My latest attempt at getting good results with vst amp sims and impulses.

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Nathan1984

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Well, I worked out some of the kinks that I was having. I am trying to improve my recordings still, but this is about the best results I have had so far. Anyone got any suggestions for me, please help me out. I have one bass track, quad tracked guitars, and ez drummer for my drum tracks.
 

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Wow, that's kind of harsh. It sounds like a robot. Totally inorganic. I'm cool with drum loops/samples, or amp sims, but not together. That's just too much "fake", and it sounds like it. It's very sizzly.
 
Greg_L said:
Wow, that's kind of harsh. It sounds like a robot. Totally inorganic. I'm cool with drum loops/samples, or amp sims, but not together. That's just too much "fake", and it sounds like it. It's very sizzly.
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Personal taste. I think he is getting close to what he is after. Not my taste either really, but sushi sounds good now!
 
Yeah, I know it does sound alittle harsh, that's why I am asking for advice. I want kind of a digital sound though, just not so like you said "harsh". Alot of the stuff I listen to is very digital sounding.
 
I know that it is possible to get good solid results using sims and ez. I'm still pretty new to mixing, so I need alittle help on what makes my recordings sound, well, like shit to me. My band mates seem to think they sound amazing, but I think it sounds like garbage. I wanna achieve a more polished, metal sound.
 
Kick sounds good, but is a little too loud and compressed. Guitars are a little too scooped sounding for me, but you could use that to your advantage with a mid-ripping bass tone.

Yeah, the biggest issue is the lack of bass guitar, it's too weak and in the background. Try making two bass guitar tracks, one clean and one distorted. Then apply an exaggerated hi/low pass on the distorted bass channel, blend the levels of the clean/distorted tracks to your liking.

My $0.02, goodluck buddy! It doesn't sound half-bad for someone who is new to producing!
 
My big problem I have is with my guitar tones, I used to much high/low pass. I use it in the impulse part of the guitars, I think that I shouldn't do that and apply eq, after getting a good guitar tone. I experimented with that today and the final results are much more satifying. I also realized that I didn't have the guitars ran right in the bus. I sent quad tracked guitars into a single bus that I use my vst amp sims and impulses in, well, I had the amps set to mono, which basically eliminates the right panned tracks. So I straightened that out, and I did have a buddy listen to it and he said that the kick was to loud in the mix, so I remedied that as well. Thanks for the suggestions bro. Much appreciation. Give me a few days and I will post a new version up so you can hear my newest results.
 
Sounds like a more watered down version of Periphery (which everything is more watered down than those guys). The cymbals are a bit too hollow for my liking. Kick and snare a great. Guitar tones are great. I think you're biggest issue is all of the cymbal work. You need to add a little air into them maybe pan different cymbal hits far left and right. Bass? I don't really hear it. Fatten it up a bit.Overall sounds awesome, minor tweaks needed.
 
Guitar Tone: You're playing too wimpily, and with too much distortion (to make up for said wimpy-ness). Spend some time learning to dig into those strings like a man, particularly for those chugs. That chunky, precise "don't fuck with me" tone you're looking for doesn't come from femmy "I don't want to break a string" hands. It comes from playing like a surgical chainsaw machine.

Drums: Kick's sound is good, but way too fucking loud. Turn that sucker down, and get some snare and cymbals in there. From what it sounds like, you turned the snare and cymbals down because they sound like thin wimpy shit. Get some beef in that snare, make the sucker FAT and PUNCHY, and do whatever you can to get those incredi-fake cymbals to sound less like hissy garbage. Is there anything in your EZ Drummer that lets you control some room sound in your drums? Even just for the cymbals' sake, get some room in there. It'll make your fake drummer sound less like a kick drum with a boom box playing snare/cymbals somewhere in the background.

Bass Guitar: NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER AND IMPORTANCE OF THE BASS GUITAR. It gives your guitars the low-end mean-ness they deserve. It connects the kick drum to the rest of the band. It reinforces heavy parts, and can provide melodic grounding to twiddly guitar parts. Get a bass in there post haste.

Hope this helps!
 
Steve Henningsgard said:
Guitar Tone: You're playing too wimpily, and with too much distortion (to make up for said wimpy-ness). Spend some time learning to dig into those strings like a man, particularly for those chugs. That chunky, precise "don't fuck with me" tone you're looking for doesn't come from femmy "I don't want to break a string" hands. It comes from playing like a surgical chainsaw machine.

Drums: Kick's sound is good, but way too fucking loud. Turn that sucker down, and get some snare and cymbals in there. From what it sounds like, you turned the snare and cymbals down because they sound like thin wimpy shit. Get some beef in that snare, make the sucker FAT and PUNCHY, and do whatever you can to get those incredi-fake cymbals to sound less like hissy garbage. Is there anything in your EZ Drummer that lets you control some room sound in your drums? Even just for the cymbals' sake, get some room in there. It'll make your fake drummer sound less like a kick drum with a boom box playing snare/cymbals somewhere in the background.

Bass Guitar: NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER AND IMPORTANCE OF THE BASS GUITAR. It gives your guitars the low-end mean-ness they deserve. It connects the kick drum to the rest of the band. It reinforces heavy parts, and can provide melodic grounding to twiddly guitar parts. Get a bass in there post haste.

