Some questions

[BOWWOW]

HI all,

I have been struggling to get a good tone for a while now.

i need to know what should i do first to get the best result possible.

switch to active pickups or get better amp modelers instead of amp simulators(i am considering a line 6 product)

https://soundcloud.com/paulgilbert-1/test-3

the above was done using an x50v2

palm mutes are the worst specially when playing a full power chord muted

i am using an ibanez s7420 with a dimarzio crunchlab

here are the guitar di's..



https://soundcloud.com/paulgilbert-1/clean-2
https://soundcloud.com/paulgilbert-1/clean-1

would be greatly apprciated if somone can tell me how to improve the sound

when i compare the di's to say one of ola englud's di.. ola's sound more focused and have a nice twang to them where my pickups sound bland and i dunno less stereo ..i am guessing thats the active pickups that is making this difference.

so back to may main concern which would be best at the moment?

i need to decide as putting actives in my slim guitar apparently wont be an easy job

 

[Yo_Wattup]

Not to sound like a dick but that's a technique thing man. You need to work on your palm mutes, you were alternate picking them, correct? You need to down pick that shit, and with more aggression too. Also your guitar is out of tune OR youre pressing too hard on the frets, bending the strings and making them go sharp. The actual tone of the DIs (pickups) are fine IMO

 

[BOWWOW]

not a dick at all man thanks for the feedback

but i was down picking..

never thought i had a technique problem,

is that what everybody thinks? or is there other factors i should consider ?

 

[BOWWOW]

also

like i said ,when i hear an active pick up di, i find the sound much more intense which translates much better going through an amp sim.

yet i have listened to a guitar identical to mine with the same pickup getting an amazing tone,however it is plugged to an axe fx.(not that i am comparing and axe fx to an amp sim)

so i am confused here..should i see the possibility to put active pickups or get a line6 pod.

if i had the money i'd do both.

just letting you know how i am thinking

 

[iceythe]

Pickups are distinguished in two main ways.

Their inherent voicing and ability to reproduce harmonics. The sum of this is often called a pickup's EQ-curve. That's one of the main things you can influence when mimicking another DI.

The other is the dynamic property of the output signal and its noise floor. This is harder to treat, but let's face it, most of the discrepancies are often washed away in the distortion stage.

Have you tried an OD before the amp sim? Zero drive, tone at 8 (of 10) will tighten up the tone and make it more snappy. Don't use too much tone as this also lifts your noise floor on the high end of the signal's spectrum, which in turn gets amplified in the distortion stage.

Another cool trick is to high-pass the signal before distortion, then bring lows back up using the amps tone knobs or an EQ after the amp. The reason for doing this is that palm-mutes feed excessive low-end into the amp which often muddies up the distortion. Experiment with shallow and steep slope high-passing up to 150-200Hz.

This is actually how I create my twangy patches on any unit or amp sim. High-pass, scoop low-mids, boost 1k, scoop 2k, high-shelf the rest.


Listening to your DIs, I find nothing whatsoever wrong about them. They sound perfectly fine and the dynamics sound and even look like they should. x50 is a fantastic modeler when it gets fed the right kind of input signal, settings and a decent impulse response. The user ooidort on this forum is a pretty darn good example of showing how x50 can sound.

Your mix, however, needs some addressing. Whether that's a synth or clean guitars you're using in the background, it needs to have its low-end trimmed in favor of your bass and rhythm guitars. Notice how all you hear from the rhythm guitars is its high-end distortion. Bass guitar needs to be more compressed, because it's decaying too fast on the long notes.

 

[BOWWOW]

thank you for your response iceythe

well i do use the boost pedal in x50(with moderate values)

i high passed ... ooidort stuff is amazing..

i found through his threads some of his DI files ...they are much much louder than mine..

https://soundcloud.com/paulgilbert-1/lrg

any idea why that is ?or did he just raise their volume from the daw?

is your DI that loud ? i am starting to think its My audio interface now (fast track pro)

how can i get a raw Di signal that loud without clipping in the Audio interface?

thanks again for you help

 

[TedEH]

Just using cheap headhones at work, but I hear nothing particularly wrong with the guitar. Just gatta improve the mix. Compress that bass. Turn down or high pass that background keys or whatever that is. I've got the same guitar and pickups (s7420, crunchlab) and that combo isn't super aggressive sounding on it's own- but you can make it sound aggressive by playing it that way.

