Hailz, I have been trying for like 3 months to make the virtual guitars from Shreddage, mainly Shreddage Serpent to sound realistic but without much success, (using TH-U amp sim). Is there any way to get a tone like that with amp sims?

My Big problem is that I get lots of hiss always. Maybe phasing issues cause all Shreddage vsts don't really have a double note tremolo articulation. So you can only try with poly input. Power chords tremolo work okish in terms of sound, but some other note combos make too much noise. It might be impossible to make a Black Metal tone of that good quality using amp sims and Shreddage cause their samples aren't that good, but not sure. Maybe someone knows better. My latest try is those two mp3s. They sound horrible though. My pc kinda hinders me from using too many bus channels as well to try with multiple amps. I hope someone knowledgeable can shed some light to this problem, in the meanwhile I will continue trying... (Either Way I am mostly interested on how to achieve this particular tone even like with a single note playing and even if it isn't as "high quality as in that vid". Not interested so much on how to make Shreddage play realistically.) Thanks in advance for your time to read.

 

I haven't really tried TH-U but the STL Tones amps can get some really metal hi-gain sounds, maybe try them? Maybe Will Putnam in particular.

 

Best funny poll ever
I'll get back at you when I can listen properly your tones. But I can tell you you can get good tones with Shreddage and ampsims.
The difficult part is creating realistic good sounding guitar parts when complex articulations and in general expressiveness are used.

And if you can tell:
- if you use double or quad tracking
- only one shreddage instance or more (and what version, SRP v2, Serpent v3)
- the exact fx chain
used on the "only guitar" example it would help a lot

 

Last edited: Jun 27, 2020

Thanks for your suggestion. I just tried the STL Tonality - Will Putney and its Preset 25 Deep and Dense sounds interesting. The only downside is cpu usage goes up to like 54% max when using it solo without any effects, while TH-U is only at 21% max again solo and other effects. I am gonna try to experiment some with it and see what I can do though. TH-U is really good also, you should give it a try. I know some people that make good songs with it. I just don't know how to set it up properly probably.

 

While I agree with you, I haven't seen any video on youtube using nice sounding tremolo for black metal riffs yet. Shreddage can be good for Djent cause it can sound somewhat mechanical when playing somewhat fast power chords and that suits that genre well. Also the bass and drums can mask the unnecessary sounds a lot in the mix. The only thing that I managed to make very close to a real guitar with Shreddage Rogue is solo guitar with tapping, sustain etc. For really high gain sounds I can get a good tone, but I always gets lots of hiss together with it. If I don't get hiss then the tone of the guitar most times will sound dull and muffled when using the tremolo articulation at least. Especially when playing two notes tremolo. That's my main problem. I am probably doing something wrong but idk what. The area at around 4000-4800 Hz, especially at 4400 Hz sounds like a Swarm of Angry Bees ready to launch an attack when listened solo with an EQ plugin.

 

Well, I said good tones. Perhaps two tremolos are one of the limitations of sampled guitars because of phase mess, never tried.
I listened it and indeed there're clearly big problems, in the lows too but all over the frequency spectrum.
Can you give us the details I asked before?

 

Sure, I used Double tracking: One Left Guitar and one Right Guitar both Shreddage Serpent v3. 2 instances of it on different midi buses both Grouped in a larger bus where I have EQ, a Multiband Dynamic fx etc. Both mid buses have a TSC 1.1 for overdrive and then TH-U with these settings after on the screenshot and later some eqs. Had to get the zoom at 25% so you can see the Amp sim fx chain. If you want to see the knobs clearly I can post another ss. Edited Post: I forgot, In case you aren't familiar with TH-U those first ones are Fuzz Pedals.

 

The Low End problem is from the drums most probably. Haven't really bothered setting them well. Just had them there to accompany the bass and the guitar. Here is an older version with less fizz but kinda more dull guitar and not that much low end problem from the drums cause I used different drums. Maybe a little low end issue from the bass cause I didn't finish setting it up as well although imo in this version it's kinda ok low end wise. The problem is that the guitar doesn't sound too realistic and that it has fizz. That's the big issue that I want to fix. All the others are not anything hard..

 

Last edited: Jun 27, 2020

Ok, I'll take a look later.
Also, several people here know more than me about guitar effects and especially mixing, perhaps they can help you more than me

The "Black Metal guitar.mp3" only includes the two guitars? Because the lows of that also doesn't sound right to me. Unless there's some reverb there

It would be cool if you can post the dry guitars sound only. Without any FX.

 

Last edited: Jun 27, 2020

No it has the Bass too (Eurobass 2). Ok I will post the dry sound only without any other FX. I assume I just keep the TH-U and deactivate reverb and everything else. I will send even the dry sound from Serpent though without even TH-U activated. Btw it would be nice if we could chat in an app like Discord. It would make things kinda easier. :P Not that I mind it too much from here as well but just a thought. Sorry for all the trouble as well. It would be nice to exchange messages with those other people you mentioned as well. I would like to learn some advice on how I can improve the sound from the Shreddage DI and also to learn some mixing tips etc. Each person does things differently so it's very likely I can learn something new that will help further from them. I am also open to your own workflow or way of doing things however if you want to share anything XD.

 

Last edited: Jun 27, 2020

No trouble at all, that's what this forum is for.
Trying to help in a thing I like a lot and a user that nicely gives all we ask is more like a pleasure

 

So I did some tests with the Shreddage I use (v3 Jupiter, which is the first Shreddage v2) and my go-to ampsim (TSEX502 default profile, it's a high gain ENGL).

A bit surprising, but the thing that sounds worse for me is the lower notes (tremolo) guitar. Especially compared with the higher notes one.
So I tuned -12 in Kontakt (pitch shift processing) and the opposite in the MIDI score (+12 semitones) and it sounds better (forces to use higher samples). Also tried preferring higher strings setting but doesn't work that well.

I can't emulate this for you and it's easy, why don't you give a try?

 

Last edited: Jun 29, 2020

Smart Idea thanks, I will try that. In the meanwhile I found a good mixguide online, although I have some trouble replicating it 100% cause he uses some techniques that can only really be used in Cubase and Harrison Mixbus with Post and Prefader Inserts and not in a different DAW, but those make kinda little difference to the sound I guess. Will see what I can do but already I got a very good sound but with real guitar samples following this guide. Haven't tried with Kontakt yet until I am finished with it although I bet that it gonna suck cause the samples used there in their vsts aren't of such a good quality but anyways. Gonna try later.

 

Nice
What guide is it? When you say real guitar samples you mean recorded tracks, not samples plugins, I guess