Good metal sound with this equipment?

  • Thread starter Thread starter scotty_777
  • Start date Start date
S

scotty_777

New member
Trying to get a good metal guitar tone for my songs. sounding somewhat like this would be awesome https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qtk9c6ZGcM

(August burn red) I don't like the band as much as most, but I love the guitars distortion.

Here's my setup

- Behringer Ultra Metal UM100
- PEAVEY Bandit 112 AMP
- RODE M3 Mic

Guess the mic isn't that important. I've basically been trying on and off for 3 months for a decent distortion. I just can NOT get a good sound. I've looked up reviews for the pedal. Great reviews, so i doubt its there. Maybe the amp is crap? i dont know

Also, when im trying to get my sound with the pedal and amp. should I leave the amp all on middle settings (5L, 5M, 5H) and mess around with the pedals equalisation? or perhaps the other way around?

Im a bit lost. I'll try and get a recording of the best I can get out of the pedal within the next hour or so, and maybe someone clever out there can listen to it and say "your problem is too much so-and-so".

Any wisdom you guys might have is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Ok the link to my current distortion: www.myspace.com/scottrowling [its the track labled distortion test 01]

Please save my sound hahaha
scotty
 
Last edited:
I've been on this quest for three years. To be honest I'm going to say no, probably not too great. I've found it's pretty damn difficult without an expensive tube amp OR a decent digital modelling unit.
Don't use the distortion on the pedal. Maybe use it as a boost (low drive, high volume, eq to taste). Distortion pedals simply don't cut it if you're running clean on the amp. Rely on the amp more than the pedal.

My suggestion would be to go DI into your PC and download this:
http://nickcrowlab.blogspot.com/2009/05/nick-crow-8505-lead-tube-guitar-amp-vst.html

As well as some impulse responses and learn how to use them.
http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/recording-studio/79670-the-impulse-faq-tutorial-thread.html

Don't be put off by running the amp head without impulses, it WILL sound like crap. It's meant to, without cabinet simulation. If you have some cab simulation plugins, you can use those instead of impulses, but do try some different stuff as you'd be surprised at the difference they can make.

I'm certain your results will be almost instantly better. (I was able to achieve results close to that of a my Peavey 6505+). Stick to this and enjoy making songs and learning to mix until you can afford a more beastly amp or a top end POD or something. Your amp isn't bad, though, you've already got far better results than I was expecting so maybe you will want to stick at it :) Remember, a huge part of good guitar tone comes from the bass guitar. Also, your guess about the mic not being important couldn't be more wrong - however, your mic will be fine.

Good luck!
 
Thanks heaps man. More info I coulda ever hoped for there and I'll definatly look into it :)

I really do apprecaite it hey. thanks :D

Scotty
 
ok im stuck on the impulses thing. I use fruityloops to record stuff. how to i use the impulses through that? they really confuse me. read through the post you linked to me 2 times now :(

EDIT: Ok i got it working. i've got the impulse and the amp head running through fruity loops. It sorta sounds really terrible though :S maybe i need to muck around with it a lot more. time will tell. I'll get back to ya ;)

EDIT: ok it's all good to add the plugin after i;ve recorded a clean sound. but when recording a metal song with a clean sound, you cant actually hear what you're going to sound like whilst you play. is there a way around this?

EDIT: Im also hearing the clean sound behind the distortion too well. can't seem to find a way to get the volume of that down :(

Scotty
 
Last edited:
I don't know about FL but you need to turn on input monitoring to hear the effect active whilst you record. I assume it functions the same way that it does within Sonar. If not, perhaps head to the FL forum and ask :)

Hearing the clean sound behind the distortion on playback or recording/playing?
On playback I have no idea...perhaps the effect is only set to 50% on a setting within FL?
I presume you mean recording/playing - That could be down to something before FL. I use a Presonus interface and that has its own mixer before entering Sonar. I have to mute the signal on the Presonus mixer monitoring so as not to hear a copy of it when working in Sonar.

Hope this helps!
 
Try it with just the amp and no distortion pedal. From what I can tell the amp already has distortion. You shouldn't need to add the extra layer of distortion. And IMO distortion pedal sound like ass anyway.

When recording hi-gain stuff, it's good to back the gain off. Which is why you shouldn't need that pedal. Less is more in that respect. Layer your guitars if you want to thicken the sound up. Lots of gain might sound good in the room, but it's going to sound like a fizzy mess when recorded.
 
hey guys

Im just popping in to say i've been trying all the stuff you guys have said and will let you know how its all going when I've made more progress. In the meantime, thanks heaps hey. Hopefully I'll get it sounding swarve soon, as my band's eager to record, and I feel like im wasting so much time getting this right. I have the vocals right as I want them and drums are just sample imputs which im happy with for the moment

Also, you did say Bass sound is a huge part of a good guitar tone. So how can I tell what a good Bass/Guitar tone is without hearing them next to one another? Any tips would be great.

