bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
I wouldn't use a HPF, I'd cut with a low shelf or a 2 octave (-ish) band. I generally just do my best during tracking then make the final adjustments in post.
LazerBeakShiek
It is a life preserver
A single guitar by itself, on an album is so lush. There are many examples in a song's intro.
There is something I am still missing. Beyond EQ.
There is something I am still missing. Beyond EQ.
LazerBeakShiek
It is a life preserver
As a musician isn't there a point where you should be able to 'mocking bird' anything?
bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
Instrument, pickup, playing style, pedals, amp, gain settings, cabinet, driver, room, mic(s), mic placement, preamps, mixing. A lot goes into getting a specific result.
LazerBeakShiek
It is a life preserver
I tried
bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
Not bad. The original seems to roll off the high end somewhere in the chain, and I think they're using a smaller reverb or a short delay on the rhythm part.
Farview
Well-known member
I didn't get to listen to it, but if the guitar is too boomy, adjust the guitar tone.
I set up my studio so the amp was in the control room and the cabinet was in the other room. That way, I could adjust the guitar sound listening to the monitors so I knew what was getting recorded.
It saves a lot of chasing your tail. It doesn't matter what the amp sounds like in the room, it only matters what it sounds like on the recording.
I set up my studio so the amp was in the control room and the cabinet was in the other room. That way, I could adjust the guitar sound listening to the monitors so I knew what was getting recorded.
It saves a lot of chasing your tail. It doesn't matter what the amp sounds like in the room, it only matters what it sounds like on the recording.
rob aylestone
Moderator
Lazer, I think, needs to experiment with EQ - LPF and HPF are not really even EQ in the usual sense - they're just removal tools. I'm terrible at guitar tone - BEFORE - EQ. I have so many parameters, so many orders of processing, so many damn knobs, that I get confused and as every knob seems to rely on the settings of all the others I get bored before I get good. As a bass player who plays guitar, my favourite processor for guitar was actually an old Behringher rack unit that while it could be programmed, had some great presets which worked for me. I quite like modern EQ. Having lots of bands and each one being adjustable from reach narrow so you can boost or cut very small ranges, or set them to wide and have gentle ups and downs, give so much adjustment. In lazer's examples the overall tone is a bit dull and lacking oomph - I can't think of better words to explain. I'm sure the tone he wants is there somewhere, but he's not found it yet. I usually put in a boost, narrow it, then sweep it left and right to see what pops out. If it's horrible, that gets cut rather than boosted. If it sounds kind of good, then I'll adjust the width and amount and try to make the good, more good, then try the same thing lower down or higher up. One of my guitars seems easier to EQ than an other. Odd when they're similar. Whenever I had spare cash in the past, I bought nice guitars and hung them up as a kind of 'sell them if stuck' investment. I have some nice guitars but the most expensive do not sound the best. I bought a Line 6 Variax and a Line 6 floor board processor. These can produce virtually any sound I want - but it's not the nicest guitar to play, but the nicest guitar sounds so boring?
Further up - Laser said something about dynamics and always being a distance away? I wasn't;t quite sure what he meant - but maybe that slightly weak sound is just a distance from the mic thing?
Further up - Laser said something about dynamics and always being a distance away? I wasn't;t quite sure what he meant - but maybe that slightly weak sound is just a distance from the mic thing?
LazerBeakShiek
It is a life preserver
Yes. I had stated the problems I had with using the HPF to counter the proximity bass. More experience needed there fore sure. It became like, farther away.
I used thin.
Im sticking with ADA.
The M88 was 1 foot away.
LazerBeakShiek
It is a life preserver
Look at the bar? How do the peaks look.
The tone knob on board the vehicle? A tone control is subtractive. So it is commonly used to dull a shrill sound. 10 would be as close to open. 'Tone' circuit cut out completely would be wide open. A 250k pot still sounds open and round, nice and strong, and needs little capacitence in the tone control. Like .10-.20 uf. The resistance, adds needed treble, naturally creating potential. As you go up in volumn knob potential, 500k will require more tone capacity. Like 1meg pots are shrill as hell, so you control it back to presentable with a .6+ uf cap. Potential value increase there is a bad game. You start taking away more than you are putting in, it ruins the attack eventually. The most tactically adept move would be to lower the potentials of the knobs and run the thing as wide open as possible. Purest tiny signal amped with a 9 volt. Using ACTIVE PICKUPS. Switching to 10k pots not 500k. Massive body.
From the preamp's point of veiw, you want as much pick attack potential as possible, with the least ammount of capacity. You would NOT play starting on 1, on the tone knob. Not how it works. Potential and capacity works the other way. Once you have the dynamic signal into the preamp you do what you want with it.
