Guitar Recording: amount of gain? [Archive] - Jordan Rudess' Community Forums

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rutgerv

07-26-2004, 08:31 AM

Ibanezrocks!

07-26-2004, 08:49 AM

Well im a guitarist and a friend of mine has a POD but i think just put the POD in your Computer ton first in the tube and take the Modern High Gain (a distortion of the POD) in your POD tweak it until it sounds cool the Gain Must be on 127 i think that's the most you can get with a POD and voila a cool distorion (well then my friend had a cool distortion) :lol:

Spacehog

07-26-2004, 10:51 AM

While I don't use a POD, I never use the gain anything past about 40%. The slightly cleaner sound actually sounds more cutting and edgy in a mix, IMO. Oh for a Fender Twin :)

Also recording guitar in mono will often be more cutting, and I don't understand why you've got the tube mic preamp in the signal path, seems superfluous to me...

Martin

Ibanezrocks!

07-26-2004, 11:27 AM

Oh yeah and record everything first right and then left :D

gotta go fast now

Rexx

07-26-2004, 11:42 AM

Best advice is to experiment. If you don't like the tone you have to make adjustments.

Melodic metal guitar requires a lot of gain for artificial harmonics, killer sustain and controllable feedback.
Personally I use less gain for rhythm and much more for leads but the gain is still high enough to get squealies easily.

Listening to many recordings I notice often the guitars use less gain, if the guitar is overdubbed alot it sounds better with alittle less gain but you can't kill the guitarist sound which is integral to their feel and playing.

When people criticize a guitarist by saying they have no feel it's often just not a tone or a feel that they'd like.

Listening to one of my favorite guitarists Vinnie Vincent he always recorded several 100watt customized tube amps on full volume running simultainiously using tube mics while he was positioned in the control room.
Suprisingly with insane amounts of gain he had a huge amount of noise but lived with it and the noise never was noticable on the cds. Personally I don't think anyone could tell him to reduce his gain.
Alan Holdsworth is another master of tone and insane amounts of high gain.

Tigerfolly

07-26-2004, 12:02 PM

Hi everyone,

my question is actually not about keyboards (surprisingly).

I've just finished the recordings of the drums and bass for my bands second cd. The next step is to record the guitars. Since i'm doing most of the technical engineering for the recording i'm also concerned with the guitar sound.

On this point i have quite a discussion with our guitarist about the amount of Gain that you use when you record "Dream Theater"-like music. Our guitarist is really convinced that you should use quite alot more gain then my ears would like, to make it sound "METAL" :). On one point he's right. It DOES created more "chop chop" in the hi frequencies...

In my opinion all the major metal bands we listen to use fewer Gain to reduce the fuzzyness and increase the fatness of the sound. The guitarsound has more actual tone, and cuts more easily through the mix. But somehow this does not give the "metal" result our guitarist hoped for.

What are your opinions about the amount of gain you like? And are there any tricks to get more "chopchop" in the hi frequencies without losing the tone and fatness of the mid and low freqs?

The setup we use is a Line 6 POD -> Tube Preamp (mic) -> directly in computer. I heard some bands (for instance Ayreon!) who use the POD directly recorded, that sounds awesome!

Most of the rythmguitars will be recorded in stereo, so that will add more fuzz already, with fewer gain.

I'm open for all good suggestions :)

Best Regards,

Rutger

When recording guitars, you want very little actual gain to tape because if there's too much gain, the guitars come out REAL fuzzy. The key to that fatness and sustain in the guitars is compression. Since you're using a POD and not a guitar amp, you're not going to be able to get that sound by the normal ways. Normally, you've got your guitar player's amp cranked up REAL loud, but without too much gain.. you want more volume and "throat" in the tone than you do the fuzzy, fizzy top-end of the distortion. The mic you use of course helps determine the focus of the sound, and the natural compression of the amp, combined with a little compression and fine-tuning EQ in the mix stage really brings that crunchy saturated sound out.

When recording direct you're automatically including advantages and disadvantages into the equation. The main advantage is that you don't have to mic a loud cab! The main disadvantage is that it doesn't always sound the same as the real thing. Real tube amps naturally compress the distorted signal quite a bit. And running a distortion pedal in front of it to overdrive it forces the amp to compress it even more. When you don't have that natural compression happening, you need to emulate, simulate, or simply work around it.

I've got a couple tricks I use, but really it takes a lot of patience and working with the gear you've got to make things sound right to your ear. First off, I use a Rocktron Chameleon preamp instead of the Line 6 gear. Line 6 stuff sounds really good at low gain and volume, but I find as you crank it up, it doesn't sound as good to my ears. As usual, your mileage may vary, but since most of my own direct guitar recording experience isn't with a POD, you'll probably have to experiment a bit to make it sound right.

