loud raunchy gtr.

  • Thread starter Thread starter jmorris
  • Start date Start date
jmorris

jmorris

New member
I'm in the session from hell! I'm recording this band. The music is rather loud,distorted gtrs. My problem is the gtrs. sound very muddy with a lot of what I call overtones. Just not "clear distortion" as I would hear onCD. so bad that I have to put it way back in the mix. I've tried a 57, AKG3000, 421, placement. Tried turnig the guitar down but they really are not loud. Any thoughts? The issue seems to be just one of the guitarist sound. Maybe its just him.
 
one of the characteristics of distortion is that when a guitar is plugged straight into an amp all of its frequencies come out at roughly the same level.. try isolating the sound you don't like through eq.. if you can determine what frequencies are causing the unpleasantness.. then drop the eq into the signal chain after the guitar but before the amp and cut those problem frequencies you identified.. the result will be a cleaner distortion with an apparent enhancement of the tones you didn't cut..

i also read that the engineer for Alice in Chains recorded Jerry Cantrell's guitar using the best low frequency from one amp, a second amp with ideal mid, and a third amp with ideal high, recorded on three separate tracks at the same time with a splitter box, plus some doubled tracking here and there..

food for thought..

Cy
 
hmmm...

Sounds like his tone sucks in general. Try muting him and doubling the other guitar player ;)
Wheel another amp in there and see what happens. Try cutting some mud by sweepin through the 200-400 hz range. This might help alot.
 
may be right

thanks cyrokk,but I think tubedude may be on the money. The more I listen to it, I think his tone just sucks! The other gtr players tone is really cool. Distorted but very clear without that bass like overtones if you get whaT I mean, thanks, Jim
 
Sounds Like he's using too much distortion. If you can't get it to work with EQ you may need to sit him down and play the tracks to show him that his tone doesn't work in the mix.
 
Check to see if he's scooping his mids or messing with his own EQ. Muddy guitar sounds often result by poorly EQing out the spots where the tone pleasantly cuts through. The guitarist likes his tone when he is playing by himself and therefore thinks he has a good tone. Unfortunately, the tone gets lost in the mix where other instruments normally occupy the frequency ranges that the guitarist has set his tone.

I bet he's dropping his mids or boosting his bass and trebel too much. Get the guitarist to flat line his EQ or even boost his mids a bit.

Matt
 
can you post his setup, including what stomp boxes if any? what tuning is he using? just curious if he is in a drop D? i record a guy who tunes down two steps or more on the low E and a step to a step and a half on everything else. He is hard to get a rich tone on tape. if you find the fundamental freq and eq to reinforce the even number harmonics it can help. if he is just totally saturated you will have to address that first though.

HTH's
 
if he wont let you tweak his amp to your likings, i would suggest eq'ing out the bad frequency's.
 
Back
Top