Guitar Tricks - Post Here!

ElegyOfficial said:
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
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EVERYTHING about guitar is a practice thing, so yes.

Another thing to think about here - when you're playing and listening to your amp and it sounds "exactly" like you want it to, you're listening from, probably, about 6' off the floor and maybe 10' back. When you record, your mic is "listening" from a couple inches off the floor and less than an inch from the speaker. Sit down next to your amp, turn it down, and get your ear up next to the speaker and start twisting knobs until you like what you hear.

And every single Spider I've played, from the originals through the Spider Valves, has left me very underwhelmed (though the Spider Valves have a great clean). For $500 you can do a lot better - if you're into heavy music (and you seem to be), I'd try to snag a Mesa F-30 or maybe a Nomad for that.
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
EVERYTHING about guitar is a practice thing, so yes.

Another thing to think about here - when you're playing and listening to your amp and it sounds "exactly" like you want it to, you're listening from, probably, about 6' off the floor and maybe 10' back. When you record, your mic is "listening" from a couple inches off the floor and less than an inch from the speaker. Sit down next to your amp, turn it down, and get your ear up next to the speaker and start twisting knobs until you like what you hear.

And every single Spider I've played, from the originals through the Spider Valves, has left me very underwhelmed (though the Spider Valves have a great clean). For $500 you can do a lot better - if you're into heavy music (and you seem to be), I'd try to snag a Mesa F-30 or maybe a Nomad for that.
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What i dont get is why everyone hates it? all the reviews on youtube and all reviews on musicians friend they all loved it. i mean im not "Pissed" because you hate it. Its just worrying me that i waste 500$ on an amp that is my dream amp (Supposedly) and it "sucks" haha.
 
Here's another little piece of advice about EQ... crucial detail. Your mix is like a bookshelf and each frequency range is a section of that bookshelf. There's only so much space in each section for sound, so what happens if there's too much going on in one frequency range is your sound will start to muck up or even worse, begin to clip (clipping is what happens when your levels get too high... the sound distorts and NOT in a flattering way). Basically, if you stuff too many books into one section, you'll break the damn bookshelf.

So, let's say you decide to BOOST (increase level of) your kick drum sound 4 or 5 db in the 60-85 hz range. This will add some of that "punch you in the chest" sound that's good for metal-core. However, it might be a good idea to slightly cut (reduce level of) your bass guitar in the same range (60-85hz) to make room in your mix for the EQing you just did. The idea is: go ahead put a book into the shelf, but make sure there's room for it. If there isn't, rearrange things to MAKE room.
 
BTW Joey Sturgis does everything direct (NO amps) through a program called Pod Farm. Some people rave about it. As for me, I mainly use Amplitube for metal stuff and Waves GTR for clean sounds, blues and punk. The amp-sim I hear the BEST stuff about is Peavey Revalver MKII (sim means "simulation" btw - a fake amp that tries to "simulate" the real deal). I might DL the demo and check it out myself cuz people fucking LOVE that program.
 
chicopunk13 said:
Here's another little piece of advice about EQ... crucial detail. Your mix is like a bookshelf and each frequency range is a section of that bookshelf. There's only so much space in each section for sound, so what happens if there's too much going on in one frequency range is your sound will start to muck up or even worse, begin to clip (clipping is what happens when your levels get too high... the sound distorts and NOT in a flattering way). Basically, if you stuff too many books into one section, you'll break the damn bookshelf.

So, let's say you decide to BOOST (increase level of) your kick drum sound 4 or 5 db in the 60-85 hz range. This will add some of that "punch you in the chest" sound that's good for metal-core. However, it might be a good idea to slightly cut (reduce level of) your bass guitar in the same range (60-85hz) to make room in your mix for the EQing you just did. The idea is: go ahead put a book into the shelf, but make sure there's room for it. If there isn't, rearrange things to MAKE room.
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I like that analogy...
 