First of all, compress the signal before it hits the preamp. Don't use a ton of compression and don't use a ton of makeup gain to try and hit the preamp too hard (you especially don't want to clip the preamp's input stage, unless you're specifically going for that ugly, brash distortion. That works great with tube amps, but doesn't work so hot with anything else), but you want a nice, solid signal coming from your guitar.. and you want the spongy "give" of a tube amp. Try running that tube compressor between the guitar and POD, or just use a compression algorithm in the POD.. once again, experiment and see what sounds best with your gear. For mine, the Rocktron has a compressor that works fairly well for what I need.. but if I'm looking for a really saturated distortion with a lot of sustain, I run a tube compressor into the preamp.

Second of all, the less gain you can use, the better. My rule of thumb is to turn the gain down to the point where it sounds bad and breaks up a bit too much, and start adding gain from there. It sounds kind of wierd when you're recording, to have a crunchy, "AC/DC" style sound when you're looking for that Petrucciesque Rectifier From Hell (I call that the "aunch", a term blatantly stolen from the guys in Queensryche), but you're not looking for a great individual sound, you're looking for a great end result. It's more difficult to play and record most things without gain, and most guitar players are really attached to the high-gain sound (some of 'em sound pretty darn bad without it), but one thing that I've done for guys like that is record the signal I wanted, but routed a separate signal to an amp with a high gain tone that sits in the same room as them. This also allows you to bring out some harmonics in the tone and get feedback.

Whenever I record a guitar player, I make them really think about what they're looking for, and bring me examples. Like, "I want that raunchy, Van Halen 1 guitar sound, but without the reverb. EVH before his sound was so chorused for the chorus, but the verses should be crunchy and tight, like this song by this guy, but with less high end." Anything you can use as a reference can help you both get the end result you're looking for. I mean, if you're looking for that Petrucci guitar sound.. which one? Images and Words Petrucci? Awake Petrucci? FII Petrucci? Raise The Knife Petrucci (my personal fave)? 6DOIT Petrucci? TOT Petrucci? And then there's a song by song basis.. since I&W, he's used a lot of different tones and textures, so getting real specific about what everyone's looking for really helps narrow down how you're going to get what you want and what you're going to do in order to get it.

Throwing a live amp in the room with the player I'm recording is a trick I use for a lot of things.. getting a little air moving really makes things seem more "alive" to me.. whether it's the player getting off on the tone, the instrument feeding back a bit, or just that "air" moving, it really livens things up.

Another one of my favorite tricks is to use a condenser mic in the room with the player as well. I call that my "room mic". Even though it might only be picking up the sound of the player's pick/fingers on the strings, you can't digitally add that life later. Reverb just doesn't cut it.

Double tracking works well to fatten up a sound as well, but it really depends on what you're going for specifically. If it's a sparkling, saturated guitar sound that really has a lot of harmonics and complexity to the tone, you don't want multiple tracks smoothing it out, and taking that life out of the tone. When everything's all mixed and mastered, it just won't sound nearly as good as it could have. On the other hand, if it's a really tight, popping guitar sound, double tracking will add body and oomph to it. It also comes down to what the guitarist is playing. Long sustained chords and arpeggiated parts sound better with a single track of a great tone, or two tracks panned pretty far to the sides to create space.. while single note lines and tight riffs sound better double tracked and not panned so far apart in the stereo field.

Also, you can always re-amp later. Programs like Amplitube, Line 6's Amp Farm, and Native Instruments' Guitar Rig allow you to take any signal and basically run it through awesome amplifier emulators. Many producers and engineers nowadays take a DI signal right from the guitar at the same time they're tracking everything else and save it on a spare track. If there's something missing later on, you don't have to drive your guitarist nuts as he tries to painstakingly reproduce a part he recorded weeks or months previously.

Speaker simulators are the weak part of many of the newer preamps. Alternatively, you can record a raw track without the speaker simulator in the POD on, and run that through the cabinet emulator in a better program.

And yet another trick you can do is the Joe Satriani low-volume amp trick, which is to take a crappy little practice amp, run your preamp into it with the tone you want, stick a 57 into the grill, and don't turn it up too loud (you should be able to hold a conversation over the volume of the amp). With a little compression, I've gotten some incredible lead guitar tones this way. With this trick, you can use more gain than you normally would, and it generally doesn't come out too fuzzy and distorted. I really don't know why it works, but sometimes it works really well.

