Big Guitar Sound

  • Thread starter Thread starter DogmaticVox
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DogmaticVox

DogmaticVox

Meh...
Hi all,

I'm working on a couple tracks and I thought I'd share them and see what you guys have to say. I'm trying to get a that "Wall of Guitars" sound similar to bands like HUM or Failure or (insert 90's alt rock band here).

I haven't recorded vocals yet as I'm still working on lyrics, but here is everything but.

This first track is called "The Flood". I'm happy with it and really stoked on how the bridge came out (starts at 3:00). HERE IT IS

This second track is called "Escape". I was going to re-record the ending, but I think I like how it just fades out; but I may re-do the "solo" though. HERE IT IS

Oh yeah... and CRANK IT UP! ;p

-G
 
I listened to Flood. I think there might be some good sounding guitars somewhere in there. But it still needs some work.

The sound is muddy. The loud bass (turn it down) might contribute some to this. But the guitars have a lot of energy in the 300-600 octave. Maybe a little lower too. They don't have quite enough sizzle in the high mids. There's no bite in them in the 2800hz range.

I'd roll off the lows on the guitar up to at least 120hz as well.

This might need a retracking. And I think I'm probably sounding too negative because I think that there's some good tone somewhere in there. Just needs some practice and work to bring out.
 
I'm not a huge fan of the guitar tone, although you are on the right track. They need a little more gain in my opinion, as well as a high shelf to help them cut through a little bit.

They also need some EQ and compression. I would recommend running Waves C4 with Andy Sneap's preset on them. If you don't have access to waves C4 plugin, the basic idea is to use a frequency based compressor on the lower mids. from about (175-200) - (350 - 400).

As it is now, the guitar tone is "big" but only in the sense that it sounds like it's moving a lot of air. There's a lot of useless lower mids in it that don't contribute to the texture of the tone, they just move the speaker. It sounds like you put a 57 in front of a dull part of the speaker and and then cranked the bass on your amp and killed the treble. Make no mistake, if you want to capture a good guitar tone, more than likely some part of the speaker cone needs to be involved with the mic location. Size doesn't come from a lot of bass or lower-mids, nor does it come from an excess of trebbly fizzy gain. It comes from tonal clarity, which starts with having a good tone, and accurately capturing it.

I noticed you said "crank it up" which is cool, because rock music needs to sound good loud, but you have to mix it at a normal, sometimes even quiet volume because that's when the flaws in your mix will make themselves most apparent. In this case, your tone sounds a lot muddier at a quieter volume.

There might be other things holding you back too, like old strings, bad pickups/guitar, shitty amp. So work on your tone first, and then work on capturing it right.
 
You guys suck! You're supposed to say it sounds awesome! haha
Just kidding.

Thanks for the tips and giving me some good pointers. I really appreciate it. The good thing is the guitars were recorded using Amplitube 3 so I can modify mic placement, etc. without having to re-track. I really didn't mess with the EQ that much, so I definitely have some work to do there, but I think it will clean it up a lot.
 
Okay Triple and Fade, how is this? Flood REMIX

Did I kill too much bass? Am I still on the right track or did I make a wrong turn?

thanks,
G
 
Yeah, better, but you killed too much bass. These guitars need some more presence at 125 Hz and 500 Hz. I still think they need more gain too. I would say go halfway between what you had and this, and then up the gain, and you should be pretty close.
 
I really liked Escape. That one has real potential. I'd focus on that one.
 
I listened to the three remixes.

Mix one eviscerated everything that was good about the guitar sound. So throw that one out.

I think Mix 2 was my favorite. It seemed to be the one that best kept the original "growl" around and sounded best in the high mids. Mix 3 was close, but it had a cloudier sound to my ear.
 
Im gonna disagree, I think the one labeled "mix 3" (it shows up as flood 4 in windows media player) sounds much better. I dont know if you changed the levels of the bass guitar or anything but overall that mix sounds way better. flood 3 has a little bit too much 1.5k in the guitars and doesnt have enough balls from the bass and the 125 hz range of the guitars. Flood 4 sounds the best to me, definitely the most natural.
 
None of them sound particularly good. I'd say 3 is the best, but it's still pretty bad.

The guitars sound scratchy and thin. Definitely not the clean meat you find in modern rock guitar sounds.

Forget about corrective EQ and focus on starting with better sounds from the amp.
 
Greg_L said:
None of them sound particularly good. I'd say 3 is the best, but it's still pretty bad.

The guitars sound scratchy and thin. Definitely not the clean meat you find in modern rock guitar sounds.

Forget about corrective EQ and focus on starting with better sounds from the amp.
Click to expand...

Definitely this. Before anything that I or anyone else says about EQ, work on getting better tone. Your tone from the amp should be 90% of the finished sound, and the EQ should just be the last little adjustments that make it perfect. Dont try to dig a good sounding tone out of a pile of crap, because that isnt gonna work.
 
Sounds good, but I think it has a bit too much mids, just a lil bit, I can scarcely point out the distortion in there. But if that's what you're lookin for then that's fine. Just thought the little fuzz in there is kinda throwin off the sound a bit. But it sounds good. I've also been lookin for that big guitar sound in so much music that I hear. It's hard especially if you're limited with what you have. But what all make with what we have.
 
I like the song, a lot - can't wait to hear vocals on it. I'm curious what preset you're using in Amplitube 3 and what kind of guitar you used. I'm pretty happy with the metal sounds I've gotten from A3. I'm not sure what to think about this one. Of course, I have no idea what those bands you mentioned sound like or if your sound is close or not. All I can say is that the tone sounds almost really cool :cool:, it's just a little something that bugs me.
Good Luck
:D
 
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