ElegyOfficial said:
What i dont get is why everyone hates it? all the reviews on youtube and all reviews on musicians friend they all loved it. i mean im not "Pissed" because you hate it. Its just worrying me that i waste 500$ on an amp that is my dream amp (Supposedly) and it "sucks" haha.
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I've been in 2 bands where the guitarist used a line6 spider. One was an early 2x12 combo, the other was the head/4x12. I've messed with both, trying to dial em in better, and I couldn't get a sound I liked out of either, via cab/mic or direct out. That's why *I* don't like em. I can make my Crate solid state 2x12 sound better.. I can get 1/2 way decent tones out of a POD in the studio, it's just those crazy amp-sim settings on the spider series.. Maybe the spiders have shitty poweramp or speakers or something that wreck the sound... I never heard a spider 4, maybe they rock, but I wouldn't guess that based on what I've heard from the earlier versions... For $500 I'd get something else. Just my opinion...
 
chicopunk13 said:
Your mix is like a bookshelf and each frequency range is a section of that bookshelf. There's only so much space in each section for sound... Basically, if you stuff too many books into one section, you'll break the damn bookshelf.
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I like that metaphor. It's exactly like that.

And if you choose your books carefully, you need to use much less EQ in the mix.
 
Chibi Nappa said:
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.
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Man I'm glad somebody finally said this. Equipment is secondary. I didn't say it's not important, but this is exactly why a person can know all the notes & chops, have a $6000 guitar with (whatever) $$$$ amp and sound totally horrible, when a top notch player can be sitting there with a $99 Squire or equivalent block of wood with strings and sound totally impressive.

Also important to tone & sound is a good guitar setup.. p/ups properly set, good strings.. straight neck, intonation spot-on, yada etc
 
ElegyOfficial said:
What i dont get is why everyone hates it? all the reviews on youtube and all reviews on musicians friend they all loved it. i mean im not "Pissed" because you hate it. Its just worrying me that i waste 500$ on an amp that is my dream amp (Supposedly) and it "sucks" haha.
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A couple reasons.

1.) "Consider the Source." Musicians' Friend is a music equipment retailer, so obviosuly they're going to rave about it - they want to sell the stuff. And Youtube is an unfiltered knowledge database, so you have to take everything you see there with a grain of sand. The Spiders are Line6's entry level line, so they're really targeted to beginners. As such, most of the people raving about it haven't really played anything better. If someone who has a wide range of exposure to different amps, coupled with a fairly open mind, tells me it's awesome, I'll definitely make a point to check it out. If a guy who's been playing 16 months, has plugged into a couple solid state Peaveys and once played a Dual Rec with the gain dimed at bedroom volumes in a Guitar Center raves, I'm not going to be too inclined to listen.

2.) Watching bands play through them. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen guys playing Line6 amps get abolutely buried in the mix. I have no idea why this is the case, but they absolutely don't cut, if they're going head to head with a tube amp (for some reason they do better if you're playing in a 2-guitar band with another Line6 player. It's weird, I don't get it).

3.) Personal experience. I've done some recording with a friend's Spider in the past, gigged with it once (after the TSL100 I was playing at the time got doused in 2 pints of beer 15 minutes before showtime :(), and I've demo'd every single Spider so far. They're easily my least favorite modelers - the Roland Cube series stomps all over them, the Vox is a bit more organic, the Johnsons, now out of production, were overall pretty iffy but the Mesa patches were awesome, and Tech-21 doesn't really deserve the modeling tag. Like I said, I was pleasantly surprised by the Spider Valve's clean tone, but the rest of it was just stiff, sterile, unorganic, and unresponsive. They're really just not that exciting amps - there are better modelers, but once you get used to the idea that you don't really NEED 32 different amp sounds on the fly, there are WAY better non-modeling options, even in your price range.

If you really like it, then go for it... But odds are within 2-3 years you'll have outgrown it.
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
A couple reasons.

