Really thin guitar sounds.

[Sonixx]

Another method is to stay back 2-3 feet like you normally do, get your desired tone, the mic the amp from the same distance using a large diaphragm condenser. It can work, though normally not done that way.

I used to be a gain freak. Now I prefer a nice bitey crunch. I am happy with my gain set low and when doubled on a track, its still sounds huge.

Wow, can you possibly post something that sounds really thick...

 

[mattdee1]

Those are the kinds of tips I was looking for. Thanks guys

Would it be OK to only double track the guitars in the thin-sounding sections? I'd have to do something to transition so it doesn't abrubtly gain/lose volume...

In theory I see no reason why that might present a problem. Simply watch your levels, and just as importantly, your panning. If you have 2nd, 3rd, or 4th guitar tracks popping in and out of the mix, you might have a situation where the guitar seems to be unnaturally bouncing around the sound stage. That might be an effect you're after at times, but it's something to keep in mind.

 

[GuitardedMark]

As previously said it is very hard to advise without hearing it but I have this problem but here is another suggestion. Try adding a flanger, phaser, chorus, delay etc. effect to thicken it up a bit. Reverb can work well too.

 

[Farview]

Wait, I'm not a veteran guitarist but isn't the bridge pickup usually the thin stringy sounding pickup? The neck pickup always gave me the girth, maybe it depends on the guitar?

Holy crap! That was a slip-up on my part. I was thinking the neck pickup. My bad. I've edited the post.

 

[Farview]

Yep, when you have your gain set to where you like it put your ear up an inch to the cab and see if its still the sound your after. You should set your tone with the idea in mind that your mic is gonna be way closer to the cab than you are. I usually tell guitarist/bassist to get really close to their amp when they're finding their tone. Also a lot of distortion, especially when you're layering guitars can get pretty mess, dial the gain back about 2 hours on a clock (from 12 back to 10) and you'll have some more room to work with when mixing.

All of this depends on the amp. Mesa's let you have more gain while still sounding grainy instead of fuzzy. That's the real thing about setting the gain for rhythm guitars. Some people do drive their amps into super fuzz and it just ends up sounding like undefined white noise.

The other thing that helps a lot is to keep the midrange in the guitar sound. You can EQ it out in the mix, but if it isn't there to begin with you could also end up with an undefined mess.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

I read this often. Is this really true? Why?

I suspect it's more a question of a lot of beginners completely overdoing it - thinking gain on ten, mids at zero is the way to go to get a heavy sound. For some amps, maybe that's true, but for 99% of rigs out there you want something a little more balanced.

So, it's great advice for a total beginner, less so once you know how to dial in an amp for recording, once you already know broadly speaking how not to fuck things up while multitracking.

 

[themdla]

although i'm sure this has been posted somewhere in this thread it prolly bears repeating:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug07/articles/guitaramprecording.htm

awesome article!

 

[legionserial]

I read this often. Is this really true? Why?

To much distortion and resulting saturation will clog everything up with fizz and graininess. Especially if you're layering the guitars. It's generally advisable to back off just a little more than you think would work. So there's a bit of crunch but not so much saturation. Less distortion+layered guitars=thicker, clearer sound.

Metal players love that mid scooped sound, but you might be surprised that there is still certain mids that are in there.

Guitars are midrange instruments. Even 4 metal heads. Dial up some and see.

+1. Too many metal guys think sucking out the mids sounds good. It sounds nice in room on it's own, but as guitar is a midrange instrument, it means sucking out most of the fundamental frequencies of the instrument, and there's no chance it's going to cut through the mix that way.

 

[Chibi Nappa]

I suspect it's more a question of a lot of beginners completely overdoing it - thinking gain on ten, mids at zero is the way to go to get a heavy sound.

I suspect this as well. I don't record with guitar settings any different than what I think sounds right for the song live... Compared to a beginner I just have a much better grasp on what an appropriate in-a-mix guitar sound is.

 

[GuitardedMark]

I suspect this as well. I don't record with guitar settings any different than what I think sounds right for the song live... Compared to a beginner I just have a much better grasp on what an appropriate in-a-mix guitar sound is.

Man I got to say Chibi. I have read a lot of your posts on this forum and there is no one else here that I disagree with more than you. It sounds like you know what you talking about but seriously. Live application changes SO DRAMATICALLY depending on where your at. If you playing on stage at a festival outside, I pray to god you change your setup compared to recording in a studio. A good musician understands how drastic of an effect the accoustics of the room is and can adjust accordingly. I think its really sad when I hear bands play in a location that has lot of reverb and they use a reverb effect that is 100000x more powerful what it should be, because they dont compensate for the room.

 

[Lt. Bob]

I'm gonna say thanks for the using different tones tip, and ask that this be closed or ignored now, because it seems some people would rather be assholes than submit helpful comments.

ummmm ..... what could you possibly be talking about?
I went back and carefully read every reply and not a single one had anything at all that could remotely be classified as being rude.

Well obviously I'm using the bridge pickup, neck pickups sound horrible with thick distortion.

Why would it be obvious that you're using the bridge p'up when you never said so?
It's not true that neck p'ups sound terrible with distortion and, in fact, I virtually NEVER use my bridge p'up.
Either can sound good if they're set right. It becomes a matter of taste and there's nothing wrong with you preferring the bridge ... many players do ....... but that's not the same thing as "neck p'ups sound bad with distortion."

