How do you process your guitar?

[Zakimations]

I realized yesterday that all of my recorded guitar samples sound like there is a either a wet towel on them or there is no tight, awesome punch to them.

I should know this type of thing by now since I have been recording for like 6 years but I don't so let's just assume that I don't know ANYTHING.

I am playing a Ibanez Prestige into a BBE Sonic Maximizer Pedal, and a BOSS Metal Zone, from there into a
Marshall stack, running a line from the emulated line out in my amp into a Alesis Multimix Firewire 8.

I record at 48,000Khz at 24-bits.

As far as software sampling I don't know much about it but I do a little bit of EQ.

I don't think my problem lies in my hardware since all of it is pretty decent. Sure, the firewire interface I have isn't THAT great but I don't blame it for making everything sound lame.

I want to know how to process my guitar samples to get that TIGHT, and FULL feeling. (Let's assume all I play is metal)

Thanks for yout input.

[Zakimations]

QUICK UPDATE:\

Here is a sound sample if you wan't to critique my sound quality.

• 

  by <deleted>

  4 Views

[sorohanro]

For NG usual stuff your quality is quite ok.
My opinion is that your EQ-ing lacks mid frequencies, especially mid-high and that make the sound lifeless. As much as a guitar player you like the "scooped" sound, with a lot of bass, even if that sounds good near the amp, in the mix that will get muddy and cover frequencies of other instruments.
As I see, guitar is an instrument that sound mostly on mid frequencies, bass on bass (duh) and high mids (for attack and slap). If you push the bass on guitar you'll cover the space of your bass.

Try Backstage EQ One, it's free and even that the new version looks like a toy, this do a good job, so, put it on the guitar, push down "Depth" and "Warmth" , down a little bit also "Body" (just a little), up a little "Clarity" ...eh, just try to get rid of too much bass and highs.
Bass is for bass and highs are for cymbals, mids are for guitars.

I hate the new version, the old one got some awesome controls on the presence and stereo field, the new one looks like a toy and have less controls... don't we all love "improvement" ???

[Zakimations]

At 5/3/09 12:39 PM, sorohanro wrote:

Try Backstage EQ One, it's free and even that the new version looks like a toy, this do a good job, so, put it on the guitar, push down "Depth" and "Warmth" , down a little bit also "Body" (just a little), up a little "Clarity" ...eh, just try to get rid of too much bass and highs.
Bass is for bass and highs are for cymbals, mids are for guitars.

I tried the software you reccomended. I don't think my signal needs any more processing, it just made it sound more enhanced and over processed.

[Dimoria]

I tried the software you reccomended. I don't think my signal needs any more processing, it just made it sound more enhanced and over processed.

I use quadra tracks when I record guitars. Meaning I record my guitars 4 times exactly the same. Without copy pasting. And I have eQ:s on them higening the mid section and trying to cut some bass and the High end so the bass and drums have room.
And I also compress all 4 tracks to get a fuller and more volume even tone.

Syndrome Metal

[Dimoria]

At 5/3/09 02:13 PM, Dimoria wrote:

I tried the software you reccomended. I don't think my signal needs any more processing, it just made it sound more enhanced and over processed.

I use quadra tracks when I record guitars. Meaning I record my guitars 4 times exactly the same. Without copy pasting. And I have eQ:s on them higening the mid section and trying to cut some bass and the High end so the bass and drums have room.
And I also compress all 4 tracks to get a fuller and more volume even tone.

Syndrome Metal

Forgot to say that I pan all 4 tracks differently meaning I take 2 tracks to the left 100 and Left 60 . Then Right 100 and Right 60 .

[Zakimations]

At 5/3/09 02:15 PM, Dimoria wrote:

At 5/3/09 02:13 PM, Dimoria wrote: I use quadra tracks when I record guitars. Meaning I record my guitars 4 times exactly the same. Without copy pasting. And I have eQ:s on them higening the mid section and trying to cut some bass and the High end so the bass and drums have room.

