How fat is this guitar?

[VesuviusJay]

Greetings fellow engineerfolk! Please check out this submittal for review. The guitar sounds a bit thin. What do you think? And if it is too thin, How might I thicken it up?

Carvin M22 pickups -> all monster cable -> POD 2.0 -> Presonus tube pre -> Tascam us122 -> Nuendo 2.0 -> KRK RP8 Monitors.

Any thoughts?

 

[VSpaceBoy]

Gotta double it!
Copy the track over to another and slightly offset it timeing. Then pan one to 10 oclock and the other 2 oclock. I would then eq just a little.
I also think that the bass could be eq'd a tad to pull it in closer to the guitar, making the guitar sound meatier.

 

[VesuviusJay]

OK I doubled the guitar, now what do you think?

Thanks in advance!

 

[VSpaceBoy]

Sounds much better IMO. Now it also makes a nice whole in the mix for the growling to sit better too. Sweet.

 

[David Katauskas]

Sounds much better.

 

[ecktronic]

Bypass the POD man defo. Use an amp. Even if it aint that great an amp give it a try.

 

[uhh its charlie]

that's weird to paste and offset timing, i always just double them forrealll

 

[ecktronic]

that's weird to paste and offset timing, "i always just double them forrealll"

Best way, unless you find it hard to play the same part twice. The first way can sound terrible in Mono as phasing occurs. Can work ok for keyboard though in mono.

 

[metalhead28]

Just my opinion, but I think cut and paste guitar doubling is sacrilege, in death metal especially. I think the best way for death metal is one performance hard left and one performance hard right - minimum - or at least 80% panned. WAY better tone would come from multiple performances on either side with alot less distortion, or a personal favorite of mine, a single performance on either side recorded along with a direct in, and then "re-amp" that a few times with varying tones/amps to fill out the sound. This way will retain alot of clarity with complex guitar lines. I am no master engineer, but I know that will get you alot closer to what you're probably looking for.

As a side note - you'll never get farther than 80-90% there with a POD or any modeler for that matter (just my opinion of course) Definitely want to get yourself a devestating amp to get the requisite death metal sound! This may not be an option for you now but it's something you might think about.

 

[VesuviusJay]

Thanks everyone! I do know the pod isn't perfect, but it is as close as I can get to my mesa boogie rig at a cost of only $150 (Compared to the $2500 cost of the triple rectifier rig I have on layway. When one is stuck on a tight budget, With that in mind, if you are interested in hearing the preliminaries of mic'ing a triple rectifier with a stereo pair of beta 57a's check out this little death metal ditty I call "angry mountain".

Keep in mind this is the tone I will never achieve, yet am trying to pull off with my pod. LOL Feeble atempt, but at least Im getting an acceptable mix now.

This was recorded last year before I sold my mesa rig to buy a truck big engough to carry it. Ironic no? Now I have to replace the rig I need to carry hehe.

\m/

 

[VesuviusJay]

Bypass the POD man defo. Use an amp. Even if it aint that great an amp give it a try.

Elek, I like your style! The only trouble is, my carvin 2X12 sounds terrible even with its direct out. And I have no good mics to play with. I saw a used POD at GC for $150 and got about 75% as fat as I know I can with the proper equipment.

As for amps, I must beg to differ with you a little bit. I am EXTREMELY tone anal. There are very few amps that I enjoy putting effort into mic placement on. The cream of the crop as you all know being mesa boogie.

If I can't get a mesa or comparable, I'm going POD. It is so versitile, sounds decent, and costs far less.

When I do get my mesa rig back Ill get another pair of beta 57s and be back in my blissfull habitat! LOL

 

[metalhead28]

If I can't get a mesa or comparable, I'm going POD. It is so versitile, sounds decent, and costs far less.

I still say that even if you insist on the POD, you could still multitrack the guitars. (no cut and paste ) Even with a modeler, the attack and definition is much greater with the gain backed off. Ever tried multi-tracking that way?, or multi-tracking with a couple of different tones on the POD? Ever thought of adding in that Carvin 2X12 just to see how it sounds in the mix? You may hate the sound on it's own but it might be perfect when mixed! Just some ideas

 

[VesuviusJay]

Actually, I get better results by playing the left and right guitar tracks separately. Sometimes using octave techniques on riffs to get full fat sound. I am unhappy with the same exact guitar track on left and right weather multitracked, or cut and pasted. With nuendo you can simply duplicate and pan. Sounds OK at best. When played both in although, I seemed to get much fuller sound. \m/

 

[metalhead28]

Actually, I get better results by playing the left and right guitar tracks separately.

Exactly what I was saying, but do you ever try doing multiple tracks on both the left and right sides as well? Some people do 2, 4, 8 or who knows how many tracks on each side to get the finished sound. This is when you would play around with different tones on each take.

 

[ecktronic]

Exactly what I was saying, but do you ever try doing multiple tracks on both the left and right sides as well? Some people do 2, 4, 8 or who knows how many tracks on each side to get the finished sound. This is when you would play around with different tones on each take.

Watch out for phasing though. I double taked a dist. guitar track and had them in mono and it sounded phasey. Not as bad as when cloning tracks but still took some power away from the track when in mono. So sometimes just two tracks is plenty unless you cant get the tone you want with just one amp/ distortion/ guitar.

 

[uhh its charlie]

Best way, unless you find it hard to play the same part twice. The first way can sound terrible in Mono as phasing occurs. Can work ok for keyboard though in mono.

haha well i'm a bit limited, i work with a yamaha aw4416

 

[VesuviusJay]

Watch out for phasing though. I double taked a dist. guitar track and had them in mono and it sounded phasey. Not as bad as when cloning tracks but still took some power away from the track when in mono. So sometimes just two tracks is plenty unless you cant get the tone you want with just one amp/ distortion/ guitar.

Was it phasey if all the tracks were performed and recorded separately? And what did you all think of the angry mountain guitar tone? The tone on that track to me sounds HUGE.

 

[ecktronic]

haha well i'm a bit limited, i work with a yamaha aw4416

Why should an AW4416 limit you from double taking?

 

[ecktronic]

Was it phasey if all the tracks were performed and recorded separately? And what did you all think of the angry mountain guitar tone? The tone on that track to me sounds HUGE.

Yeah thats what I mean the two tracks were seperate takes. Because they were similar they phased when in mono, so even with a little bit of panning, say 11 and 1 o'clock they would still phase, but they woudnt phase if panned like 9 and 3 o'clock.

Not sure which track you are talking about. Sorry.

 

[GreenDank]

...

I've found that when attempting to get a thick sound, sometimes you have to think in the opposite direction: record one take with a cleaner sounding guitar, much less gain, and almost muddy/unpleasant-sounding. Don't always run right for the Mesa/Boogie setting; throw some Marshall emulation in too. The lower gain/muddier guitar, coupled with the higher gain one makes for a more massive all-together sound that has to be heard during a mixdown in order to be believed. Two massively distorted guitars work more as a 1+1 = 2 kind of thing, whereas the clean and dirty acts more like 1+1 = 4. Maybe that's a little too much Zen that what you were looking for.

However, I think your second take sounded pretty fat to me. Reminded me of the band Incantation.