1.) "Consider the Source." Musicians' Friend is a music equipment retailer, so obviosuly they're going to rave about it - they want to sell the stuff. And Youtube is an unfiltered knowledge database, so you have to take everything you see there with a grain of sand. The Spiders are Line6's entry level line, so they're really targeted to beginners. As such, most of the people raving about it haven't really played anything better. If someone who has a wide range of exposure to different amps, coupled with a fairly open mind, tells me it's awesome, I'll definitely make a point to check it out. If a guy who's been playing 16 months, has plugged into a couple solid state Peaveys and once played a Dual Rec with the gain dimed at bedroom volumes in a Guitar Center raves, I'm not going to be too inclined to listen.

2.) Watching bands play through them. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen guys playing Line6 amps get abolutely buried in the mix. I have no idea why this is the case, but they absolutely don't cut, if they're going head to head with a tube amp (for some reason they do better if you're playing in a 2-guitar band with another Line6 player. It's weird, I don't get it).

3.) Personal experience. I've done some recording with a friend's Spider in the past, gigged with it once (after the TSL100 I was playing at the time got doused in 2 pints of beer 15 minutes before showtime :(), and I've demo'd every single Spider so far. They're easily my least favorite modelers - the Roland Cube series stomps all over them, the Vox is a bit more organic, the Johnsons, now out of production, were overall pretty iffy but the Mesa patches were awesome, and Tech-21 doesn't really deserve the modeling tag. Like I said, I was pleasantly surprised by the Spider Valve's clean tone, but the rest of it was just stiff, sterile, unorganic, and unresponsive. They're really just not that exciting amps - there are better modelers, but once you get used to the idea that you don't really NEED 32 different amp sounds on the fly, there are WAY better non-modeling options, even in your price range.

If you really like it, then go for it... But odds are within 2-3 years you'll have outgrown it.
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Okay. Then would this be good for my style?

Best description of my guitar style: hawthorne heights / Slipknot / Bring me the horizon / i love any of those guitar stylez. High chance you wont know if its decent but...

http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/B52-LS100-and-LS412A-Half-Stack?sku=482088
 
Ok. Gotta interject now.

When you say " will this be good for my style? " then name drop some bands names...Its not really your style.

Your style is yours, not hawthorne heights... you can relate to it. Yea im sure your cursing me now but in 10 years time you'll know exactly what the fuck im saying.

Now don't get me wrong, when i was younger i wanted so bad to have that guitar sound that i heard on the Misfits, American Psyco Album that i went to some rediculous lengths to get it. I won't say what to save myself the embarrasment but i really wasted time and money just to be constantly dissapointed.

Maybe try and stop listening to what you 'like' per se and reading about how your musical idols are getting that sound and with what gear they use, and start listening to what you 'hear' and go from there.

That was my words of encouragement from some one of the more well established old fogies in my punk scene.

So when it came down to it and i started to LISTEN to what i heard, rather then 'LIKE' what i heard and how that person got it, I got a new perception on things.... If that makes sense. Does to me.

I was pretty fucking close to duplicating that sound i wanted on tape with a peavy 2x12 chorus, a danelectro T-Bone distortion pedal and yamaha pacifica. And i did it with far less then 8 4x12 custom made cabs. And at a few gigs with the rgiht sond guy manning the PA it sounded deadly on stage.

Hear the sound and make it yourself. Your hearts in it man, just forget the big rigs and brand names and just make the most out of what you can easily get your hands on with out going broke.

For real. Been there. Kinda feel like a turd for doing it, but i learned from it.
 
dude just get yourself a peavey windsor studio. it's all tube for around 400$ and while it may not have super distortion already built in, you can always just throw a tube screamer in front of it and that should give you plenty of gain. cause here's a real trick (one you should take note on) the amount of gain you hear when jamming in your room is probably 3 times more then you need when recording, and i know its hard to wrap your head around but its the truth.

the windsor is full of neat little things that you could use, and if you swap the tubes and speaker out for really good ones it should sound fantastic.

http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/...r-Studio-All-Tube-Guitar-Combo-Amp?sku=481660
 
ElegyOfficial said:
Okay. Then would this be good for my style?

