how do ya get that big sound

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jammer429
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jimmy77611 said:
They just seem to have that "fuzziness" or "Buzziness" that is associated with recording distorted guitars line-in. Take a distortion pedal, plug it into your mixer instead of an amp, and you'll hear what I'm talking about. I agree with, smart people+ good equipment+ good players= quality sounding recordings. In this case, it sounds line-in to me. Like I said, I could be wrong about this recording.
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Ditto this. Definitely sounds direct at least for a little of the guitar tones. I'm going to go ahead and say it was re-amped. Some of the guitar tone sounds direct and some sounds more amplike to me.

I'm listening to this in headphones and it's pretty disgusting how bad this whole mix sounds for this band. So compressed. The cymbals are just sizzling and the vocals sound limited. The loud parts make me sick. I'm not even talkign about the music. Too bad this is probably all at the expense to make it loud as hell.


Like was said earlier, read this article. http://www.badmuckingfastard.com/sound/slipperman.html#contents

Then read it 2 more times and really think about it.

Record with the best gear you can. Get it sounding sweet before it's in your DAW. Don't ignore microphone placement. Don't discount DI and re-amping as bad alternatives. If used well, you can use so much to your advantage.

multi-track guitars, listen to whats happening in the mix. Reverb and compression can work great when you listen to them. Figure out what needs to be done to make your things sound better before it's in the box. Then the end result will come easier.

All things said, I wouldn't consider the songs you suggested, a big sound.

Good luck, Eric
 
legionserial said:
I've had to deal with high end fizz too on a few recordings. Usually I just do an EQ sweep until I find the offending frequency and notch it out a little. I'm not too keen on low passing high gain guitar myself, as I find certain high frequencies give the guitar some "air", and losing that air makes things sound a little boxed in. But again, horses for courses.
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The last line is spot on - I should have mentioned that I write and record mostly instrumental rock, so conversely having a huge expansive rhythm tone is sometimes not in my best interest. Low passing out the very upper end of the presence might not work so well on a vocal track with huge crunchy guitars, but if you have another solo guitar track covering the melody lines, then sometimes just getting rid of that stuff (again, emphasis on subtle) sort of tames them a little bit, and helps the leads (which I try to never do more than low pass, maybe add a light compression, and then some ambient stereo delay) jump out a little more.

Sigh. I really enjoy talking about this shit, and I've learned a ton from conversations at this place, but it sucks sometimes to be talking about recording and mixing at 11AM, and know that since I'm at work I couldn't possibly sit down in front of my computer before 6 or 7 tonight. :/
 
All that is great advice and very true, MOST COMMERCIAL modern rock has many many many many layers of guitars played pretty tightly in unison. You may or may not be able to play tight enough, alotta guys cant and it ends up sounding like mud. Ill reinforce the turn down the gain!!! Turn it down to where you think it should be.. then go down some more. LAYERS LAYERS LAYERS.. PLAY IT TIGHT. EXPERIMENT WITH PAN AND MINOR EQ AND SMALL AMOUNTS OR REVERB
 
Here's my first guitar test that I did a couple weeks ago for another thread. It's DI, so it does get fizzy, and the playing isn't very tight, but I think I like the overall tone. I'll do some comparison tests with a mic soon. Would you consider this a big sound?
link
 
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