It sounds good, that is the type of advice I wanted to hear, tricks and stuff.

[Bad-Man-Incorporated]

Yeah man, pan your tracks. Just try with two tracks, your sound is quite full, its just centered. Play it, pan it all the way left, play it again (YES, PLAY AGAIN) not copy and paste. Pan that one all the way right.
That will leave a shitload of open frequencies in the middle panned area for solo/leads and or vocals.

If you decide to copy and past your track, you should move one, like .05 seconds off the other. That will help it not sound "digital", but playing it twice, for things like pinches and squeals will be a pleasant suprise as well.

Good luck man, your songs already kick ass.

[unowned]

i run it through guitar rig and other vsts

[loansindi]

Well. I haven't done any guitar tracking for a while, but here's what I do.

I dual-mic the cab with a dynamic close-mic, usually at about 45 degrees off axis, pointed at about the mid-point of the cone. The second mic is a small-diaphragm condenser about a foot and a half away, pointed right at the middle of the speaker.

I fiddle with these to avoid phasing issues and play with levels until i get a nice chunky sound.

Then I record all rhythm tracks twice, panning one left and one right. Then I'll cut the low end out so the bass doesn't get all muddy.

Woo.

[Darren-M]

i think the effects between the guitar and the computer are really messing with it... personally i like to insert a clean signal into the computer and then digitally add effects, but i would recomend a compressor unit or some sort of compression after the signal has all the effects on it that you want so basicly compress the master meter of the track of the guitar signal, give it a 2 to 1 ratio to make it punchy

[TwilightNecrosis]

At 5/3/09 11:43 AM, Zakimations wrote: running a line from the emulated line out in my amp into a Alesis Multimix Firewire 8.

THIS IS YOUR PROBLEM.

The maximizer and distortion aren't hurting anything; it's the fact that you don't have a cabinet impulse in your signal chain.

Here's how I record guitar:
1) Plug guitar straight into interface. No processing of any kind; just one cable going from guitar to interface.
2) Set channel gain on interface so that when I play the loudest, it is almost clipping.
3) Set up an effect chain with a distortion VST and cabinet impulse loader (I use Guitar Rig, Revalver and FreeAmp3 for distortion, and keFIR for impulse loading.) You'll also want a noisegate at the beginning of the chain, and an EQ AFTER the cab impulse.
4) Set the channel to which you're recording your guitar to input monitoring in your DAW, and turn off the interface's live monitoring.

That should allow you to play your guitar and hear the distortion in semi-realtime, and the faster your processor, the closer to zero-latency you can get. Anything under about 10ms should be sufficient.

Using this method, you can change the distortion sound after tracking, without having to rerecord the guitar parts.

[lukethexjesse]

About scooping mids

I've heard from many many guitarists that scooping mids is a terrible terrible idea and it takes away any possible meat from your guitar. While taking the mids down a little is okay, scooping them entirely absolutely makes it impossible to record.

I've never tried recording guitar with scooped mids, but the musicians I know certainly said to stay away from it, so, well, you better not try.

[loansindi]

At 5/3/09 07:51 PM, lukethexjesse wrote: I've never tried recording guitar with scooped mids, but the musicians I know certainly said to stay away from it, so, well, you better not try.

On the contrary.

Try anything and everything. If it doesn't work... you'll learn from it. If it does work, well then.. score!

[Zakimations]

At 5/3/09 07:56 PM, loansindi wrote:

At 5/3/09 07:51 PM, lukethexjesse wrote: I've never tried recording guitar with scooped mids, but the musicians I know certainly said to stay away from it, so, well, you better not try.

On the contrary.

Try anything and everything. If it doesn't work... you'll learn from it. If it does work, well then.. score!

Yeah thats what I am doing. Tomorrow I am going to buy a M-audio interface with a higher sampling rate and two Shure Sm57 microphones. I am through line-outing my signal. From what I hear mic'ing out the cab makes a hugge difference.

