compression pedal, (just a very light comp but it also boost the top end a little), & then a Behringer BDI21 into the interface.
My guitar tones were too dark for the track and my playing a little too buttoned down collar so a denizen of this thread offered to do some tracks: there're L & R rhythm guitars playing different parts, a tremolo guitar up the middle for the "chorus" and a lead guitar in the intro as well as the "change".
Drums - well the cymbals weren't well treated by Soundcloud's compression - are pretty well sorted..
Thoughts?
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Listened to both clips man, & IMO the dropbox clip sounds a bit better in the high end. It's weird how certain sites mess with the quality, I remember using soundclick's free option for a while, & it did the same thing...Not sure why, but there was a difference to my ears (on my old shitty stuff)...

Guitars sound great dude, everything really. Not a thing wrong with the vocals at all Ray, matter of fact, it's much better than anything I could ever do....Love the feedback ending...Only thing I might mess with mix-wise would be the drums, to me they need just a little more "oomph", but that's being picky....Good job Ray!!!
 
Hey Miner,

I was looking at Amplitube's site a few months ago. I was tempted to go that route, but I ended up sticking with my amp. But one thing I keep forgetting to ask you that I always wondered was, what's the difference between their Fender and Marshall, etc...amps, and Amplitube's version of those same amp?

What I mean is, they have (for example) "Fender Twin Reverb". But then they have their own version of it and just call it "American Clean Reverb" or something like that. In the amp list, they actually tell you what each of their amps corresponds to, like "Our "American Clean Reverb" is based on the "Fender Twin Reverb", etc....But they also have the actual "Fender Twin Reverb" as well.

Why have both? What's the diff?
 
RAMI said:
Hey Miner,

I was looking at Amplitube's site a few months ago. I was tempted to go that route, but I ended up sticking with my amp. But one thing I keep forgetting to ask you that I always wondered was, what's the difference between their Fender and Marshall, etc...amps, and Amplitube's version of those same amp?

What I mean is, they have (for example) "Fender Twin Reverb". But then they have their own version of it and just call it "American Clean Reverb" or something like that. In the amp list, they actually tell you what each of their amps corresponds to, like "Our "American Clean Reverb" is based on the "Fender Twin Reverb", etc....But they also have the actual "Fender Twin Reverb" as well.
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From what I've read, they basically re-did their software algo & upgraded however they model the amps/cabs/etc, to a much higher level dude...

The amps/cabs/whatever that are officially licensed by Fender/Marshall etc. are much better sounding to me Rami. The "American Clean Reverb" is based on a Twin, & AFAIK, the actual "Fender Twin Reverb" in the Fender bundle/pack is modeled/tweaked using a real amp, somehow... I can say for a fact the new Marshall models kill the older ones (the old ones were named "British Lead" or something like that), & actually sound pretty damn close to the real thing...

RAMI said:
Why have both? What's the diff?
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IMHO there's no sense in having those old versions, but I dunno if you can get around 'em or not. I've had Amplitube for years now, so I basically got in with it when the "old" amps were new, if that makes any sense. If I were to go that route now, I'd just try to bypass all the older stuff, & go with the "official" Marshall, Fender etc...

I will give 'em credit for AT4's cab section, with the different speaker choices it does sound really similar to the real thing, but, it's still lacking the 3-d quality you get from moving air into a mic...

I honestly don't think your tones would improve if you switched Rami, matter of fact, I think they'd suffer because the last few tunes you've put up, IMO, the guitar tones have been stellar dude...
 
Rechecked my miking this morning (with a big lamp under my arm and the shade pressed against the grill - it's a really dense grill!) my mic placement has been quite dark lately. The cap of the new speaker is a lot smaller than the old one and I hadn't changed my marks. I knew it was smaller and I thought I was compensating for it, seems like I wasn't compensating anywhere near enough.
 
The Keeper slightly tweaked - I know this isn't the clinic but in many, many ways it's better so I'll abuse your patience with a remix of The Keeper that attempts to address Lt. Bob's desire to have the drums pump a little more.
I didn't do much and hopefully didn't do too much. Does this version do it?

I shan't bother with Soundcloud as I'm after critical listening. This is a 320 MP3 for download or to play from the cloud.
Thanks in anticipation.
 
rayc said:
The Keeper slightly tweaked - I know this isn't the clinic but in many, many ways it's better so I'll abuse your patience with a remix of The Keeper that attempts to address Lt. Bob's desire to have the drums pump a little more.
I didn't do much and hopefully didn't do too much. Does this version do it?

I shan't bother with Soundcloud as I'm after critical listening. This is a 320 MP3 for download or to play from the cloud.
Thanks in anticipation.
Click to expand...

Hi, Ray. My feeling is that the cymbals are much too loud. Can you tweak the BIAB mix?
 
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