Thats what I say anyways. Pretty sure some of it is fact.
rob aylestone
Moderator
There's a few flaws here. Pots are passive devices and do NOT alter sound passing through them, other than reducing it's amplitude. The tonal aspects many people ascribe to them are just a function of the total circuit. A capacitor in series in an audio line removes HF, that is all. The total resistance of a pot across the signal line is a load and this also results in a change to the response. Guitar amps typically have a very high impedance so they do not load the audio line and reduce the HF. If there is a pot in the circuit, then the impedance will be padded to whatever maximum value the pot has - so a 250K, or a 100K pot will have an impact. The other snag is that the wiper, that produces the output is on a logarithmic scale - so the wrong pot for the circuit means the volume will seem to change most at one end or the other. Get the matching right - for the pickup and the amp/capture device and the volume travels smoothly.
So we have in the guitar or bass components that as Laser said, remove HF, but that is all they do. You can change the capacitor value - then the introduction of the capacitors function in the circuit happens at a different frequency. No pot sounds open and round - they don't have this capability - but the value changes the circuit - the whole thing. Change any component and the sound changes but it's not the pot doing it. The capacitor is what is soaking up HF, the resistance controls the proportion of original to cut sound. Don't think tone controls are special - Mr Baxendall hand a huge hand in the evolution of EQ, but it's always cut until you introduce active components. Switch to active pickups and the lower output impedance and you need to change the pots - not for sound quality reasons, but just to get a full range of control back. Inductors will block LF, capacitors block HF - that's what they do. What do pots do? Apart from crackle and wear out, not a lot other than adjust resistance. Swapping a capacitor, with the right pot should produce a gradual change in tone. Get the pot value wrong and all the effect is at one end - but that's usually all. You hear people say that swapping a pot improved the sound. It wasn't the pot, it was the change in the pot's value. A dirt cheap and nasty 100K pot will sound the same as a mega expensive one of the same value. The expensive one might last longer, turn smoother, and keep the dust out better - but it cannot change sound.
In strict electronics terms these circuits should be 'tuned' - resistance, capacitance and inductance have a set mathematical link and it will allow you to select the correct component values if you want the cut to come in at exactly 6.7KHz, but in general people just go a bit higher or a bit lower from the values already in the guitar. It's also forgotten sometimes that we can change the frequency of the cut, but also the amount. Some capacitors, and the circuit they are in will have sharper dips than others. Physically the smaller capacitors work more 'gently' - so if you keep the same component type, and change the value - just expect the frequency to go up or down, and don't expect a bigger amount of cut to be available.
So we have in the guitar or bass components that as Laser said, remove HF, but that is all they do. You can change the capacitor value - then the introduction of the capacitors function in the circuit happens at a different frequency. No pot sounds open and round - they don't have this capability - but the value changes the circuit - the whole thing. Change any component and the sound changes but it's not the pot doing it. The capacitor is what is soaking up HF, the resistance controls the proportion of original to cut sound. Don't think tone controls are special - Mr Baxendall hand a huge hand in the evolution of EQ, but it's always cut until you introduce active components. Switch to active pickups and the lower output impedance and you need to change the pots - not for sound quality reasons, but just to get a full range of control back. Inductors will block LF, capacitors block HF - that's what they do. What do pots do? Apart from crackle and wear out, not a lot other than adjust resistance. Swapping a capacitor, with the right pot should produce a gradual change in tone. Get the pot value wrong and all the effect is at one end - but that's usually all. You hear people say that swapping a pot improved the sound. It wasn't the pot, it was the change in the pot's value. A dirt cheap and nasty 100K pot will sound the same as a mega expensive one of the same value. The expensive one might last longer, turn smoother, and keep the dust out better - but it cannot change sound.
In strict electronics terms these circuits should be 'tuned' - resistance, capacitance and inductance have a set mathematical link and it will allow you to select the correct component values if you want the cut to come in at exactly 6.7KHz, but in general people just go a bit higher or a bit lower from the values already in the guitar. It's also forgotten sometimes that we can change the frequency of the cut, but also the amount. Some capacitors, and the circuit they are in will have sharper dips than others. Physically the smaller capacitors work more 'gently' - so if you keep the same component type, and change the value - just expect the frequency to go up or down, and don't expect a bigger amount of cut to be available.
