Differences of opinion in guitar tone

  • Thread starter Thread starter amra
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amra

amra

Well-known member
What do you do when a musician insists his tone sounds just the way he likes it (the recorded version of it) but it sounds like ass to you? I can't get what I would consider a good sounding track of this guys guitar tone, but he insists it sounds perfect,and is pleased as pie. This is just for demo quality recordings, so I left it up to him, and left it the way he wanted it. IMO, it sounds way to 'glassy' for lack of a better word, both live and recorded. These guys are all about the death metal sound, screaming type vocals, which is not exactly my thing in the first place. My position has been: "Whatever floats your boat..."


How do you guys handle these situations?

Amra
 
If you are not into that type of music, you might be down on his sound because of that. The sound could be appropriate, just not what a 'great' guitar tone 'should' be. Ultimately, the band needs to be happy, not you. Anyway, if you take his sound away, he won't be able to perform his parts as well as he could if he was comfortable.
If the band is comfortable, they will play better. A good performance with questionable tones always sounds better than a half-assed performance with great tone.
 
Like you Amra, I don't always like what I hear. I've developed the attitude of just record it to the best of my ability so that it sounds as much like the original live version as possible and keep my oppinions to my self. If a client is happy with it then that is what matters, even when I know I could have tweeked something to have made it sound better (in my ears anyway.) Remember, they hired you so give them what they want, even if you don't like it.
 
There's no accounting for taste. And some folks obviously don't have any. I had a metel guy come in with a stereo 10 band graphic EQ out of a bad home stereo in his guitar rig set up with the big smiley face setting. Jezus Christ. :eek:
 
I bury it in the mix. At least, the last band I did, where there were two guitarists, one with great tone and one that just buzzed like a fridge. His higher solo/licks didn't sound too bad with a bunch of reverb, sitting back in the mix, whereas I buried his rhythm stuff so it was pretty much inaudible. He didn't seem to notice.
 
Was just thinking about this same thing

I experienced the same thing with the rhythm guitarist in my last band. I thought of him as a "bedroom guitarist", his sound was great when he was playing solo but didn't fit in our mixes.

His fat, syrupy, overwhelming tone didn't translate worth shit when recorded. Even after speaking with him about why his tone needed to change and actually showing him the wave forms and how they conflicted with the low end on our tunes, he wouldn't do any significant knob tweaking on his amp.

I had to EQ the crap out of his parts (high pass filters galore)....to resolve the frequency conflicts, then I'd mix them way back.

Some people have ego's much larger than their common sense.

The best fundamental newbie tips I gleaned from this forum about recording guitars is:

1- Get the sound you want at the source (amp)

2- Record a with lots of midrange, not much low end, not a lot of brittle highs.

3- Use the high pass filter on your mics.

4- Use far less distortion than you would live.

5- Spend the time getting the best mic position....it's worth it.

This is all bloody obvious to the intermediate level and up recordists, but it's manna from heaven for newbies.

Bart
 
How about this: plug his guitar into a DI, record the mic output direct, send the instrument out to his amp. Set up a mic and record the amp too.

Then later when they're not looking, reamp the DI track to taste ;)

Tell him the DI is necessary in the studio since the transformer acts as a DC filter, and it's very important not to have DC in a recording :rolleyes:
 
mshilarious said:
How about this: plug his guitar into a DI, record the mic output direct, send the instrument out to his amp. Set up a mic and record the amp too.

Then later when they're not looking, reamp the DI track to taste ;)

Tell him the DI is necessary in the studio since the transformer acts as a DC filter, and it's very important not to have DC in a recording :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Well, the big risk is that some dudes out there know a bit about this stuff, and lost trust is hard to regain..
I'd not lie about anything.. only be 'smooth' in beeing fair and honest...
 
EQ Guitars

A band I am recording is very understanding with difficulties in guitar sound...

The guitarist has a Crate 2x12 that chugs at about 250hz really badly... I think it's the speakers.

I had him play through my Celestian cabinet and it sounded 100% better. I showed him where the guitar overlapped with the bass frequency and chugged really bad and he understood.

The moral: Maybe you could offer an equipment upgrade for the guitarist. Guitarists can be gearheads, you could take advantage of that perhaps... "You know, Sepultura uses this amp/stack :)"
AND/OR
If you explain in technical terms why: "That probably works live, but in the studio etc.. etc..."
 
Steal Sessions said:
Well, the big risk is that some dudes out there know a bit about this stuff, and lost trust is hard to regain..
I'd not lie about anything.. only be 'smooth' in beeing fair and honest...
Click to expand...

Well I was kidding about the DC filter, but to quote Homer Simpson, that's a half-truth :D

If you have lots of problems with bad tones, I would just make the DI standard operating procedure, and use the reason to keep options open during mixdown, such as blending in clean tone or something. That way nobody feels like they are being singled out because their tone sucks.

This sort of thing makes me glad I don't deal with electric instruments very often . . .
 
:cool:
mshilarious said:
This sort of thing makes me glad I don't deal with electric instruments very often . . .
Click to expand...

Lucky dude!!! I am very excited. At the jazzfest here this year John Jorgenson is bringing his Django Rheinhardt band to the club where I work. I'm gonna do FOH!!

This is a good thread. A lot has been said about distorted guitar, but not just guitar in general. The same rules apply, for the most part.

In addition to all the other advice, I would add lay off the effects, if you can, or again, be ready to redo the track if it's too wet. You need a good balanced tone to start with.

Same with bass. It's a bass, it doesn't need more low end. Leave that EQ alone, dude, and we can throw the microsynth on later.

Another thing to explain to people: It doesn't really sound like that.

Anyone seen this?
A guy and an engineer will stand six feet away from his rig, fire it up, say "Sounds good!" and the engineer slaps a mic two inches away from the grille.

Diplomacy is key. Explaining some of these realities will go a long way.
 
Profound

Boingoman said:

Anyone seen this?
A guy and an engineer will stand six feet away from his rig, fire it up, say "Sounds good!" and the engineer slaps a mic two inches away from the grille.

Bartman's Reply:

Awesome observation dude! Again, probably bloody obvious to experienced people, but a huge "aha" for the newb to intermediate level forum member.

I have just one question....Do you know a good doctor who specializes in hearing restoration? When I put my ear two inches away from that Marshall cab so I could hear what the mic was hearing.....I sorta blew out my eardrum.

Just kidding :-)....very good advice.

Bart
 
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