 

[Farview]

Man I got to say Chibi. I have read a lot of your posts on this forum and there is no one else here that I disagree with more than you. It sounds like you know what you talking about but seriously. Live application changes SO DRAMATICALLY depending on where your at. If you playing on stage at a festival outside, I pray to god you change your setup compared to recording in a studio. A good musician understands how drastic of an effect the accoustics of the room is and can adjust accordingly. I think its really sad when I hear bands play in a location that has lot of reverb and they use a reverb effect that is 100000x more powerful what it should be, because they dont compensate for the room.

I think a lot of that depends on the type of music you play and the guitar sound you are after. I never really changed the amp from one gig to the next (except for volume), but I didn't use any effects and, for a metal band, I didn't really have that much distortion.

The venue doesn't change the amount of distortion you need

The only thing I would compensate for was the age of the tubes. When I put new tubes in, the amp sounded good with the presence at '5'. As time went on, I would have to turn the presence up to get the same sound. Once I had it all the way up, I knew it was time for new tubes.

 

[Farview]

It's not true that neck p'ups sound terrible with distortion and, in fact, I virtually NEVER use my bridge p'up.
Either can sound good if they're set right. It becomes a matter of taste and there's nothing wrong with you preferring the bridge ... many players do ....... but that's not the same thing as "neck p'ups sound bad with distortion."

I would stick my neck out and say that most Yngwie-type-whammy-tapmasters use the neck pickup for soloing. that's one of the ways they get the smoothness.

 

[Lt. Bob]

I would stick my neck out and say that most Yngwie-type-whammy-tapmasters use the neck pickup for soloing. that's one of the ways they get the smoothness.

really?

well ....... I've always preferred the neck myself as I said, but I kinda assumed that metal players would go for the bridge.
Learn something new every day!
cool ....

 

[Farview]

really?

well ....... I've always preferred the neck myself as I said, but I kinda assumed that metal players would go for the bridge.
Learn something new every day!
cool ....

They do the rhythm stuff on the bridge pickup, but the leads are almost always done on the neck pickup. It gives them that little extra gain and smoosh to run the notes together a little better.

 

[Lt. Bob]

They do the rhythm stuff on the bridge pickup, but the leads are almost always done on the neck pickup. It gives them that little extra gain and smoosh to run the notes together a little better.

I'd never studied it 'cause I've reached a point where I don't really care what anyone else does ...... I just do my thing and have always preferred the neck or the neck+bridge.

I guess I just thought that aggressive looking guys with bulging muscles and lots of tats and piercings and possibly theatrical blood dripping down their faces would always go for the most aggresive sound but the smoothness would be the same reason I prefer the neck so that makes sense.

But I have to admit ..... it's a bit of a surprise to me.

 

[Chibi Nappa]

Man I got to say Chibi. I have read a lot of your posts on this forum and there is no one else here that I disagree with more than you. It sounds like you know what you talking about but seriously. Live application changes SO DRAMATICALLY depending on where your at. If you playing on stage at a festival outside, I pray to god you change your setup compared to recording in a studio. A good musician understands how drastic of an effect the accoustics of the room is and can adjust accordingly. I think its really sad when I hear bands play in a location that has lot of reverb and they use a reverb effect that is 100000x more powerful what it should be, because they dont compensate for the room.

I guess in my mind I wasn't counting reverb as part of the guitar sound...but it really is I suppose. So yeah, that would get a pass. But the drive? The core tone? I can't see changing that. Yeah, the master volume of the cabinet changes from venue to venue a bit and you might have to compensate by twiddling some knobs to correct for any tone changes that occur from that...You're still shooting for the same end result.

...Unless the room is really small and the whole band is going a bit mellower. Then you dial it back. But I can't see a situation where you'd drive significantly harder live than in the studio. If it sounds like undefined scooped-out fizz in a controlled environment, it will sound like undefined scooped-out fizz on stage.

 

[Farview]

I'd never studied it 'cause I've reached a point where I don't really care what anyone else does ...... I just do my thing and have always preferred the neck or the neck+bridge.

I guess I just thought that aggressive looking guys with bulging muscles and lots of tats and piercings and possibly theatrical blood dripping down their faces would always go for the most aggresive sound but the smoothness would be the same reason I prefer the neck so that makes sense.

But I have to admit ..... it's a bit of a surprise to me.

YOu are talking about a different bunch of guys. I'm talking about the neo-classical, pagganinni wannabe's like Yngwie Malmsteen and Uli Roth. These guys tend to wear poofy shirts and pretend that they are playing classical music and are, therefore, better than most 'normal' guitar players.

[video=youtube;<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/9cVIOuvDUGE&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/9cVIOuvDUGE&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>]video[/video]

No blood dripping here and sadly only a bulging gut.

 

[Lt. Bob]

YOu are talking about a different bunch of guys. I'm talking about the neo-classical, pagganinni wannabe's like Yngwie Malmsteen and Uli Roth. These guys tend to wear poofy shirts and pretend that they are playing classical music and are, therefore, better than most 'normal' guitar players.

ahhh ..... well hell, I guess I don't know very much at all do I?

Wake me up when ya'll are talking about how "things used to be" .

 

[Farview]

ahhh ..... well hell, I guess I don't know very much at all do I?

Wake me up when ya'll are talking about how "things used to be" .

Technically we are. This guy's heyday was almost 25 years ago.