The New Tone Thread

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I almost always hi-pass my electric guitars so they'll leave a little breathing room for the bass guitar. I basically find the cutoff frequency where it neuters the guitar sound, then back it down from there until I have a good balance between guitar and bass.

Acoustic guitars I'll hi-pass as well. Or maybe instead I'll just use a low shelf to get rid of the boominess (I play a dreadnought, which has a pronounced low end).

Other than that, I don't do much EQ on electric guitar. It's that rare instrument where you have a lot of control over EQ while tracking. Between the controls on the amplifier and the use of mic positioning, electric guitars pretty much come out with the EQ good to go. You might brighten them up or make them more present (especially for leads) by bumping them at 5kHz or 7kHz. There isn't much signal higher than that from a recorded guitar track...guitar amps don't really reproduce many super high frequencies.
 
JDOD: On the eq thing, I know it sounds cliche', but you've gotta use your ears man. If it's boomy, try to find the offending frequency & smooth it out a little. If it's dull, bring the highs up just a little. It doesn't take much, & if you go drastic with it, it's gonna sound un-natural in my experience, so again, just use your ears dude.....
 
JDOD: On the eq thing, I know it sounds cliche', but you've gotta use your ears man. If it's boomy, try to find the offending frequency & smooth it out a little. If it's dull, bring the highs up just a little. It doesn't take much, & if you go drastic with it, it's gonna sound un-natural in my experience, so again, just use your ears dude.....
Yeah, that's what I'm doing - very pleased with the results so far. I might post up a clip in a bit, see what you think. I was just hoping there'd be some sort of magic tip! I used to use loads of EQ a few years ago when I was exclusively using sims. I also had loads of preset EQs that were pretty helpful for giving you ideas.
 
On the eq thing, I've noticed most of my guitars have a nasty little bump around 300hz, so check your track with an eq that has a graphical interface, & adjust accordingly. I've had those bumps around 600hz too, just depends on the track....there are other things you can do too, like a hp/lp filter to remove unwanted things like fizz & rumble, but you have to be careful not to over-do it, as it'll literally kill your tone...

Werd up to this. My LPJr, i have to duck a little bit between 375 and 450. And if i really want my Sparrow to tracks to pop out i just shave a whisker ditch out at about 250-300. And like, with sims especially, there is no inbetween, if i go to far with those little notches, it just sounds like bullshit.

300 to 600 seems to be a pretty gross little area for most guitars in general.

JDude, I just checked out your latest soundcloud posting and its really shaping up and sounding good man. Stoked for the final product.

I had one cover song so close to being done and ready to unveil here, but i have decided to retrack some vocals and do some harmonies. And also thanks to Miner, i am redoing a lead using the new amplitube.

High Five to Procrastination. I'm such a dick. Haha. :guitar::cool::cool::facepalm:
 
Cheers, shan. I've fucked with the EQ since then too. Will post up the chorus shortly. I think I'll stop messing with it now.
 
Shan, this is a similar mix to what you've heard on the SoundCloud but with some minor EQ tweaks on the guitar. I'm now very happy with the tone. Any extra tweaks you can come up with would be helpful but I don't want to fuck with this much more.

View attachment Pillars - EQ Remix.mp3
 
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Since doing that, I've started fucking about with EQ on the drums - just using the Reaper EQ presets for Bass, Snare and Toms. Makes a massive difference - particularly like the Toms.
 
High Five to Procrastination. I'm such a dick. Haha. :guitar::cool::cool::facepalm:
haha, I've been procrasinating for about 10 years with this shit. OK, the "Pillars" idea is only about a year old and since coming up with it I've been very, very busy with the band I was playing in (I had to learn the fucking album to play the album launch) bought a new amp and actually learned a shit load about recording.

That aside, one of the songs I am working on and retracking are nearly 20 years old!!! Its the very first thing I wrote with a band. I'm determined to get a quality recording of it. I even remember some of the lyrics 'cos a mate of mine (who's now a relatively sucessful author and an english teacher) helped with them and they aren't that bad!
 
haha, I've been procrasinating for about 10 years with this shit. OK, the "Pillars" idea is only about a year old and since coming up with it I've been very, very busy with the band I was playing in (I had to learn the fucking album to play the album launch) bought a new amp and actually learned a shit load about recording.

That aside, one of the songs I am working on and retracking are nearly 20 years old!!! Its the very first thing I wrote with a band. I'm determined to get a quality recording of it. I even remember some of the lyrics 'cos a mate of mine (who's now a relatively sucessful author and an english teacher) helped with them and they aren't that bad!


