Guitar Tricks - Post Here!

[ElegyOfficial]

Because even if you're going to make the assumption that the person giving this advice even knows what they're talking about....and then, even if we're going to assume they have a guitar sound that you think is good (which is impossible top do unless you hear it).......Even if we assume all that, your set-up, room, taste, etc....are all different. If it was just a matter of copying someone else's settings without taking anything else into account, then don't you think EVERYONE would be able to simply dial in a great sound???? It's not that easy.

I totally agree with you man,
Makes a bit more sense now, but i might actually have to refer to someone elses settings to see if it will sound good. but its good to have unique sound (wich is what im working on)

Appreciate your advice!

 

[ElegyOfficial]

Troof /\

I'd just like to add that the copy/paste idea you're doin works ok but it sounds better/fuller if you just play the same part twice, then mess with your panning to taste.
I'll usually use a different guitar or amp or pickup when I play the second part to help it sit in its own space in the mix.
Takes longer...sounds better (to my ears)

Also, for distorted guitars, try turning the gain down. Like if I normally have my gain at 8 when jammin live, I'll back it off to like 6 or 6 1/2 for recording. Mixes better, easier.
And I generally cut out the lows (talkin EQ here) maybe take em from 100hz or up to 200 hz. Depending on what sounds good to you.

And remember...you're listening for what sounds good IN THE MIX.
NOT while it's solo'd.

Has this already been said???

I guess your right, with the what sounds good with the mix and not with this solo, its totally true, but as a guitarist i pay most of my attention to guitars and if it doesnt have that ONE sound i had in mind its messes me up and i totally pay attention to that and thats it

I guess that found my problem right there.


Also with the record 2 guitars, thats crazy insane hard to do, is there anything that can help me play along with it?

 

[ElegyOfficial]

morning doggydude




and to the op:
read this: http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm

read all of it, a few times over. i know its very long but its worth it. once you read that you will have a good understanding of how things in a studio works, youll also pick up some very good tips and gear recommendations along the way.

and if your wanting distorted guitar tone then read this: http://www.badmuckingfastard.com/sound/slipperman.html

Great posts you got there,
Tweakheadz.com doesnt really help me because i kind of already know about all of this, the only thing im new to is the MIDI(I did read all of it, im going to read it again JUST to make sure there is something i need to know i missed)

As for the badmuckingfastard.com This is going to totally help me out with distorted guitars (because im going to be handling distorted guitars ALOT).

I saved both links to my bookmarks, Thanks!!

 

[johnsuitcase]

Depending on the plug-ins you have, you probably already have some very good educational material.

Insert a compressor plug-in and start going through the presets. Try to hear what's different, and notice how the controls are adjusted. You can start to get an idea of what the knobs do pretty quickly. Play with them and see what happens.

This will work with compressors and limiters, reverbs and delays, chorus, flangers, etc. Not so much for eq, though, unless you're using an eq plug that has presets (I don't see many of those.)

Understanding and mastering compression and limiting is probably the hardest/most important thing in audio. There are different philosophies about them, but nothing can screw up a recording like bad compression, except maybe no compression.

The biggest mistake I hear on DIY recordings is lack of compression, the 2nd biggest mistake is too much/incorrect compression.

Master compression and everything else is easier.

Sometimes you'll use compression to catch peaks, by setting the threshold and ratio high, and getting a little gain reduction. Other times you'll set the threshold low and use a lower ratio to get a similar amount of reduction, but the resulting sound is quite different. You should learn how and when to do both.

Sims don't sound like real amps, but they sound good in their own way. Sometimes they blend into a mix great, other times they seem to sit on top a bit.

It's a bit like if you tracked your drums and basic tracks in your bedroom with a bunch of 57s and a little Soundcraft mixer, then went to a studio and tracked the vocals with a U87 and a Neve. You might have a wee bit of trouble blending those tracks.

Mostly, have fun, try EVERYTHING. If you get a sound you like, don't just set it and forget it. Figure out WHY it sounds good, and learn to reproduce it, alter it, etc.

That is, if you really want to learn to record. If you're just demoing songs that you're going to re-record in a studio, then just pick something that doesn't hurt your ears and start recording.

There are way too many great musicians who get sidetracked by trying to record themselves. 4 years go by and they still haven't finished their CD, when they could have saved themselves money and time by working with a pro. Of course, there's a lot of fun in learning it all, but if you're trying to get something done and done well, you might just hire a pro.

Then you can bug him all you want, and have him show you how to get killer tones in person! (plus finish your CD in a reasonable amount of time!)