 

[iceythe]

https://soundcloud.com/paulgilbert-1/lrg

any idea why that is ?or did he just raise their volume from the daw?

is your DI that loud ? i am starting to think its My audio interface now (fast track pro)

how can i get a raw Di signal that loud without clipping in the Audio interface?

You don't need to record a super loud signal at all. You boost the signal inside the DAW using the input gain knob on the amp sim. The gain on a DI is not what you need to look at.

Comparing your DIs to his, yours are louder in the lows, so you cannot increase volume more unless you trim away that. Lows are more than often the first thing to eat the headroom of a guitar signal. This is why high-passing / low-shelving is important in order let the top-end come through for best balance.

I'm gonna take a guess that he's using a fresh set of strings as well, which will have a lot more top-end sound.

Whether or not he uses any processing on the DIs, I don't know. They are very well tracked and consistent. I'm guessing that's why he chose to share them, since they proved to be the best point of reference for people who want to have a go at mixing but without having to worry about the quality of DIs.

 

[BOWWOW]

ok another try
i played the drums quickly without quantizing , so it a bit too rough,
however but my real concern is the sound

https://soundcloud.com/paulgilbert-1/f-1


any suggestions on the guitar sound and if i could make it sound better.

i am using lepou legion with catharsis cabs.
i feel its lacking definition and sounds too processed

also any comments on the general mix

thankyou

 

[philz]

ok another try
i played the drums quickly without quantizing , so it a bit too rough,
however but my real concern is the sound

https://soundcloud.com/paulgilbert-1/f-1


any suggestions on the guitar sound and if i could make it sound better.

i am using lepou legion with catharsis cabs.
i feel its lacking definition and sounds too processed

also any comments on the general mix

thankyou

Tbh, your drums sounds very nice, but the guitars doesn't cut through good enough. I'd say, more mids, more presence, less gain, more attack, play harder

 

[Harmsown]

A wise man once said "The tone is in the hands"

Fresh strings, decent settings on your amp/sims/pedals/what have you, will get you as close as possible...BUT. The really good guitarists know how to translate the sound in their head, through their hands. Pick harder, dig into the strings more...it takes forever to get an amazing tone. And the dudes with the best tones are always changing, because they aren't happy!

Keep it up! Maybe try tracking parts of a song you really like the tone in, then play it back and compare your guitar tone to the sample track. Whats missing? Mids? Clean and articulate picking? etc etc etc. I've done this before and its a humbling experience.

 

[BOWWOW]

@philz thankyou for your advice. more mids and presence made a difference

@Harmsown thank you ,i took your advice and am trying to get a similar mix to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMvqMHST2Is

i just played the same riff twice again with very sketchy drums

https://soundcloud.com/paulgilbert-1/rath

i feel the drums is ok exept the sanre which keeps clipping ,had to lower down the whole mix.cause i cant control it (lowering its volume makes it sound weak and compression squashes it )

also high passed the over heads and the high hat and removed some highs from the kick as it was too clicky

the guitar however i dunno.i feel its too noisy..

i have attached a screen shot with my guitar settings



the bass is trillian.and i cant get any good results using the hardcore patch.

any ideas on how to make the sound similar to the one in the video ?

i am using tse 808 stright to lecab ..pretty sure thats not good ..i tried tse bod --> lecab

didnt sound good.so i am just experimenting ..and kinda lost

any help would be appreciated

thanks again every one for your help

 

[iceythe]

Your snare could do with less room mic and more direct mic. If you find it clipping, add a limiter with fast response to the snare.

I think the guitars sound great, actually. Perfect sonic balance, not too much low-end, smooth high-end. Granted, it seems you're using a lot of gain, in which case a more aggressive noise gate would help tighten the sound.

If your mix is suffering from clipping, add a fast limiter on the master bus. Ideally you should treat channels individually to get the optimal RMS/peak for each channel, but a limiter on the master bus will save you a lot of headache and lets you push the mix harder. Just know that when you push things harder, you always need to compensate by treating channels even more than before. That involves cutting frequencies, reducing transients, compressing in order to increase RMS etc.

For bass, always, always compress. If needed, multi-band compress. Divide bands into 0-70, 71-150, 151-200. Compress the shit out of 71-150 range, then moderate on the other ranges. The lower Hz you go, the less compressor attack you can use, or it'll induce compressor soft clipping.

It's the first time I've seen someone use 808 AFTER the amp