Your tweakin sounds pretty good man. It's coming together. Chances are good once you start mussing with the drums and polishing those up you'll be back to make final tweaks to the guitars and bass and stuff. Necessary evil. At least for me.

Yes man!!! redoing old stuff always seems like a good idea. Me and a buddy also started redoing some old songs from back in like 1996 1997, because we both got into home recording but we also both had some real life stuff happening and the proverbial ball got dropped like a hot potatoe. So it is now sitting in a weird state of not done-ness. Which really sucks casue they are great punk-ska songs.

Actually i am going to share it anyways just because. I gotta find the latest copy of one of the songs.

BRB.
 
Here. Hopefully this works. I was having some trouble with. Old Punk Ska band from the 90's. rerecorded in the last two years or so. Details about the track are in the summary in the link if you wanna know more.

I did the bass tracks and some production. Enjoy.

 
Here. Hopefully this works. I was having some trouble with. Old Punk Ska band from the 90's. rerecorded in the last two years or so. Details about the track are in the summary in the link if you wanna know more.

I did the bass tracks and some production. Enjoy.


I like this - the playing is great. The bass sounds brilliant. Don't you think the track sounds a bit muffled, though? Lacking in high frequencies a little?

This is a first mix of the track that myself and an absent tone-threader have been working on. It's mostly a headphone mix as I can't get on my monitors at the moment. You can hear the guitar tones in context!

 
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That's really cool. Shan, love the bass tone. The guitars are a touch anonymous in the mix with the drums bass and vocal. Thr clean guitar sounds cool, if a little quiet but the dist guitar seems to just be filling out space and really noticeable on its own in the chorus. Cool tune though
 
Yea, i wasn't present for the tracking of the guitars for all those songs. I debated flying in to kind pitch in and see how he went about his guitar tracks for the clean stuff casue they did turn out kind of cool. I think it was Mesa triple Rectifier for the dirty parts? Big big amp i recall them saying they had. It is also a bit more "Metal" sounding that i personally would have gone with for the genere, but that was their part of the project so i wasn't going to step on any toes there and it was more or less for fun.

He did say he wanted to retrack some stuff and i think the dirty guitars were part of it.

thanks for the review man.
 
I like this - the playing is great. The bass sounds brilliant. Don't you think the track sounds a bit muffled, though? Lacking in high frequencies a little?

Yes i do actually. NO lies. Those were my first words to him. It is muddy in the low to low mids i find, i think it is the guitars and the high freq's aren't open enough to let the mix breathe, i know he has some issues with his monitors and his room is not treated so i think it was mixed pretty low to over compensate for how his ears were hearing the room around him. Good Ear Bubba. Thanks for that.

This is a first mix of the track that myself and an absent tone-threader have been working on. It's mostly a headphone mix as I can't get on my monitors at the moment. You can hear the guitar tones in context!

This is freakin awesome man. I really like it, and i am on ear buds right at the moment can't wait to hear this on my monitors.

You nailed those vocals too!! like, NAILED that Strummer feel and inflection. good work. Homeboys drums are on point. Really enjoyed this Bubba.
 
Yes i do actually. NO lies. Those were my first words to him. It is muddy in the low to low mids i find, i think it is the guitars and the high freq's aren't open enough to let the mix breathe, i know he has some issues with his monitors and his room is not treated so i think it was mixed pretty low to over compensate for how his ears were hearing the room around him. Good Ear Bubba. Thanks for that.



This is freakin awesome man. I really like it, and i am on ear buds right at the moment can't wait to hear this on my monitors.

You nailed those vocals too!! like, NAILED that Strummer feel and inflection. good work. Homeboys drums are on point. Really enjoyed this Bubba.

Thanks so much for that, Shan. Greg picked the track, it was slightly off my radar but it was one that Greg had always wanted to play the bass to. If anything,to me, the bass is the star of this as it is on the original.

As for the vocals, if anybody had told me a few months ago I could have faked a passable Joe Strummer I'd have laughed and told them to piss off, lol.
I've since found out that Joe faked a lot of that gravelly, working class tone and inflection, or at least accentuated his voice's natural properties in that direction. Whenever I've seen footage of Joe singing for a recording, it struck me that he always has a ton of nervous energy and throws himself into the song as if his life depended on it. I can't say I quite did that but it was certainly on my mind whilst doing it.
 
ShanPeyton - that was fun to listen to. The drums have enough treble, I think, but the vocals could sure use some. The guitars might be OK. Bass sounds great!

Bubba Po - awesome - great performances all around. Gerg is a kickass drummer (and bass player? I lost the plot on who played what). Vocals are very good - maybe a little dry for me, but that's fine. I wanted to bring up the guitar about 3-4 dB - seemed a little buried - also great.
 
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