LazerBeakShiek
It is a life preserver
A 500k CAN sound like a 250k in the range. On 10 they are different.
rob aylestone
Moderator
Yep - that's right but you need to understand what he's saying. The important things are the emphasis on when it's turned up to ten - in this position input is connected to output on the pot - but the key feature is the 250 or 500K resistance is then applied across the line - so a high impedance source and a high impedance destination - so the resistor across changes the match - loading it, in a pre-determined way - the lower resistance will sound more mellow. The other thing is the word sound, in inverted commas, suggesting that the 250K pot has a different 'sound'. It does, but it isn't the pot - it's the effect the pot has on the sound. It's an important difference, because you can get exactly the same effect on the sound by soldering a 250K (or probably a 247K) ten pence resistor across the contacts in a jack to jack lead. You could even market these as a classic 60s sound guitar lead when used to connect a high impedance pickup fitted guitar to a British 60s/70s amp design. The resistor would indeed create a cable that appears to have a sound of it's own. It doesn't, but it uses the chain of guitar, cable and amp to do something. I think people need to understand where the often searched for magic comes from - and it's not magic, it's just electronics theory. You made a crude, but effective filter. We're actually not even disagreeing, but using physics. The really dangerous thing is where somebody could take the thing out of context and get it arse about face. You take a guitar or bass with lower impedance pickups, like I have on my Fender Jazz, and swap the pots, connect it to their Scarlett interface or whatever and discover there's no difference? I read on the internet it made a difference and they copy and past a bit of a post or two - and the administrators post is made to sound faulty, or yours or mine. There is always a context. With X guitar, with Y pickups into Z amp swapping a 500K pot for a 250K pot makes a solid audible difference to the tone. On guitar A with pickups B plugged into Amp C, the difference could simply be a bit less volume and no change to tone.
It's therefore important to understand why this is.
In a way this is a bit like what happens with people using rules. Like those posts where people discuss X/Y mics compared to ORTF and talk about the degrees between them being critical and then use them in a dreadful room, with people too far apart and criticise the microphones - which are rarely the problem. Two mics in the right place in the right room can be magical. Almost ANY two mics, but people don't get it at all.
Sorry for the preaching bit - but to use something, you need to understand what is going on!
It's therefore important to understand why this is.
In a way this is a bit like what happens with people using rules. Like those posts where people discuss X/Y mics compared to ORTF and talk about the degrees between them being critical and then use them in a dreadful room, with people too far apart and criticise the microphones - which are rarely the problem. Two mics in the right place in the right room can be magical. Almost ANY two mics, but people don't get it at all.
Sorry for the preaching bit - but to use something, you need to understand what is going on!
Farview
Well-known member
You are over thinking it. If the sound you are getting isn't what you want, change it. What the electronics are doing to change the sound is irrelevant. This isn't a philosophical exercise, it is about getting a good tone.
LazerBeakShiek
It is a life preserver
Right. Man, I thought the record player sounded just like the amp in the room.
LazerBeakShiek
It is a life preserver
Perhaps you are not supposed to counter the proximity bass. Perhaps it is needed. I do not hear it on any album recording.
Some of my most radio like recordings where right up on the grill. Touching it even with a SM58. Then using a HPF like 80-180hz.
however, the added bass seemed boomy and different from listening device to device. So I thought it bad. If I pulled the microphones back a foot it went away and was even from device to device listening.
Some of my most radio like recordings where right up on the grill. Touching it even with a SM58. Then using a HPF like 80-180hz.
however, the added bass seemed boomy and different from listening device to device. So I thought it bad. If I pulled the microphones back a foot it went away and was even from device to device listening.
Farview
Well-known member
What the amp sounds like in the room doesn't matter. What it sounds like on the recording does.
The sound on a record is the sound of an amp through a Mic, eq'd in a mix and run through the mastering process. It isn't what that amp sounded like in the room.
LazerBeakShiek
It is a life preserver
Yeah..You're probably right.
LazerBeakShiek
It is a life preserver
When I was teen I recorded at Lake Street Studios for Q101 local music showcase. Place is gone now. I never in my life was filled with so much musical wonder and joy. It was so easy to sound good. 20 minutes tracks down. In and out.
Still chasing that awe and amazement. Oh.. thats how they do it....Making clicking and popping noises in the microphone. studying every nuance of what they did. That is not like my home PA microphone when its hot.
I am tempted to try EZ mix a software mixing system that automatically applies preset chains...
Still chasing that awe and amazement. Oh.. thats how they do it....Making clicking and popping noises in the microphone. studying every nuance of what they did. That is not like my home PA microphone when its hot.
I am tempted to try EZ mix a software mixing system that automatically applies preset chains...
Farview
Well-known member
I finally listened to it on my studio monitors. If you are trying for that Social Distortion kind of sound, you need to have the mic on the cabinet, not backed off of it. If it doesn't sound right with a 57 at the grill with the mic pointed at where the dust cap meets the cone, move the mic toward the center for more high end, move it up the cone for a mellower sound. If that doesn't work, put the mic back at the starting point and change the settings on the guitar amp until it sounds right.
It's not difficult, you just have to follow where the sound leads you without getting caught up in what the amp sounds like in the room or how the electronics are affecting the electrical signal. The sound the mic picks up is the only thing that needs to be considered.
It's not difficult, you just have to follow where the sound leads you without getting caught up in what the amp sounds like in the room or how the electronics are affecting the electrical signal. The sound the mic picks up is the only thing that needs to be considered.