Tips for Recording HEAVY Distorted Guitars

[Keiffer]

...All I could think was I just blew my whole Saturday recording these guys just to hear "Gee dad, that doesn't sound very good." I almost said "THAT'S BECAUSE YOUR BAND SUCKS!!" But I held my tongue.

yeah... I know this scene.

 

[ermghoti]

I almost said "THAT'S BECAUSE YOUR BAND SUCKS!!" But I held my tongue.

My line: "yep, that is pretty awful. Unfortunately, it is exactly what you sound like."

Or: "Here's what we're gonna do, I'm going to put a different mic on a better amp, with some other guy playing guitar. That should fix it."

Finally: "These are scratch tracks. We'll record individual tracks, then delete the scratches. Then, I'll delete the individual tracks, and it will be all better."

True stories.

 

[TragikRemix]

You sure hit the nail on the head. All I could think was I just blew my whole Saturday recording these guys just to hear "Gee dad, that doesn't sound very good." I almost said "THAT'S BECAUSE YOUR BAND SUCKS!!" But I held my tongue.

Now back to the mixing...I've got two fat and somewhat muddy guitars, each on their own track. Any suggestions on how to get each into their own "space"? No pain, no gain, right?? hehe

constructive criticism, remember? tell them they need to practice before the reocrdings will sound good...

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Now back to the mixing...I've got two fat and somewhat muddy guitars, each on their own track. Any suggestions on how to get each into their own "space"?

It sounds like you're saying two *different* guitars?

First, EQ them seperately to get rid of the mud. You may need to high-pass/low-shelf each of them if you have a bunch of low frq mud. Then, one guitar at a time, use the ol' parametric sweep to find the honking resonant frequency for each track and cut that that frequency by a few dB. Cutting those honker frequencies does wonders for cleaning the mud out of a guitar track and giving the track it's best face forward.

Chances are - with two different gits and two different amps - that those freqs were not the same for each track. By doing that you're already halfway home to givingthem individual character. Next, listen to each one and see which one "sounds" like it trends a bit fuller-sounding or mellower-sounding, and which one trends a bit sharper-sounding or brighter-sounding. Then do a little differential or tongue-and-groove EQing to emphasize those strengths and those differences. For example, on the fuller/mellower one, just a slight EQ bump in the bass (~100-300Hz, to taste) combined with just a slight scooping of the same area on the brighter/sharper one. Similarly, if needed, just a slight bump of the sharper one somewhere around 4.5kHZ - 6kHZ (again, to taste) with a corresponding slight deadening of the other one at the same frequency. Careful on the high-end boost, though; use that only if needed. If the guitar is already very strong in that area, any more boost there could get grating; that'd be a judgement call on your part. However, the cut on the other one could still help in the differentiation between the two.

After this EQing is done, re-balance their relative volumes as necessary.

G.

 

[Newbie-Doo]

My line: "yep, that is pretty awful. Unfortunately, it is exactly what you sound like."

HAHAHAHA!! TOO TRUE!

 

[Newbie-Doo]

...First, EQ them seperately to get rid of the mud. You may need to high-pass/low-shelf each of them if you have a bunch of low frq mud. Then, one guitar at a time, use the ol' parametric sweep to find the honking resonant frequency for each track and cut that that frequency by a few dB. Cutting those honker frequencies does wonders for cleaning the mud out of a guitar track and giving the track it's best face forward. G.

I have several flavors of EQ in Sonar 2. Filter\high pass\low pass, Timeworks Equalizer, Sonar FXeQ, and Parametric (I think there may be two parametrics in there).

Are there any rules of thumb about sticking to a few types of eq? Seems like you could end up undoing what you did in a different EQ if you keep moving from one to another.

Any links to "EQ-ing 101" are appreciated.

 

[cello_pudding]

are they using solid state or tube amps?

they're wanting that feedback and gain you get from a loud tube amp, but they are getting it by just cranking the gain. i know they think it's awesome, but believe me, i used to too when my ears were young.

its surprising how different i set up my distortion pedal from when i was a beginner to now.

 

[cello_pudding]

I have several flavors of EQ in Sonar 2. Filter\high pass\low pass, Timeworks Equalizer, Sonar FXeQ, and Parametric (I think there may be two parametrics in there).

Are there any rules of thumb about sticking to a few types of eq? Seems like you could end up undoing what you did in a different EQ if you keep moving from one to another.

Any links to "EQ-ing 101" are appreciated.

i would just use one 4 band parametric. you shouldn't need too much unless its just really crappy. low shelf to keep the bass separate from the guitar, high shelf to give/take the brightness, and a few peaks to alter tone. usually in the higher frequencies you can find what you want to tweak for distortion. sounds like you'll want to cut some of those to get a thicker sound. just boost some frequencies and see which ones sound the worst...and then cut them. a/b it to see if its a good decision...and you should have a better guitar tone

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Are there any rules of thumb about sticking to a few types of eq? Seems like you could end up undoing what you did in a different EQ if you keep moving from one to another.

As far as "sticking to a few types of EQ", no, IMHO, it's pretty much let the music dictate what it needs.

In general I like to keep the amount of EQ to a minimum and typically don't like to have more signal processors (EQ, comp, verb, etc.) in the signal chain at one time than I need. This is a specific situation, however, that calls for liberal sound shaping in several parts of the spectrum. I'd still try to avoid extreme boosts or cuts unless absolutely called for, but as far as the number of EQs, that's up to what's needed I think.

