Help With Guitar Tones

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agreatheight

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OK, so I am a multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar. I have never played guitar in a band so I have no pre-established tone that has been ball-parked through rehearsal with other instruments. I mostly play with myself, lol. This is a problem as I am recording an EP and I have the drums and bass recorded and now I am trying to get some guitars going. I am struggling a bit. I have recorded other players and have done well - you listen to the tone they have and try to get it on "tape," but sweeter. You experiment and get it! But since I don't have a tone starting point, I have no clue where I am going wrong. It could be anything - amp eq, too much / not enough gain, wrong equipment, mic technique, etc. I know this is a hard one to troubleshoot over the net, but I'd appreciate anyone who would help out.

I am looking for a medium to lower high gain tone that is balanced, crunchy (not overly fizzy), open (not congested). Here are some examples of the ballpark of what I am looking for:

A Loophole in Limbo - Fair to Midland - YouTube
Key Entity Extraction V: Sentry The Defiant studio version - YouTube
Before Braille - The Rumor - 02 - The Spanish Dagger - YouTube
Fivespeed- The Mess - YouTube

And here is where I am at:

https://soundcloud.com/agreatheight/sets/guitar-tones-test

I think the tones almost sound good in the "mix," but it's a little "paper ripping" in the high mids / highs, if that makes any sense. And maybe it dark, and not pleasantly so. I have no idea how to get it where I want it.

Here is what I used:
Hamer Studio and a Warmoth Lesmaster (Mahogany / mahogany / stop tail / Duncan JB)
Both guitars on bridge humbuckers
Into an Egnater Tweaker 15
Into a Third Age Amps 2x12 loaded with a WGS Veteran 30 and an ET65
With a Sennheiser e609
Mic'ing the WGS ET65 perfectly centered / on-axis on the dust cover where the grill cloth would be if the cab had one.
Tweaker is set as follows: all knobs set at 12 o'clock, toggles set to Modern (vs Vintage), Brit (vs USA or AC), Hot (vs Clean), Normal (vs Bright), and Deep (vs Tight)

Opinions / suggestions / etc?

Bring it on / thanks in advance!
 
It is dark. I think you're close though. How loud are you tracking? I'm a big fan of the louder the better. Get those speakers really moving some air, or as much as you can with a 15w amp. I'd also move the mic off dead-center some. Occasionally, and I don't know why, it sometimes seems to me like there's a hole in the sound when you're dead on the speaker center. I find the brightest, clearest spot to be right where the dustcap meets the cone. I have an e609 too, and I'm not particularly crazy about it. It always seems to have a scooped and almost distant kind of sound, just like what you have here. It's also pretty bad in the highs. It drops off fast. Try a different mic if you can, different spot, and maybe kick in more volume from the amp and a little more gain. Try both speakers too. I'm a fan of the Celestion G12-65s/WGS ET65s, but the V30 might be better suited for this style. It's got more bite.
 
The guitars sound a bit dark/muffled because they are Mahogany. Try a parametric EQ boost in the 1K-5K range and a high pass filter to roll off some of the low/low mids.
 
Thank you for these responses - VERY helpful. I am going to start by moving the e609 over the the edge of the dustcap to see if I prefer that placement, and adding an SM57 directly adjacent to it to see which mic I like better. I'll also play around with a HPF to clean some lows out. I'll post new clips when I get them done, this weekend likely. Thanks again!
 
First thing I'd try is moving the mic further away (instead of using a hpf), aiming to settle the low mid better against the high-mid / top end.

Greg's suggestion for a different mic is excellent. I'd be tempted to give it a go with a condenser rather than the dynamic e609 - a different transient response might be what you're after.
 
I'd for sure listen to Ocnars advice on this one he seems to have the key for this
 
agreatheight said:
With a Sennheiser e609e....
Click to expand...

I know others use them with success...but I just never liked the tones I got with an e609...they always sounded murky/dull, and boosting highs didn't help.

Not to send you off on a mic-swap goose chase...but I prefer using the Cascade Fat Heads or my new discovery for guitars, the old AKG D1000E mics.
No matter how many times I try a different mic...I almost always come back to one of these two for electric guitars.

Also...you have IMO too much distortion going on. Find what distortion sounds good in the room to you....then back it off about 30-40% for tracking.
And of course...rolling of the low end is not uncommon...125Hz and below, to taste.
 
I am getting closer to a tone that I can live with, but I have decided to get some professional help. Going to work with a local semi-pro and see if I can't up my game on this guitar stuff. I will post back shortly!
 