Overall, my specific suggestions to you would be to compress the signal before it hits the POD. Don't use too much gain on the POD.. find out what the least amount of gain you could possibly use to make the part playable, and then give it a little more from there. Experiment a bit (whether or not it's any of the stuff I've listed here, or anything else you find on the forum or in magazines and stuff), and always try and listen for "the big picture", the end result of what everything sounds like together. Also, seriously take a look at some of the plugins and effects like NI's Guitar Rig (you can download a demo from their website), and really work on those compression chops! Oh yeah, and one final note: When you're recording guitars in stereo, I don't recommend recording one stereo track, but two mono tracks. Try and get them as identical as you can, but even the most perfect match still is just a little bit different in some way. That really adds a lot of life to the stereo signal, that just pulling a stereo DI line off of the POD won't do.

Your goal is to make a good final guitar sound that sits and performs it's function within the mix. Things that sound awesome soloed don't always sound so great when bass, drums, keyboard and vocals are stomping all over them.. by the same token, that great guitar sound might swallow the bass, get in the way of the vocal, and make you have to turn your cymbals into over-compressed hissy static to be heard in the final mix.

Getting your guitar player to go along with the plan isn't always easy.. they sure do love their gain ;) Managing egos and comprimising for the artist and players falls under the role of a producer, and they -should- trust you to do a good job and get the right result.. but sometimes you need to do a few things just to keep them happy. When you're tracking guitars, take a spare track and let your guitarist record it his way. Who knows.. it might be the best track you've got in your final mix!

Tigerfolly

07-26-2004, 12:42 PM

Blahblahblahblah

One more trick I forgot to mention:

Take a clean, compressed guitar (or just mic the strings with a nice condenser) and accurately double the guitar part. Take out some the lower frequencies (bass and low mids, generally <300hz but up to 800-900hz) until all you've got is a top end that you can mix into the track and add definition to it. This works great for really tight, palm muted riffs as it adds a lot of definition and clarity to something that might get lost in the mix. It also works well for complex chords that muddy up with distortion.

Pulling a direct line off of the guitar signal when you're recording the parts and saving it on a spare track is a good way to do it, but throwing a condenser mic on the strings pointed at around the neck joint and recording that at the same time works too. That helps, because you don't have to go back later and try to match the part.

I personally like to use a Steinberger with EMG single coils, and use a very pristine, "modern" clean sound. It's actually kind of Petrucciesque, but it really stems from that Queensryche "Eyes of a Stranger" clean sound. Depending on what it's doubling, it can really add clarity and definition, a top end sheen, or it can be barely audible and just add that something special that might be there.

Here's a demo of a song (without vocals) that used a lot of the tricks I mentioned, and if you listen to the pre-choruses and choruses, you'll hear that ultra-clean guitar in the mix (it's actually turned up a little louder than I'd usually use it in this mix). During the prechoruses (the seventh chord stabs and octave slides) it doubles the rhythm guitars, but during the chorus it breaks off and does an arpeggiated part.

http://exit3.i-55.com/~tigerfolly/media/Aliens%20Ate%20My%20Buick%20093003%20EgoMix.mp3

There's four guitars on this song. A distorted electric panned left, a distorted electric panned right, a clean electric on the left, and a clean electric on the right. The electrics were all recorded direct to digital, and they're a little choppier than I normally do things, but they sounded kindy edgy and I liked that for this track. At the very end, with that sustaining G, you can hear the guitars die out and hear how little gain they actually have on them.

Hope all of this helps.

EDIT: I figured since I did it on the other post, I might as well add the credits to this, even though it's just a demo.

Aliens Ate My Buick
Written by Mark Vasquez and Dave Solar
Bass: Mark Vasquez
Drums: Phil Goodrich
Guitars, Keyboards: Chris Gardner

Produced, mixed, blah blah blah: Chris Gardner

Phred

07-27-2004, 02:32 PM

Wow you rock mr TFolly.

Tigerfolly

07-27-2004, 08:58 PM

Wow you rock mr TFolly.

Nah, I just roll :)

rutgerv

07-27-2004, 09:28 PM

Wow, thanks alot for all the good tips Tigerfolly and others!!!

I already am a great fan of Guitar Rig :). I use it alot when i record guitars for demotracks etc...

Fortunatly with the choice for direct input recording we don't have a time (or money) limit so i'll take some time to experiment with different sounds and setups. I hope our guitar player has the patience for it... :).

Next week he'll be back from his holiday, so then we'll start recording. Í hope to get the drum and bass tracks all cleaned up and edited by then so he doesn't have to record with crappy edits... :).

I'll let you know how it went, and hopefully some of you get the chance to hear the cd when it's finished!

Best regards,

Rutger