 

[ElegyOfficial]

My experience has been, after literally spending years trying to get the hang out of it, that recording distorted rhythm guitar is actually pretty easy, as far as recording challenges go. The only tricky part is you just have to do everything right - get a good fundamental guitar sound, perform a right performance, not fuck up your gain staging so nothing is clipping, and then find a mic you like. A SM57 right up on the grill, positioned a bit towards the edge, and you're basically there for a metal tone. Then, just record at least two tracks. For bonus points, EQ one differently (say, one bright and scooped, the other dark and middy), or do four tracks instead of two. For even more bonus points, start mixing relatively distorted tracks with fairly clean ones (to get that wall of sound effect, you actually need a lot less gain than you'd think, you just need to be pretty tight). Pan left and right. If at this point you hit play back and you don't hear something that's "pretty good," then you're doing something wrong.

I still don't pretend to be a masterful engineer by ANY stretch of the imagination, but if you keep doing it long enough something's bound to click and you'll start realizing whatever it was you were doing wrong.

BTW, don't bother with coping and pasting a track and then offsetting it - just do two takes. It sounds WAY better.

Oh yeah, and that Slipperman read is fucking brilliant, even if you don't end up agreeing with everything he says it's just hilariously delivered.

Haha wow every time i read a new comment about my bulletin, i learn SOMETHING new! its insane and i love it.

loving the mic position advice when i get my sm57 ill definately try that, ill need mic positions for when i get the microphone.

I know it sounds better when you record it twice, but i can like record both of them seperately like perfectly, but like i cant keep the metronome with the 2 for some reason, any advice there would be awesome

 

[ElegyOfficial]

Cut the gain for metal stuff. Sounds counterintuitive, but it works.. Too much gain sounds all fizzy when you get a few tracks in the mix.

Do not scoop. Cut the lows. Including 100Hz... Those low freq's typically interfere with bass and kick later. Boost the mids. Yeah we know it sounds weird by itself. You won't be listening to it by itself, you'll be listening to it in a mix.

Do multiple takes. You mentioned you're effectively adding a tiny delay to thicken it all up, (copy/paste/drag a teeny bit) - Multiple takes works even better. I do something real similar to the 3-take approach mentioned on page 1 by kcearl.

well, im starting to think the copy paste thing is only good for rhythm guitars, like just nothing but palm mutes and whatnot type rhythm

 

[ElegyOfficial]

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?1mz24zhzqnn

Here's a snippet from a track I did a few weeks ago. I did not stack guitar tracks. It's one track panned center for rhythm and two lead tracks panned 75% left and right.

The guitars were recorded direct through Amplitube Metal (amp-sim), with compression, EQ and reverb applied to the individual tracks. Reverb is an effect that adds room tone or ambience to the audio.

Very nice!
I usually do 2 tracks pan one right one left and rhythm hard left.
But this one seems more stable and more clear, (comparing to another mix and not mine, so the unclearness is not the guitar playing or mic postitioning)

 

[ElegyOfficial]

Now, I disagree about EQ advice. You absolutely CAN take specific tips from other people about EQ and begin to apply them right away. There are some rules to EQing that you have to learn to be able to apply those tips, but I'll talk you through this.

Proper EQ and comp make a dramatic difference in your sound quality or "tone". Reverb, delay, distortion, etc. are FX more concerned with imbuing a certain style, than improving tone, though in certain situations the right reverb, distortion or delay setting CAN improve your overall tone.

Hmmm, kind of confused.
Why shouldn't i EQ and why should i EQ because one person said "EQ" Others says "Bad idea"

Reverb is a must for everything but guitar in my eyes (due to the style my band is) Like drums i believe reverb is great in some cases, vocals are nice too, but guitar - meh i like a clean dry sound but metal

 

[ElegyOfficial]

Hey great discussion guys, I just wanted to reiterate that I wasn't trying to give the op a cookie cutter recipe for success, just a starting point for him to start thinking of things and experimenting with his own sound. By giving him a basic idea of where I normally start off with my own stuff, done on my equipment, and with my guitar. as it's been pointed out you should not just copy and paste other people's settings and expect a great sound, it's all about experimenting and getting it just right for your particular sound, song and equipment!

Haha Amen

 

[ElegyOfficial]

Sims don't sound like real amps, but they sound good in their own way. Sometimes they blend into a mix great, other times they seem to sit on top a bit.

What do you mean by sims?

Mostly, have fun, try EVERYTHING. If you get a sound you like, don't just set it and forget it. Figure out WHY it sounds good, and learn to reproduce it, alter it, etc.

