The Guitar Tone and Mix Thread

  • Thread starter Thread starter Armistice
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Nah, not going to try to start another 'nother thread. This is it. It would be great if we could change the title of this one, or if a mod could do that.
 
Robus said:
The narrow EQ notches in midrange of the heavy guitars, that was reducing harshness?
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Yes, that was the intent. There were a lot of freq's in that range that spiked greatly when EQ sweeping. They didn't appear to be adding any harmonic content that was useful or in key.

Robus said:
The lead guitar is more abrasive, but is pretty low in the mix.
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It needed to be grittier and more aggressive to poke through the heavy guitars. It needed attack for the small lead section before the second verse.

Robus said:
That tells me your master bus plugins aren't the trouble, if indeed there is trouble.
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I've been trying to say that for awhile now. The master bus plugins are a compressor and a limiter. The compressor is reducing volume by about 2.5db max, and very slowly. Same for the limiter. Those are not the cause of any trouble. It is the guitar sounds.

Robus said:
When I turn the volume up, it's definitely those pointy midrange frequencies that make me want to turn down again.
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Good, that's what I want to know. So it's better with the EQ cuts? Are you able to EQ sweep that song and tell what frequencies seem to be the most harsh to you? Can you pinpoint where the issue is, frequency-wise? Of the 20 or so amps I have at my disposal, and 30 cabinets, I always come back to the same 2-3. Therefore, fixing any problem here would make things easier for other tracks. It's mostly the same equipment and processing.

Robus said:
Is anybody else telling you the mix is harsh? Do you think it is?
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Not really. You and Nola, that's about it. But I have been giving you guys the benefit of the doubt because I do believe you have good ears and could be hearing something I am not. I don't think any modern alternative rock stuff can be played very loud without some midrange instrument becoming overwhelming at some point, and it's usually the guitars.

But...if I am mixing the guitars poorly, or setting up the amp sim suite deficiently, I'd like to resolve that. It could be something I've overlooked, like my mic placement, for all I know.
 
I'm not skilled at identifying frequencies by ear, but would guess what I'm hearing is in the 1500-2000 range.
 
Robus said:
I'm not skilled at identifying frequencies by ear, but would guess what I'm hearing is in the 1500-2000 range.
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Do an EQ sweep in your DAW during the sections you find most "abrasive". Would you mind?
 
I pulled your June 7 Mp3 into a DAW along with a few of my mixes for comparison. I did hear something interesting. It's in the chorus and the heavy parts of the song.

Try this. Set an EQ with about q 0.5 and boost the gain, then just sweep it from about 2000 to almost 6000. What I'm hearing is a continuous swirling noise. After I listened to it for a while with those frequencies boosted, I could hear it clearly in the finished mix. Do you hear it? What is that? It wasn't there in any of my songs that tested for comparison.
 
Robus said:
I did hear something interesting. It's in the chorus and the heavy parts of the song. Do you hear it? What is that? It wasn't there in any of my songs that tested for comparison.
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It's probably one of the cymbals. I mean, of course it's going to sound swirly when you boost it...that's what boosting the gain does. At normal gain, it sounds ok to me. I could see about EQ'ing the cymbals a little tighter. The only thing is, I've gotten away from bouncing the drums out of SD, and the EQ within it is not very good and very limited with Q. I could slap an EQ across the drum channel, perhaps.

Can you narrow the freq down to where it's the most annoying? Even further than you have?
 
It's got to be a cymbal. It's pretty strong across the whole range from below 2000 almost to 6000. It seems most intense in the lower 2000s. Like having a jet engine going in the background. Might be what is jumping out at me as I crank it up.

Listen, if it's cymbals then it is what it is. We've established that we have different taste in cymbals, so I'm not the one to judge.

I wonder if we are really hearing the same things. You monitor in headphones. I only use speakers. It really does make a difference. That glitch that you heard so clearly on my last song, I only noticed it when I put on headphones.
 
Robus said:
Nah, not going to try to start another 'nother thread. This is it. It would be great if we could change the title of this one, or if a mod could do that.
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We can change the name. What would you all like it to be called?
 
Robus said:
It's got to be a cymbal. It's pretty strong across the whole range from below 2000 almost to 6000. It seems most intense in the lower 2000s. Like having a jet engine going in the background. Might be what is jumping out at me as I crank it up.

Listen, if it's cymbals then it is what it is. We've established that we have different taste in cymbals, so I'm not the one to judge.

I wonder if we are really hearing the same things. You monitor in headphones. I only use speakers. It really does make a difference. That glitch that you heard so clearly on my last song, I only noticed it when I put on headphones.
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Both the guitars and cymbals are pretty active in the 2.5khz range. I already do a guitar cut there, but let me look at the cymbals too. I don't think I EQ the cymbals in that area. I'll check it out. It could just be a buildup of things right there, as you mentioned before, including the vocals.

That helps a lot, thanks.
 
Excellent work all around, Taras. I love how the eq'd guitars give space to the vocal. It's really obvious between the un-eq'd and eq'd takes. Not a fan of the monotone fizz in the raw heavy guitar clip, but it doesn't seem to affect the final mix. Love the song. Still can't get enough of your voice. :)
 
garww said:
I don't have a whole lot, but I do have tone : )
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Bring it, bud! We'd love to hear.

I posted acoustic tones not too long ago. Not the idea behind the thread, but it IS guitar tone. No one was offended. Got some good feedback.
 
andrushkiwt said:
Both the guitars and cymbals are pretty active in the 2.5khz range. I already do a guitar cut there, but let me look at the cymbals too. I don't think I EQ the cymbals in that area. I'll check it out. It could just be a buildup of things right there, as you mentioned before, including the vocals.

That helps a lot, thanks.
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That's what I think too. Just a lot happening in those frequencies. Can you render your drums dry, and then do your own processing? Or maybe just the cymbals or overheads? What I found with both Addictive Drums and EZDrummer, the presets have a lot of processing out of the box. Sometimes it's helpful, sometimes not.
 
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Here is a condensed guitar part for a song I'm going to start tracking. I'm going to do a clip with a Mesa Boogie Mark V and (later) the same clip on a Marshall DSL40c.

Here is the Boogie.

MesaCrunch.wav - Google Drive

Settings:

Les Paul, bridge pickup
-- Volume - 8
-- Tone - 8

Boogie - Crunch Channel. Boogies don't have numbers, I'm giving settings as though the knobs were labeled from 1 to 10
-- Gain - 3.5
-- Master Vol - 4
-- Presence - 2.5
-- Treble - 4.5
-- Mid - 4.5
-- Bass - 4.5

Graphic EQ turned off.

Edit - SM57 pointed straight, right on the edge of the dustcap.
 
That's sounds good 3M. Very old school crunch, reminds me of the Rocky Horror soundtrack. So you have the full power Mark V? I'm pretty new to Boogies, never having played one until I bought the Mark 5:25 in October. It's definitely a darker tone that what I was used to. They seem to be really midrangy, a bit nasally even. The trick to dialing them in seems to be to counteract that tendency without scooping too much.

I am not finding much use for the crunch mode of channel 1 so far. Mine just has too much gain no matter what I do. I've been using the fat mode for single coils, clean mode for humbuckers. The latter combination have given me the best crunch tones I've seen from this amp so far.
 
Robus said:
Be the change you want to see.
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Well, from this computer I have a clip of me not getting tone. I'm experimenting to see if I could bang a stick on the floor for a kick. For this piece of carpet bangin', I used a Tonelab ST for strings. I'm trying, but not gettin' get. I liked the sound, but tone is thin
 

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