Best description of my guitar style: hawthorne heights / Slipknot / Bring me the horizon / i love any of those guitar stylez. High chance you wont know if its decent but...

http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/B52-LS100-and-LS412A-Half-Stack?sku=482088
Click to expand...

I don't know anything by the bands you mention, but as I understand B-52 is in the "kind of scooped modern high gain" school of tone.

That said... Why do you need a half-stack? Serious question.
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
I don't know anything by the bands you mention, but as I understand B-52 is in the "kind of scooped modern high gain" school of tone.

That said... Why do you need a half-stack? Serious question.
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Ehhh...I was gonna say something smart here--but then I realized that's a SS amp. I've got B-52's all tube combo (100W, 2x12) and I thought that's what you were talking about.

(I do like it though--it gets very heavy and has an effective contour for the scooped sound. Don't know anything about those solid state models though.)

Sorry to interrupt...
 
WhiteStrat said:
Ehhh...I was gonna say something smart here--but then I realized that's a SS amp. I've got B-52's all tube combo (100W, 2x12) and I thought that's what you were talking about.
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Hey, MY amp is in the "kind of scooped modern high gain" school too, when you get right down to it. :p It's just, much like the B-52, from what I hear, it can do a lot more than that depending on how you set it.

I hear the tube head falls somewhere between TSL and Recto territory, when dialed for metal - does that sound fair?
 
Atom Bomb said:
Ok. Gotta interject now.

When you say " will this be good for my style? " then name drop some bands names...Its not really your style.

Your style is yours, not hawthorne heights... you can relate to it. Yea im sure your cursing me now but in 10 years time you'll know exactly what the fuck im saying.

Now don't get me wrong, when i was younger i wanted so bad to have that guitar sound that i heard on the Misfits, American Psyco Album that i went to some rediculous lengths to get it. I won't say what to save myself the embarrasment but i really wasted time and money just to be constantly dissapointed.

Maybe try and stop listening to what you 'like' per se and reading about how your musical idols are getting that sound and with what gear they use, and start listening to what you 'hear' and go from there.

That was my words of encouragement from some one of the more well established old fogies in my punk scene.

So when it came down to it and i started to LISTEN to what i heard, rather then 'LIKE' what i heard and how that person got it, I got a new perception on things.... If that makes sense. Does to me.

I was pretty fucking close to duplicating that sound i wanted on tape with a peavy 2x12 chorus, a danelectro T-Bone distortion pedal and yamaha pacifica. And i did it with far less then 8 4x12 custom made cabs. And at a few gigs with the rgiht sond guy manning the PA it sounded deadly on stage.

Hear the sound and make it yourself. Your hearts in it man, just forget the big rigs and brand names and just make the most out of what you can easily get your hands on with out going broke.

For real. Been there. Kinda feel like a turd for doing it, but i learned from it.
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Wow...
You know what i mean.
The best way to describe my style.

Dont play smart.

I Do have a style but its kinda hard to get you over to my studio hear me play until you understand what style i play.
But its also fun for covering to describe bands i also cover / are similar to my style.
 
Kingofpain678 said:
dude just get yourself a peavey windsor studio. it's all tube for around 400$ and while it may not have super distortion already built in, you can always just throw a tube screamer in front of it and that should give you plenty of gain. cause here's a real trick (one you should take note on) the amount of gain you hear when jamming in your room is probably 3 times more then you need when recording, and i know its hard to wrap your head around but its the truth.

the windsor is full of neat little things that you could use, and if you swap the tubes and speaker out for really good ones it should sound fantastic.

http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/...r-Studio-All-Tube-Guitar-Combo-Amp?sku=481660
Click to expand...

holy shit

400$ for a 20W?!?!?!
 
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