cool thing about guitar is you can def create anything you imagination desires.

 

That's what I think the inside of my rack effects might look like!

 

thank you for taking the time to write this. I agree with the synth, I made it too big and too loud.
I'm having a lot of trouble bringing out that bass. Probably should deleting all the processing and assess if the bass can be tracked better.

I did have those panned hard left and right...and one in the center at the beginning. Could this be the panning problem on Ableton I've read, not up to par with other DAWs?

I only worked on the latest three mic'ed guitar tracks today. This is a project I started a few weeks back, hours and days of programming and tracking.

One thing I noticed with mic'ing guitar, I don't need as many tracks to make it sound full.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 26, 2017

Maybe try a slight (<3db) boost around 800Hz. Brings out clarity in the bass without swamping the low end.

This mirrors my experience. I tracked 3 different mic takes (SM57, Ribbon, etc.) thinking I'd need them for a fuller sound. I've usually ended up choosing whichever mic fits into the mix best and only using one per side.

 

Thank you for the suggestions @mercurysoto and my other dragon brother @digitaldragon
The pan on Ableton is a balance knob, so I inserted a utility plugin to pan correctly?

the bass is better? Kick is punchy?

 

M

It could be that the tracks themselves are indeed hard left and right, but the effects in them are less wide. You could use a side widener of some kind to push further the stereo separation, but check in mono or you could lose the raw power. Since you have other guitar tracks, you could supplement a mono guitar track which will only be used to maintain guitar drive in mono.

To my ears, you could double the bass track, place it atop and hi pass filter all the rumble to taste, as high as 1kHz could be possible. Then slam the hell out of it with a NY-style, all-buttons-in 1176 compressor, and/or add an overdrive to it (tape style or even a guitar plugin). Blend the two signals until the bass starts to open up without clashing with the guitar tone. You could even low-pass filter the original bass and see how much you can cut until the guitar tone is clear but still have bottom and intelligibility in the bass.

 

When I'm hard panning guitars left and right (which is almost always, lol) I will pan the reverb send to the opposite side, like around 75 - 85% from full pan to help create a little width. This also helps the reverb not to "crowd in" with the original signal. When you first try this, just listen to the two guitar tracks and the reverbs by themselves. There's that "wall of guitars"!

 

Maybe so @Sylenth.Will.Fall >>> ive done it too>>>in the past i have Road the Rollercoaster of trying to EQ a badly recorded guitar till i was blue in the face lol>>> take a lil here Remove a lil there add a lil bit then its back to square one >>> Guitars are in my opinion the hardest elements to get a good balance of EQ on in a mix... i may shave a lil off in the mids sometimes but not much >>>cause then the Rollercoaster ride begins lol \m/ >>>like they say get it from the start ;)

 

Last edited: Sep 26, 2017

The only thing my imagination is doing right now is thinking about the electricity bill :O

There is just sooo much to learn. Fun to learn also though!

 

Slap that tape simulation on it and be done! Haha, I know, not a fix all, but hell if that doesn't tame the shrill pretty good. I'm totally with ya on the roller coaster ride. (Now that song is in my head!)

 

Absolutley \m/ a few good Nebula presets ive got for that purpose ;)>>>an got a few preamps ill use for that job too if the fizz is gettin to my guitars lol >>>on other projects from another band this is the ticket

 

Enough with that Nebula talk guys......would Nebula even load in a i5 laptop if I expand to 8G Ram? 16G ram?
I'm really enjoying the free Acustica plugins esp. RED for guitars and drums.

Gonna try that reverb trick @digitaldragon

thanks for the suggestion

imagine if @superliquidsunshine i-hate-power-supplies owned that pedalboard ...oh the battery bill......

 

I know we're supposed to be done with the Nebula talk, haha. But I just wanted to share that I can run several instances of Nebula as well as Gold on an old AMD Phenom II running at 3.2GHz (8GB RAM) that's only slightly overclocked.
So I'd think you'd be able to. Moreso since you are already sort of running it within the RED Acustica Plugin. Check out TAN too, it's a great freeware compressor from them. Try it on a Bass track! Has good color, though I usually run it after an algorhythmic compressor.
Another thing to try on the Bass track... T-Racks Black 76. Though the new offering from Overloud (Gem Comp76) may be good as well (haven't tested). That FET compression adds some nice harmonics when you just kiss the signal with it (~2-3Db gain reduction). This helps bring the bass "out" some without having to push the volume. Also helps with system translation to smaller speaker type devices.
Oops, I see above where @mercurysoto already recommended all-buttons-in on one.

 

Try setting the amp on its back and mic'ing it from above (you can still set the amp on your tennis ball decoupler, if you prefer). This has the added benefit of eliminating all reflections from the studio floor and getting more of a pure 360 degree projection from the amp itself.