[loansindi]

At 5/3/09 08:40 PM, Zakimations wrote: Yeah thats what I am doing. Tomorrow I am going to buy a M-audio interface with a higher sampling rate and two Shure Sm57 microphones. I am through line-outing my signal. From what I hear mic'ing out the cab makes a hugge difference.

Maybe. If you've got a good amp and decent space to record in you can get some truly fat tones.

Try the 57's in various positions. Right up against the grill. Pointed at center, at the middle of the cone. At angles, straight on. A foot or two away.

Try using one to catch room ambiance.

Try anything. However. If you've got a shitty amp or a bad room, it's gonna sound worse than a direct box and a decent VST.

[speedmetalmessiah]

At 5/3/09 08:40 PM, Zakimations wrote:
Yeah thats what I am doing. Tomorrow I am going to buy a M-audio interface with a higher sampling rate and two Shure Sm57 microphones. I am through line-outing my signal. From what I hear mic'ing out the cab makes a hugge difference.

A cheaper solution could also be to try out a podxt from your local store and see what you think. You can get some great sounds out of it with some tweaking. Plus there are model packs to give you even more effects and amps.

[loansindi]

At 5/4/09 02:23 AM, speedmetalmessiah wrote: A cheaper solution could also be to try out a podxt from your local store and see what you think. You can get some great sounds out of it with some tweaking. Plus there are model packs to give you even more effects and amps.

but. if your computer doesn't have much grunt, you might not be satisfied with the latency with this solution. It might make it difficult to monitor what you're recording as you lay down a track.

[nathanallenpinard]

At 5/3/09 11:43 AM, Zakimations wrote: I realized yesterday that all of my recorded guitar samples sound like there is a either a wet towel on them or there is no tight, awesome punch to them.

I should know this type of thing by now since I have been recording for like 6 years but I don't so let's just assume that I don't know ANYTHING.

I am playing a Ibanez Prestige into a BBE Sonic Maximizer Pedal, and a BOSS Metal Zone, from there into a
Marshall stack, running a line from the emulated line out in my amp into a Alesis Multimix Firewire 8.

I record at 48,000Khz at 24-bits.

As far as software sampling I don't know much about it but I do a little bit of EQ.

I don't think my problem lies in my hardware since all of it is pretty decent. Sure, the firewire interface I have isn't THAT great but I don't blame it for making everything sound lame.

I want to know how to process my guitar samples to get that TIGHT, and FULL feeling. (Let's assume all I play is metal)

Thanks for yout input.

Guitars never sound great with a direct feed. You will want to mic your amp with a real mic.

Just stick your amp in the closet and use a ShureSM58 or other cheap mix, and see what result you get.

The other option you have is an amp simulator in your DAW, but it still won't sound as realistic.

Also compression helps.

[loansindi]

At 5/4/09 12:54 PM, nathanallenpinard wrote

Guitars never sound great with a direct feed.

This isn't true.

There's more than one great piece of software (Amplitube, Guitar Rig) that will produce excellent tone that can be made very real with just a bit of reverb/delay.

[nathanallenpinard]

At 5/4/09 12:55 PM, loansindi wrote: At 5/4/09 12:54 PM, nathanallenpinard wrote

Guitars never sound great with a direct feed.

This isn't true.

There's more than one great piece of software (Amplitube, Guitar Rig) that will produce excellent tone that can be made very real with just a bit of reverb/delay.

I know, it's not quite the same though. But I've had experience with a rock engineer. They WILL sound decent with those plugins (I have Guitar Amp Pro via Logic) just not super awesome.

Also, I was commenting more on the way he had it set up right now. Direct with almost nothing else.

[robjohns4539]

firstly i totally agree with sorohanro, its the eq, bit more mid and high mid, bit less bass, its about how the sound sits in your track and not neceserally how it sounds by itself,

you could also try recording by recording this sound through a half decent mic placed in front of your guitar amp, asuming you have a guitar amp to hand, as apposed to running directly in to the computer,

hope that helps