Hope this helps!
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Though pretty harsh, honesty is the best type of advice that can ever be given. Especially when you are right.

The biggest problem I have found with EZDrummer, is the room mic samples, sound like complete crap. You are left with crappy cymbal sounds with the program from the get go. Some tweaking can be done by using the multiple outs of EZD, and eq'ing some of the harshness out of them. Better yet, get Addictive Drums. Much more natural sounding. Even better, get a real drummer. But that is just a dream trying to find one good enough. :D

Definitely get that bass guitar to support the guitar tone. It is lost on it's own. Unless you want the 'And Justice For All' sound. Not sure why anyone would.......
 
No offense taken on any comments, I love feedback, be it good or bad. You have to remember I am still pretty new at all this. I normally cut the bass pretty much out of my mixes, I know that is part of the problem. I know the kick is way to loud, working on that as well. I do have a drummer, i am just doing this stuff as pre production until I decide that we are tight enough to record our "real sound". I also want to point out that I ran the drums with no room sound, it is a dry mix. I am pretty sure I can touch up the cymbals a bit. I just noticed that in alot of the music I listen to, the cymbals are almost none existant, it's all about alot of kick and snare. So that is what I tend to focus on, but I will take your advice in part when I go to revamp some of my recordings. I am still working on finding a decent guitar tone, and I won't forget about the bass. I just don't really know much about mixing bass and guitars together. I'm getting there, with any luck, I will be spitting out some good mixes in the upcoming year or so. I got all the time in the world lol.
 
I will also add, that not once has someone actually said to pluck the shit out of your strings. That could very well be a good tip for me that I never considered. I guess what it is, is that it is harder for me to really "get into it" when I am sitting at a computer with my guitar in my hands. I will have to take that into some consideration too.
 
Go get it man! You are definitely on the right track. Especially with the friends you have here on the forum.
 
Nathan1984 said:
I will also add, that not once has someone actually said to pluck the shit out of your strings. That could very well be a good tip for me that I never considered. I guess what it is, is that it is harder for me to really "get into it" when I am sitting at a computer with my guitar in my hands. I will have to take that into some consideration too.
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Mood lighting, close your eyes, and beat the sh!t out of your instrument man. Metal! \m/
 
Nathan1984 said:
I will also add, that not once has someone actually said to pluck the shit out of your strings. That could very well be a good tip for me that I never considered. I guess what it is, is that it is harder for me to really "get into it" when I am sitting at a computer with my guitar in my hands. I will have to take that into some consideration too.
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For sure man. There is definitely an art to it: it is *certainly* possible to pick too hard. Try playing it with absolutely no distortion, or even unplugged, and see how good you can get the guitar itself to sound. Experiment with pick position and hand position, as well as how hard you're playing it. When learning to pick hard, one very important thing to keep in mind is that you don't want to be mashing down your fretting hand. It's easy to accidentally do when you're pummeling the strings with your right hand, but it will result in way-out-of-tune chords/notes. Depending on how large your frets are, you can actually bend a note almost a full half-step by mashing down too hard with your fretting hand. This is a bad thing™ in almost all cases :)

As for 'getting into it' while you're recording, that comes with time, but is ultimately not really related to technique. You're not digging into the strings in an emotional sense. This genre isn't really about emotion, as far as rhythm guitar performance is concerned. It's about technical precision. Pure horrifying technical precision.
 
Yeah, I will say that you guys here on the forum have taught me more here than anything else I have read. I have been playing with recordings for about four years now, only the last year have I been real serious about it. I joined the forum about 4-5 months ago, and I learned more in that time then I had going on my own up till then. I enjoy learning more about my new found passion. This shit is addictive lol, but makes me pretty happy when I get something that sounds great, and people enjoy listening to it.
 
Also also, learning how to listen to music from an engineering/recording standpoint is a completely necessary skill, one you're going to need to build up. Listen to different recordings of the same band, similar recordings by different bands, different recordings by the same producer, ones mixed by the same mixing engineer, etc. etc. Listen listen listen listen as much and as critically as you can. Do a lot of your listening on the speakers you'll be mixing on, but be sure to note the differences between said mixing speakers, and those in your car, in your headphones, etc. etc.

Then, once you can't listen to music without thinking of the production, you get to learn how to turn this all off so that you can enjoy music for the sake of music again :)
 
Steve Henningsgard said:
Dude, it's hard. Weed helps (seriously).
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lol! So does the occasional talented band I get in the studio, and an occasional protege from another country I meet here that I mix/play for. Listening to the radio makes me want to puke! Though, the level of production has never been more intriguing. I miss the days when my life was based on listening to music for an emotional moment. Now, it is like dissecting rats at times. I have connections that allow me to get all access to any concert in Denver. I don't even care anymore. I take the kids to meet their hero's, as I wonder why my first Kiss concert in 78 was the life changer for me. Maybe I'm bitter cuz I never met Ace? lol! Don't get me wrong, I love music and all the emotion it can give, I just have a bad taste for crap, and there is a bunch of it in my ears lately. I digress. Some Kush may be the answer......

Ahh.........That's better...............

What were we talking about?
 
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