I have fun recording even though i suck at it at the moment, i just like the idea of recording. And when i get a sound i like i do pretty much what you said. What i do is i have a notebook full of presets and stuff. i write down the preset / whatever and on the right side i give a little description of what it sounds like and why it sounds good

That is, if you really want to learn to record. If you're just demoing songs that you're going to re-record in a studio, then just pick something that doesn't hurt your ears and start recording.

Haha our band has thoughts of that like a remix metal version pop / dance songs. And for some reason my songs sound better when they're covering songs (Im talking about tone and the sounds and everything i believe it sounds great) but i cant find the right sound for our band and thats the problem. and i know i need to figure that out, (as the guitarist i mean, like our band knows what we sound like but not for guitar)

Of course, there's a lot of fun in learning it all, but if you're trying to get something done and done well, you might just hire a pro.

ima stick with home recording haha because where i live theres not much to do so its good to have this hobby (and passion )

Then you can bug him all you want, and have him show you how to get killer tones in person! (plus finish your CD in a reasonable amount of time!)

haha if i had the money i would go into studio and pretty much monitor what the producer does as we record our songs. I would love that but we cant because where i live there are also no studios haha

 

[Atom Bomb]

I was going ot offer some help but it appears fruitless.

Best of luck.

 

[Kingofpain678]

Great advice i'll definately keep this in mind for sure. Yeah when i get my line 6 spider ill have my own settings for amp that just fits our sound.

Plus its always good to have your own sound makes your sound unique.

im gonna tell you right now, DO NOT buy that line 6.

i own a line 6 spider III and it sucks. its very hard to get good guitar tone out of it.
save up a few dollars more and get yourself a tube amp.

 

[johnsuitcase]

im gonna tell you right now, DO NOT buy that line 6.

i own a line 6 spider III and it sucks. its very hard to get good guitar tone out of it.
save up a few dollars more and get yourself a tube amp.

I'd have to agree here. I've recorded a couple of guys with the Line 6 modeling amps and they sound pretty bad through a mic. I think doing a DI track and using the Pod farm plug-in would sound better (though even that can be tricky to get to blend with your mix.)

The reverb comment I understand, but not all reverbs sound like reeeevvvveeeerrrbbb. A very short reverb with a short pre-delay can give your recorded amp some ooomf and depth, even though it won't sound like there's reverb applied. Try looking for a preset that's called like small room, or ambience, or something that suggests a room, without having a long tail.

 

[suprstar]

im gonna tell you right now, DO NOT buy that line 6.

i own a line 6 spider III and it sucks. its very hard to get good guitar tone out of it.
save up a few dollars more and get yourself a tube amp.

I third that motion.. My band's other guitarist has one for practice and I hate it. That 'Insane' channel, what a joke!! At least he doesn't play gigs with it,

 

[DrewPeterson7]

H
I know it sounds better when you record it twice, but i can like record both of them seperately like perfectly, but like i cant keep the metronome with the 2 for some reason, any advice there would be awesome

Nothing to it - just practice a lot until you can. I generally record guitars against a drum loop or drum track and keep time to that, and often find I have a harder time getting a first track I'm happy with - for some reason, doubling my performance isn't as difficult, I seem to naturally synch up a bit with my first take as I play. I've noticed a lot of other guys tend to do this, too - I once watched a buddy of mine blow take after take in the studio, trying to get through this pretty hairy ascending sequence coming out of a bridge. Finally he got a keeper, went back, and doubled it perfectly in the next take.



EDIT - in fact, if you take anything away from this thread, in my opinion this is easily the most important thing that's been said here - more than a good amp, more than good settings, more than good micing technique, more than what plugins you then go onto use, the one "secret" to getting a really good sounding guitar track is just to have a performance that's rock solid. Even with a less-than-ideal tone, if you get two takes down that are absolutely tight as fuck, it's going to at least sound decent, whereas the best recording of a killer rig through a great mic and an awesome pre of a player who's sloppy and is having trouble controlling his instrument is going to sound like garbage - imprecise, muddy, blurred, etc. Absolutely kick ass while you're tracking, and everything that follows will be that much easier.

 

[Supercreep]

If you don't even understand BASIC terminology, you need to educate yourself a whole lot more before worrying about some non-existant software plug-in that will magically give you a sound you should be working on getting out of your amp in the first place.


Here's a tip: Don't listen to people telling you how they EQ and compress their guitars.

^^^^This.

Try to get your mix in front of the mic. If yer rig sounds good, your recording should sound good.

