Mix test, what do you guys think of the guitars?

[markgov]

https://soundcloud.com/markgovernali/season-sickness-test

part of a song im working on, it has no bass yet. What do you guys think of the guitars?

 

[jsaudio]

cleans sound really good i dig them, not real fond the distortion tone myself but its not too bad would be better to hear in a full mix of course, but i think the drum sounds were the worst thing overall everything was pretty cool

 

[OhMyGoliath]

Sounds really good. the low end is missing though.

 

[markgov]

haha thx man, yeah im really happy with the clean part. The drums i havent really mixed properly for this song yet. The main thing that is bugging me is my disortion tone. Im just starting to learn how to get a good tone I am using an axe fx 2 and some post eq ( im probably over processing it as well )

 

[Speculum Speculorum]

Bass guitar would help.

 

[right_to_rage]

Yeah, a really grinding bass guitar would help, and cymbals.

 

[markgov]

what do you guys think of this as a distorted guitar tone? It's something i did a long time ago

https://soundcloud.com/markgovernali/architects-devils-island-riff

 

[Speculum Speculorum]

What are you high pass filtering at? I am personally, as of late, a bigger fan of allowing more through on the low end, low passing anywhere from 75-95 Hz in my DAW, and then using EQ to deal with problem frequencies in the 125-500 range as a PEQ block after my cab in the Axe-fx II. I don't do extreme cuts, as I usually find I have to do just a bit more EQ in the DAW during mixing where the lows and low-mids start to create some muddiness.

Basically, even though bass is supposed to dominate much of the low end of your mix, adding power and strength to the rhythm section, you still want a bit of it in your guitars to blend in and not feel anemic. Right now it's hard to tell what your guitars will sound like in a mix because they are lacking bass, but I can almost guarantee that there will be a bit of a disconnect as there's virtually no power left in the fundamental frequencies of your guitars.

What amp and cab are you using and what are the general settings? Are you boosting your amp? Do you have a compressor running as well? Have you looked at the new generation of IRs? I am patiently waiting for Ownhammer to release the V30 IRs, as for now I'm just using the betas blended with the Celestion 12M cab that I have downloaded from him and I'm much happier than the stock cabs for the axe. I guess FAS is going into the studio in the new year to record much higher quality IRs for the unit, and they're doing a whole bunch more as well. I'm kind of stoked.

One thing that I have found useful is increasing the low-cut in the power amp section (advanced menu) to anywhere from 200-600 (sounds crazy but sometimes it's what you need) and then adding in more lows and depth, balancing them so that I get the beef, but without the boom.

 

[markgov]

thanks for trying to help me out! what iv'e been using so far is the ts808 mod with drive 0 tone 5 and max level. then pvh6160 with gain 2.5 bass 7 mids 5 treble 5 pres 7 depth 6. and then only brightness and saturation knobs on. my master volume on the amp is at 6 and then all the other settings in this block are stock. Then the cab block is the ownhammer bogner v30 sm57 3 impulse. So ats what i have on the axe fx.
Btw my chanin is an ltd mh1000 w emg81 > Axe fx 2 > Rme Fireface 400 > Cubase 6

 

[brootalboo]

I think the guitar tone sounds fine, it just really needs some low end. I think once you add some bass it'll definitely even out the mix.

 

[Speculum Speculorum]

Well, it's my personal opinion that with the saturation on, you can deal with a whole lot less gain than 2.5. I'm using BKP Painkillers, and I probably have it set at 1.38 with saturation on before it becomes a big mess with the master set quite a bit lower (somewhere between 3 and 4, mine is currently 3.75).

When you have the level set at 10 it really gets rid of the body of the guitar in my opinion. The drives on the Axe are a little extreme. My drive is currently set at 8.46, and it leaves a lot more body that way. You can also budge the tone up a little bit and add some crispness that way. Bring the Low cut down until you start to get a little oomph back into it, and then you can tighten up the way the OD controls the bass by cutting a little out in the EQ. I generally set my mid a bit higher to avoid the big 600-1000 hump that causes a lot of resonance. Somewhere from 1000-1200.

It is my opinion that if you set the low frequency resonance in the speaker page to 10 Hz higher than the resonance of the speaker you are using, you get a much nicer bass interaction. My bass is quite a bit lower than yours, somewhere at 4.12, depth at 3 before it starts mudding out.My low cut frequency is at 291 - you should just feel it out yourself. I changed the pwr tube bias to 0.300 as I like it just a smidge colder.

It's not like your guitar tones are terrible, but if you do these things and then correct with a PEQ or DAW EQ the trouble frequencies in the guitar lows, you'll get that nice tight agressive sound without losing the thump in your cabinet. Good luck! Isn't tone chasing fun!!!???

 

[markgov]

https://soundcloud.com/markgovernali/season-sickness-fixed-guitars

Updated version with bass and fixed up guitars a bit thanks to speculum

 

[Speculum Speculorum]

I think it sounds better. If you aren't already a part of it, I'd seriously head over to the FAS Forum as well. The guys there are so helpful with this unit. I have learned so much from them it's rather ridiculous.