Another thing I always wondered about was why most people mic the amp so close to the speaker. In a live situation, it makes sense, because the audience is already hearing the amp from a distance, so a close mic adds a direct presence. If you're recording the amp, however, you would want to pick a spot that's close enough to get that "presence", but far enough away that you're getting some air, or, to put it another way, where a person would realistically be hearing the amp from. They definitely won't be pressing their ear against the amp itself. I always go by the basic rule that we're recording and mixing either from the player's perspective or the audience's, so I always try to mic a couple of feet from the amp (your sweet spot may vary), roughly where the player would be standing.

 

Actually, in a live setting, the reason for mic'ing up close is practical, basically to minimize leakage from the drums two feet away. But in the studio, other factors motivate close-up mic'ing a guitar cab. For one, if the room is not acoustically sound (pun intended), the room sound blend is going to tank the true amp sound. Then there's the fact SM57s get a nice saturation-like behavior when blasted. That's why it's a favorite on guitar cabs, snare drums, and shouty singers. Finally, it adds this rowdy mid-rangy growl that makes electric guitars sound like they do. Mic positioning and/or angling affects a guitar mic response more effectively that adding distance to it. Of course, if the guitar is clean, vintage sounding, or an amped acoustic, then things change. Maybe a condenser would be a better pick and distance would become more of a factor.

EDIT:

BTW, in a rock band setting in a bar, only the first couple of tables might get the "true" amp sound in their face at a reasonable distance. If it's a metal head-bashing bar for, say, 100-200 people and you place two 100 Watt Marshall full stacks, then yes, guitar will be all over the place from the stacks, but that's not a typical bar scenario, where most players can get away with less than 50-watt monitoring with a drummer nearby. In a hi-stage concert, the amps, even if full stacks, just don't get to the audience.

EDIT 2:

Some of the greatest guitar tones are just one amp and one mic. Take Tony Platt, of AC/DC Back In Black fame. In this article from Universal Audio he talks about his use of Mashalls and how to get the best of them. Here are some highlights:

"Making sure that the room isn’t introducing unwanted elements is an aspect often overlooked. If you get the level, mic choice, and mic positioning, then the natural compression that will encourage contributes to the power of the sound as well."

"There are no layered guitars on the AC/DC albums I worked on — just two rhythm guitars up to the solo — and then Angus would play a second rhythm after the solo so that the intensity didn’t drop once the solo had finished."

"In general, positioning the microphones to capture the frequencies they are best at and then combining them to balance the texture you want is so much more effective than just using an EQ."

 

Last edited: Sep 27, 2017

Here are my observations. The bass is way better, but the drums still need some work. The kick drum still needs some thud, and the ride cymbal is kind of buried in the mix. For the kick drum, I'd suggest thinning out the double bass drums but keeping the tone you have now for the single hit parts. The kick just needs to be a hair higher or punchier. On the drum bus, you might to add around +3 dB of a high shelf in the 10-12 kHz area so that they get a little more brightness. The synth now sounds like double mono: big blocks of energy on each side. I guess I liked it better before, although it was killing the guitars. This mix now has the constant guitar raw power that the previous one needed. One last thing, I hear noise on the guitar tracks. You might wanna do some track cleanup.

I like it, brother.

 

I brings my heart great joy to know this from the source. And that guitar tone kicks ass that way!

He might be able to try a 45Hz 3db boost and a 55Hz 3-5db cut (resonant curve EQ) to give that thud you're looking for. (Thanks spencerlee!) Or just use Voice Of God or Bark Of The Dog plugins which will do the same curve. But watch out, too much and you've got one of @subGENRE's EDM kicks! I speak from experience! Haha. But it definitely brings the weight for the kicks!
Wish I could download this to check in my truck with subs.

 

My friend, I guess it's the other way around. For my liking, the kick needs a clickier, batter-hitting kind of sound to be recognizable and not get lost in small speakers. I feel there's plenty of bottom already.

 

Thank you again. You are perceptive about the double kick, it is mostly a stock Addictive Drums MIDI file that definitely needs 'thinning'. Most of those fast kicks will disappear the next time I edit the drum track. I will eventually separate the drums for more control also. Right now I'm experimenting with running the drums thru AirWindows' Fathom Five for that extra lowend.

One cause of the noise on the guitar is because the actual amp volume is so low it is hard to get away from that buzzing.
What would you suggest either before or after the fact?

@Iggy My cab is in a small closet so facing it up would not help in this case. at least the floor is carpeted.

 

Oh, I gotcha. Sorry about that. I haven't been able to give it an honest listen on my monitoring system. I defer to your judgement in this case! When I heard it (PC speakers) I felt there wasn't good separation / clarity between the bass and kick, that was several revisions ago however.