Thanks again :)
 
EtherealEntity said:
My suggestion would be to go DI into your PC and download this:
http://nickcrowlab.blogspot.com/2009/05/nick-crow-8505-lead-tube-guitar-amp-vst.html

As well as some impulse responses and learn how to use them.
http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/recording-studio/79670-the-impulse-faq-tutorial-thread.html
!
Click to expand...

Ok i tried the nickcrowlab thing. only problem is it forced guitar that is in only the left ear to go into both channels, meaning i cant put different recordings of the same riff in different ears to give it that full sound :(

any way around this?
 
Never feel like you're wasting time trying stuff out before recording. Experimenting and practicing is the only way to learn in this area, and the more you do the better your first recording will be :)

About the bass - You'll want the guitar tone to be a bit more thin than you would expect, so that not too much room is taken up when bass is added. Apart from that I can't really think of anything - like I said, you have to experiment. You wont know what's good until you try it.

On the panning issue - not sure I have this problem within Sonar. You have a mono guitar track with the simulation as a plugin? You should just be able to pan that track to the left and then do the same for the right guitar. I seem to remember there were a mono and a stereo version of that amp sim - maybe try the other if you are still having issues. If that doesn't solve it - route the guitar track out to a guitar bus just for that guitar, and pan that bus.
Good luck!
 
what do you guys think of Aplitube metal or Guitar Rig software?
 
I have not tried Amplitube but I do have the LE version of Guitar Rig 3. It's what I use for anything other than metal rhythm guitar, and it seems pretty good. Not having the full version I cannot comment on how capable it is of metal rhythm, but I know Nick Crow amp beats anything on the LE version by a mile for that.
 
Ok I'm uploading a comparrison of my progress between the Nick Crow Amp sim, and my Amp, dist pedal and Mic setup on myspace. I spend about 4 hours on and off fiddling with the Nick Crow setup, and about 2 hours on my amp with the pedal (would spent more time but its getting late and didnt wana keep housemates up :) )

To hear the comparrison go to www.myspace.com/scottrowling

the files are:

"Nick_amp_sim" : the amp sim from Nick Crow

"Amp_Pedal_Mic" : the sound i got from my amp and mic.

I really prefer the amp myself. I fiddled with the Nick Crow sim and have heard basically all I could to what it offeres. Maybe i just suck at the settings though so I'll give it another burl tomorrow. Just let me know, do you get a better sound out of the Nick Crow sim than I do?

Also. I do feel i can greatly improve on the natural amp sound myself. didnt have long to test before it was too late. but I don't think I can get much more outa the Nick Crow sim.

EDIT: Fixed an error where the drum levels were different in both tracks giving a poor comparrison between distortions.
 
Last edited:
scotty_777 said:
I really prefer the amp myself. I fiddled with the Nick Crow sim and have heard basically all I could to what it offeres. Maybe i just suck at the settings though so I'll give it another burl tomorrow. Just let me know, do you get a better sound out of the Nick Crow sim than I do?

Also. I do feel i can greatly improve on the natural amp sound myself. didnt have long to test before it was too late. but I don't think I can get much more outa the Nick Crow sim.
Click to expand...

In my opinion both are equally as good as eachother - just different. I'm not sure which I prefer. You're doing well though :)
Do I get a better sound from Nick Crow? Slightly, I think, but maybe it's just my preferances in tone. Unfortunately I don't have any clips to show you, but I'd suggest a bit less gain on both of your settings there. They both sounded slightly too muddy in my opinion.
Also, the bass tone which was heard on solo at the end could be fattened up. If you do this and make the guitar do less of the work you may find some better results.
I'm actually thinking that it could sound really good with each of those panned either side, or some other variation on that. You can always mix and match - no need to stick to just amp or just sims etc.
If you're unhappy with results, try other impulses some more. Maybe a 50/50 mix of different impulses. I also found some impulses can really help to beef up the bass guitar.
Great work so far!
 
Thanks for stickin with me on this EtherealEntity :)

I have more time to record and test tomorrow so I'll try some of the things you suggested. It's actualyl a lot more fun forging your own sound than I would have thought. will be interesting to see all the files at the end and how I progress hehe.