I agree with cello_pudding that you aould probably get away with a single 4-band parametric per track, especially if the lower and upper bands had shelving options. However, if you're comfortable with your EQs and are fairly intimate with their individual colors or sounds, I'm all for picking the right tool for the right job. In other words, if you particularly like the sound of one particular EQ's high-pass or low shelf filter, but you have another paramteric EQ that seems to work best for notching in the midranges, then by all means, go ahead and use both EQs on the same track, each for it's own targeted job.

That said, though, I prefer to run them on individual tracks one EQ at a time. That is, I prefer not chaining them together as real-time effects, but rather running one over the track to address one issue first, then going back and applying the second EQ to address the second issue. This is really a matter of personal preference, I think; but I personally like the idea of letting one EQ add it's color first and then adapting the 2nd EQ to the new wavefrom, instead of simultaneously trying to tweak both in a real time chain. The real-time chain, it seems to me can wind up being a series of chinese boxes to a degree, tweak #1 and you'll be tempted to tweak #2, after which you'll be tempted to re-tweak #1, and so on. No need for that, IMHO.

G.

 

[Newbie-Doo]

are they using solid state or tube amps?

Solid State Crate Combos. SS Marshall head through a crate 4x12. Bass player is going through some 65 watt ibanez bass amp. Then they have their E strings tuned down a few steps and they tend warble in and out of pitch.

This is full-on high school garage band stuff and they want me to make them sound like Metallica.

 

[Newbie-Doo]

Ok, now that I've made fun of garage band amps you can make fun of my garage band recording studio.

The "studio" rooms are my living room and an extra bedroom. The living room has a peaked ceiling, wood paneling on the walls and a carpeted floor. The bedroom...is a bedroom...S-Q-U-A-R-E with carpeted floor and several bookshelves (which is supposed to be a nice lowtech way to help breakup standing waves). I also like to open the closet door and leave it at an angle to help lessen the sqareness factor and let some of the soundwaves escape from the bedroom itself into the mess of sound deadening junk I have piled in there.

My world class recording gear includes:

1 x Shure SM57 (From what I've read this is mandatory so I bought one.)
2 x MXL 990
M-Audio DMP3
Fostex MR8 2 ins x 2 outs
Echo Gina 20-bit (the original) 2 ins x 8 outs
Cakewalk Sonar 2.2XL
Windows XP
AMD-XP 2000 Processor With 512MB RAM
Yamaha RH-5Ma Headphones (monitors shmonitors! as us broke people say).

For real world reference I'll burn the disc to CD and play it on my computer (I have a nice set of Cambridge Soundworks 4.1 PC speakers with subwoofer.), on my bedroom stereo, living room stereo, and car stereo.

That's how they used to do it in the old days. Mix to master, have the local radio station play it and make changes as their ears dictated.

 

[Newbie-Doo]

Now that you know what went into the "making of the record", you can go here to hear the results. http://www.purevolume.com/fortheloveofthemix

You may fire at will...

 

[Newbie-Doo]

Wow...a whole hour and not a single response...

Too many things wrong to even mention? At a loss for words? Don't know where to start?? Your mother told you "If you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything." ???

 

[ermghoti]

Considering that you don't like the genre, the crappiness of the equipment, and the shady skill levels of the performers, it could be a lot worse. The snare is the biggest problem, very boxy on my computer speakers. The kick could use some click, although that would bring out his shakey double kick stuff. The bass is mixed pretty far down. The guitars are pretty decent sounding, surprisingly.

 

[Newbie-Doo]

Considering that you don't like the genre, the crappiness of the equipment, and the shady skill levels of the performers, it could be a lot worse. The snare is the biggest problem, very boxy on my computer speakers. The kick could use some click, although that would bring out his shakey double kick stuff. The bass is mixed pretty far down. The guitars are pretty decent sounding, surprisingly.[/QUOTE

THANK YOU!!!!! I can't believe you are the ONLY person to give some feedback. As crappy as it was you at least expect people to tell you its crappy. I'm like "just how bad does it have to be to not get a single response?" Especially when so many people offered advice.

Performances aside I was pretty happy with how it came out considering what I had to work with.

The bass guitar was way down cause it was way bad. I tried to hide the bass drum in the mix a little more for the same reason. The vocal was something else. The guy was "oinking" and making soowee noises through the song cause he couldn't come up with any words. I just left in a few parts where I thought it might add something. The lead guitarist had the worlds worst picking noise. It sounded like someone "scratching" on a rap album. Try as might I could not totally get rid of it.

It was my first time recording anybody but myself so it was a learning experience.

Thanks for your feedback.

 

[ericlingus]

I was surprized as well. I was expecting complete garbage. I think they had some cool riffs in there. I song wasn't really that bad actually. I guitar tone was pretty good too especially for what you had to work with. The playing was pretty sloppy. Especially that scratchy guitar. That's really all I have to say. I'm a newbie at this.

 

[Newbie-Doo]

...I think they had some cool riffs in there...song wasn't really that bad actually...QUOTE]

I agree. I don't care for metal, but after listening to it for a few days I actually kind of like the song now.

If I had the ability to record 8 or more tracks at once it would have saved a lot of time and the performance would have been a lot tighter. I am going to start researching 8-16 track digital recorders so when I have the opportunity to buy one I'll know what to look for.