My guitar sounds suck!

Is reamping okay? It appears to me you go from analog to digital recording the track, and then once again when reamping. On the other hand it gives some flexibility because you can experiment with the sound on otherwise finished tracks. Will try that one day when I am alone in the house. I will put a SM57 on one speaker an a condensor on the other of my Twin Reverb.
 
lykwydchykyn said:
The guy asked about plugins. So we told him about plugins. What's the big deal?
Click to expand...

Yeah, plug-ins that's great and could be a solution. Personally, I have never tried recording a real amp. However, sometimes you ask for an apple and people will tell you pears taste better, so maybe you should try that instead and you find they were right ... or to the contrary. I guess were dealing with how to get the best guitar sound here? No big deal.
 
lykwydchykyn said:
The guy asked about plugins. So we told him about plugins. What's the big deal?
Click to expand...

actually he asked for "Any suggestions on what I could do or other plugs I could use"

it seems sometimes people have a hard time realizing that things are what they are. A fender with humbuckers won't sound like a gibson, a DI guitar running through whatever processing or whatever won't sound like a marshall.

I can appreciate that some people can't make a lot of noise and DI is necessary (which VTgreen81 did not specify either way) I just want to remind you not to expect all your digital processing to actually sound as good as a well mic'd amp...

Sorry if i seem really defensive or anything...just explaining my point.
 
The guitarist I'm working with uses a VERY processed sound and by the time he's got 8-10 tracks down the combination of all that distortion etc makes mixing a nightmare and a wash of white noise. So I'm going to give him all the F/X he wants in his cans and I can put howeever much I need on each track to make it fit in the mix. Less tracks is not an option, they're all important parts, but he can't play with less effect or he loses his "feel". For lead guitar solos I do plan on mic'ing his amp but for the 8-10 rhythm and harmony guitars I need more control while mixing.
 
It sounds to me like you simply have too much gain on everything guitar related. By the time you layer all the tracks together, all the distortion makes it sound like the entire mix is being run through a fuzz box. I think you are right in getting the guitarist to track hearing whatever sound he wants while you capture a clean track for later mixing.

Take the gain down by 50-66% on all the rhythm tracks, throw them back together and you should have a nicely distorted wall of sound that still has definition.

The other thing which may be useful is to actually play back the clean, DI track at the same time as the distorted track. This would give you power from the distortion, yet retain definition from the clean track. Just pull it up high enough to 'suggest itself' to the ear, as opposed to being able to really here it.

There was an interesting thread on this over at the Line6 forums - http://line6.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=3&t=008643

I really like the way you guys have sculpted the harmony lines in this track. Coolness.

Another thing that you might like to look at is the guitarists EQ settings on his amp, effects box or even guitar. Some of the folk at RP.com said they thought the guitar sounded a little thin. I am guessing here, but it sounds like the guitarist might have scooped his mids, a la 80's metal. This has left you with hardly any mid energy, (the main part of guitar which we hear on recorded material), you have then rolled off the low end to give the bass some room and mixed it together. The result is that you have very little of the guitar signal left in the mix, hence the 'thinness'.

What's the fx box, btw?

Ciao,

Q.
 
WOW!!! Beautiful analysis. I almost laughed out loud when you mentioned the 80's metal sound, the reason is the answer to your last question. The F/X box is a Roland GP-8, bought used from a guy who played in a metal cover band in the 80's and it's programmed with all his patches.
 
:) I have a guitarist who is a recovering 80's metal, hair-band addict....

Actually, that's crap. To say he is recovering is certainly to give his musical taste too much credit!!

Anyway - don't take my word for anything - I'm just guessing based on what I think I heard going on. These ears are far from professional quality!

Ciao,

Q.
 
If it's any use.... I recently put the 79 strat through the modded TS9 and then into a cheap Alto valve preamp then straight into the desk (VM200) and the tone was really surprising.

I LOVE tone and this was more than good enough to keep for the take. None of the amp sims (generally speaking) have sounded convincing to me tone wise. I've only met keyboard players who reckon amp sims sound as good as the real deal (no offence intended to anyone!).

Surprising things you'll do when there's a baby in the house... :)
 
First, for the amount of things you have going on in there, that's a good mix. You can hear everything, even the clean guitar never really disappears.

For the guitars, you need more mids, less of the crispy top end. The white noise does come through. Some of that may be the particular pedal, as many of them use a high pass/low pass arrangement with the tone knob as a blender like the Big Muff and DS-1. Using a Fulldrive2, TS9, SD-1 style pedal will probably get you a more ampish sound; maybe one scoopy guitar and one middy guitar and you blend the two in the mix.

Play the guitars through amps and mic the amps. That should get the mids and highs back into balance. If you have to go direct, maybe a 15 or 30 band EQ set like the Celestion or Eminence speaker EQ curves, but tube amps are the only thing that play, feel, and sound like tube amps.

Cut down on the number of guitar tracks to say two per individual part (e.g. two distorted rhythm guitars, two distorted lead guitars), and cut the gain on the rhythm tracks. That should make the guitars clearer and punchier. Try less reverb/ delay.

Turn up the distorted rhythm guitars a bit. When you're doing the clean to dirty thing, the dirty needs to have more kick than the clean. Think "Smells Like Teen Spirit." And give the drums some more oomf, especially the kick drum.

All in my humble opinion, HTH!
 
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