I'll also have to look into how to get a fat bass sound. I'm guessing up the lower frequencies hehe

thanks again man. I'll keep ya posted on progress
 
Also remember that amp sims act as preamp sections (the part of the amp that gives you your tone) and that impulses act as power amp/speaker sims (the part that makes your tone come to life).

Remember that you can plug your guitar into your peavey and then run the FX Loop Out into your input on your PC and just use an impulse for the speaker sim. That way your getting the preamp tone of a REAL amp and only doing the speaker sim part in the box. In theory it should sound better than a preamp sim (especially with the tone of that particular amp) and it will be easier to fidlle with the amp settings when the physical amp is right in front of you.
 
Metal?

First of all I wouldn't start with any type of software. You want to feel your performance through a guitar amp as you play it. Nothing is more important than the performance.

Second, have at least a scratch/placeholder recording for all of the other instruments before you record guitar (or anything else). Yes, the bass guitar is very important to the guitar sound. So better not try to get a guitar sound if the bass isn't already there.

Third, the amp has to be LOUD. The speaker cone itself flaps around adding a whole 'nuther kind of distortion at high levels. Bring along some ear protection, because the levels are unsafe more often than not.

Fourth, you really have to understand the distortion and EQ. Yeah, the distortion is not all of the way up... but for metal it's still pretty damn distorted. But the line between heavy distortion and useless fuzz is pretty fine. Pay very close attention and you should find it. The high EQ can be tricky at gains that powerful. And don't cut your mids one fraction of a tic more than you have to. Big bass and trebble are nice, but when you put it in a mix the whole thing falls apart without the mids. Keep in mind that much of the recorded metal you hear may be running through a stereo with boosted bass and trebble so the actual guitar sound may be flatter than you think.
 
Kingofpain678 said:
Exactly. I have the peavey bandit 112 and that thing has an insane amount of gain
Click to expand...

interesting. After using the natural amp distortion and thinkin it sounded terrible I sorta went in a different direction. But ok i'll do more testing with the amp itself.

Can anyone link me to the sort of sound I will be trying to make with the bass?
 
ok been doing a fair bit of testing.

I just bought a tube amp blackstar ht5 combo and was excited to blare a real tube amp to record only to find it didn't have enough gain for what I wanted. there goes $650 down the drain... So basically i'm really put out by this.

Still have made basically no progress with the bass sound as well. I'll link you to what I've got, and any tips would be so appreciated you wouldn't believe it. (Link at bottum)

- I've used compression.
- I've used a preamp
- I've used equalisation

But no matter what I do, when the guitar comes in... well i actually got a better sound out of using my zoomII's DI and Amp simulation on the Lead setting. and thats a problem.

I've sadly gotten to the point where I'd settle with mediocre.

When i think i've gotten an OK sound finally (after hours of testing) i go listen to real metal and it makes me wana cry, how far off I am.

A bit sad they'd make a tube amp called blackstar with not enough gain for heavy metal.

Anyway the track is call amp_guitar_newbass and should be at the top of the list. Any tips on making that sound better would be so so so appreciated. as you can hear im a long way off. Bass an be heard by itself at the last half of the track.
 
Last edited:
I might be missing something here....I'm not sure how the name blackstar should relate to high gain?

Anyway, it's always a good idea to try an amp out before you buy unless you're absolutely sure it's going to work for the application you require. If you're ordering online, see if you can find audio examples.

A few things to consider, however...

As I mentioned earlier, when you're recording, you don't need as much gain as you think you do. Less is more, back off the gain dial etc. If you record with too much gain, it's going to come across way too fizzy on 'tape'. For metal, it's advisable to layer your guitars. I generally tend to go for 2 tracks panned left, 2 panned right. This will thicken up the sound a lot. I record metal, and I do not like the guitar tone to be too saturated. As I say, you end up with a fizzy mess. Layer = good, to much distortion = bad.

If your finding that even at the max setting, there is too little gain that it actually detriments your playing, consider getting a tube screamer or some other kind of OD pedal. Not to add extra distortion as such, but to give the tubes a little boost.

Didn't you say you had a peavey 112? Try layering a using the different amps. That's what I tend to do. A track each of the 112 and the blackstar on the left, the same on the right. The variations in tone will add a little extra texture to the sound. I use an all tube Peavey 6505 as my main amp, and layer it with a hybrid Marshall Valvestate 8080. The huge differences in tone between the 2 amps help thicken the sound up, add texture, and the both bring different elements that to me are invaluable to the sound.

Unfortunately I'm at work, so I can't listen to the sample, I'll try to check it out later.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top