Help with compressing guitars

[machinegunriffer82]

I need help making my guitar mixes sound smoother. Thanx

 

[the unbearable]

smoother? please clarify.

 

[Stealthdjentstic]

What DAW are you using? More information would be nice

 

[gnossdrawkcab]

I need help making my guitar mixes sound smoother. Thanx

If by smoother you mean all one volume then yeah you need to compress your mix. Try setting a compressor (I'm assuming you have one in the DAW you're using) with a ratio of 4 (which is really gonna squash the signal) and an attack and release of around 25ms for each (which is pretty fast). Then bring the threshold down until you can hear the guitar part getting lower in volume. then you'll have to raise the gain makeup to compensate for the parts that are getting lowered by the compressor. Now the whole guitar mix should be very equal in volume no matter if you're playing soft or loud. I usually take it easy on the compression on guitars and only use compression heavily on kick,snare, and bass

 

[machinegunriffer82]

I have a pod xt and im using some cab impulses, but my guitar still sounds to ruff in the mixx like hissy or something. Ill put up spme soundclick files asap.

 

[Th3 Beyond]

Ya, compress it, im sure that will help.

 

[Taylor2]

I have a pod xt and im using some cab impulses, but my guitar still sounds to ruff in the mixx like hissy or something. Ill put up spme soundclick files asap.

I'd be playing around with the settings on your patch.
Adding compression to the mix isn't going to magically make your tone better.
Go back into the POD and play around.
Or check out the library and get a patch or two and see what makes them sound like they do.

 

[Th3 Beyond]

I vote dump the bean.

 

[machinegunriffer82]

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sounds like crap to me.

 

[Taylor2]

It's the POD patch.
Go back and re-work it.

 

[Ben.Last]

Yeah. That's not a problem that requires compression. You need to go back into the patch and tweak the eq settings.

 

[rfahey86]

Definitely the patch sound. If your going to be using that much gain I wouldn't even add a compressor at all. High gain distorted guitars pretty much compress themselves. Any extra compression is going to take the dynamics right out of it and make it sound even worse.