So went to a nice project studio tonight to get some guitar tone help, and after trying a couple amps (Marshall, Ampeg, Krank) we dialed up some tones (that didn't sound all that different from what I was getting at home) and the guru uttered what came up here, "the guitar is dark." Aha! So what makes a guitar dark? How can I make a guitar less dark? Strings? Pick-up? Listening back to my clips, I think both my main players sound similarly dark. I think one dark sounding guitar could work - some of the tones I like seem to be on the dark side - but I would like to brighten one of them up. Ideas!

Thanks!
 
I dig the guitars. I'd add just a touch more grit to them and a bit of presence.
If I got these guitars for a mix, I would be o.k. with that.
 
Mic positioning.

Try to monitor through phones and move the mic around in front of the cab and you will be AMAZED at the amount of tonal variation this simple exercise yields.

Vary it through all 3 axes - height, angle & laterally
 
A change in pickups can help. If you can identify the pickups your guitar is using, and say they are Dimarzio or Seymour Duncan, you can check their bass-mids-treble signature in their website and see if they are indeed, dark sounding pickups.

For example, I'm currently using Dimarzio Steve's Special, with lots of treble and scooped mids and the other humbucker is Dimarzio Air Zone which has lots of mids and bass and just a small pinch of treble. I dont like this one to be honest but I've seen people achieve great tones with it so at the end, it all counts, from guitar's wood, to its pickups, the amp itself and the mics along with their recording setup.
 
What I would do is move the mic to where the dust cap meets the cone. That should dull out the paper ripping thing. I would add some mids at the amp.

One trick I always use is to record a really dark guitar tone and then brighten the snot out of it in the mix. Like a 9db boost of high shelf at 8k.

It also helps if you can get the head in the control room and a cabinet somewhere else. That way you can concentrate on what the mic is hearing instead of what the amp sounds like in the room.

I've never really liked the 609 on guitars, but other people seem to get them to work...
 
Farview said:
One trick I always use is to record a really dark guitar tone and then brighten the snot out of it in the mix. Like a 9db boost of high shelf at 8k.
Click to expand...

Hey Fairview, I've been messing around with this a bit lately with something I tracked that I feel isn't bright enough for the genre. I've been noticing that modern rock/pop rock ish stuff has some pretty bright guitars. So, what EQ are you using for brightening and how do you avoid harshness? Have you tried an exciter of any kind?
 
sixer2007 said:
Hey Fairview, I've been messing around with this a bit lately with something I tracked that I feel isn't bright enough for the genre. I've been noticing that modern rock/pop rock ish stuff has some pretty bright guitars. So, what EQ are you using for brightening and how do you avoid harshness? Have you tried an exciter of any kind?
Click to expand...
I tend to use the uad ssl channel strip for the eq. I avoid the harshness by boosting frequencies an octave above where most of the harshness is. (around 8k or so) Also, the guitars have to have some good lower mids. to drive the speakers. When you drive the speakers with the lower mids instead of treble, the speaker breakup is much smoother, so the harshness isn't there to begin with. That allows you to crank the highs without the harshness.

Most of the time, the harshness comes from the amp itself. What ever frequencies are pushing the amp into distortion will be the ones that create the harmonics and will be the bulk of the sound. If you do that with high frequencies, the harmonics generated will be even higher and end up being harsh.

I hate exciters. They are completely unnecessary unless you are on a rescue mission because something very wrong happened when it was recorded. (or you are trying to restore old or worn out tape recordings, since that is what they were designed for) exciters will add harshness , not fix it.
 
Farview said:
I tend to use the uad ssl channel strip for the eq. I avoid the harshness by boosting frequencies an octave above where most of the harshness is. (around 8k or so) Also, the guitars have to have some good lower mids. to drive the speakers. When you drive the speakers with the lower mids instead of treble, the speaker breakup is much smoother, so the harshness isn't there to begin with. That allows you to crank the highs without the harshness.

Most of the time, the harshness comes from the amp itself. What ever frequencies are pushing the amp into distortion will be the ones that create the harmonics and will be the bulk of the sound. If you do that with high frequencies, the harmonics generated will be even higher and end up being harsh.

I hate exciters. They are completely unnecessary unless you are on a rescue mission because something very wrong happened when it was recorded. (or you are trying to restore old or worn out tape recordings, since that is what they were designed for) exciters will add harshness , not fix it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your awesome answer! I'm gonna give this a go!
 
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