 

[Chibi Nappa]

There are some valid points being made. Simply "taking" a compression setting from someone else and pasting it into your track is a bad idea,

Now, I disagree about EQ advice. You absolutely CAN take specific tips from other people about EQ and begin to apply them right away.

Can't agree with this. I mean, if you have a "muddy" guitar what is to say that the EQ knob is even the problem? Maybe you should correct it by changing the pickup switch or using a different guitar or fingering the chord on a different place on the neck...or cutting EQ at 200 Hz. Or boosting EQ at "whatever" Hz. You just don't know. You can't know unless you are there in person while the song is being recorded.

And the absolute biggest reason you don't use somebody else's plugin numbers is that NOTHING changes the tone more than the guy plucking the strings. Example: I've been playing guitar for 15 years and I love "butt rock" and Phish. My wife has been playing for 1 year and she loves 90's grunge. Take a song we both know. I can be playing it, hand the same guitar off to her without changing a thing, and it will sound totally different when she plays.

Have you ever heard Carlos Santana sound like anything other than Carlos Santana? Have you ever heard Jerry Garcia sound like anything other than Jerry Garcia? Think they had the same settings on every recording? Guitar sound does not come from the gear. Especially gear as far down the line as computer plugins.

Maybe John Doe has a way of bouncing off the low strings that makes a nice clean sound with these settings...But when Marry Jane takes that same guitar out of John's hands, she digs in and now it is a muddy mess.



Besides, without being at the recording session nobody on this board can even tell you if the guitar should or shouldn't be muddy in the first place. Hell if we know what other sounds might want that space.

And you always read stuff like "use less distortion than you would live" or "don't scoop the mids". But none of us know where you should put your distortion or mids for a recording in a room we can't hear. What if your song has no bass guitar and prominently features honking 1940's-sounding AM radio saxophones with a violent metal guitar backing it up? Maybe you should turn to 11 and scoop out every last bit of midrange.

And to translate a bit of sound engineer code: "Less distortion than you would use live" really means your live sound is also ass, and it doesn't work there either. If it works in one place, it works in the other (except when it doesn't. You know how that goes).


So the answer to how you record guitar: Know the sound you need. Make that sound. Capture that sound without mucking it up.

The only real bit of skill involved is ear training: Knowing that the sound you are making is (or isn't) the sound you need.

The problem is ear training is not easy and there is no real way to do it quickly. It takes years. Listen to albums that you know are great. Do it on your best speakers. Do it while sitting still with your eyes closed focused on what you are hearing. Then do it 20,000 times.

 

[ElegyOfficial]

im gonna tell you right now, DO NOT buy that line 6.

i own a line 6 spider III and it sucks. its very hard to get good guitar tone out of it.
save up a few dollars more and get yourself a tube amp.

im buying a 500$ line 6

150W Spider 4 line 6

line 3 does suck.
line 4 is awesome

 

[ElegyOfficial]

Nothing to it - just practice a lot until you can. I generally record guitars against a drum loop or drum track and keep time to that, and often find I have a harder time getting a first track I'm happy with - for some reason, doubling my performance isn't as difficult, I seem to naturally synch up a bit with my first take as I play. I've noticed a lot of other guys tend to do this, too - I once watched a buddy of mine blow take after take in the studio, trying to get through this pretty hairy ascending sequence coming out of a bridge. Finally he got a keeper, went back, and doubled it perfectly in the next take.



EDIT - in fact, if you take anything away from this thread, in my opinion this is easily the most important thing that's been said here - more than a good amp, more than good settings, more than good micing technique, more than what plugins you then go onto use, the one "secret" to getting a really good sounding guitar track is just to have a performance that's rock solid. Even with a less-than-ideal tone, if you get two takes down that are absolutely tight as fuck, it's going to at least sound decent, whereas the best recording of a killer rig through a great mic and an awesome pre of a player who's sloppy and is having trouble controlling his instrument is going to sound like garbage - imprecise, muddy, blurred, etc. Absolutely kick ass while you're tracking, and everything that follows will be that much easier.

Oh, so its a practice thing, damn.
Aright, i sound pretty decent so that's not the problem. i know this because, when i play something and i like it i WANT it to sound exactly like my amp and if that was recorded i wouldnt even have made this forum haha

 

[DrewPeterson7]

Have you ever heard Jerry Garcia sound like anything other than Jerry Garcia?

Sadly, no.










Kidding aside, we seem to have VERY similar production philosophies, even if i tend more towards Satriani and you tend more towards Phish.