Jan 19, 2003 12:23 am okay, you asked for it.
The guitar tutorial is coming - hopefully this evening.
jues.
compressed guitar
Posted on Jan 18, 2003 11:35 pm
fortymile
Member Since: Jan 18, 2003
i know its a somewhat cliched sound right now, but i need to know how to do it: the 'wall of sound' distorted guitar. i've been wracking my brains trying to figure out how to get 'loud' sounding guitar with punch while not overloading the recording at the same time. i have met with failure.
i adjust my settings to make it warm, but the high strings don't come through and it sounds like mud. i brighten it up, and the guitar becomes grating. i've read all the appropriate mixing and mastering books and EQ charts. i've tried applying lush chorus and removing all effects. i'm really just looking for someone to say 'do this, and exactly this, to get this sound.' to my memory and experience, the mostly-overlooked band 'hum' was the first to bring this sound to attention.
you'd think it could be done using just a POD amp modeler and the korg triton's processing ability--which is what i use. the triton has every effect i could want right now, including parametric EQ's. i use it as an effects processor for recording guitar. but i've not been able to figure out how to record guitar direct and get the loudness, punchiness, and smoothness i need. an up-front, full, warm sound that leaves room for vocals and everything else.
i do believe that in most cases this sound is split---different eq signature on left and right channel, perhaps? i've been searching long and hard for a formula. if anyone can tell me how to compress and EQ the guitar to get this full/vast/expansive distorted sound, i would be able to move on. this is taking far too long. i dont even really like this sound because it's being misued in a cheap way, all over the place right now, but i do need to use it at certain times. so. can anyone shed some light? thanks
j
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Jan 19, 2003 12:23 am okay, you asked for it.
The guitar tutorial is coming - hopefully this evening.
jues.
Jan 19, 2003 07:57 am double or triple track the guitar part, EQ each one just slightly different and pan them a little different, that can add great size and power to your guitar. Many times I will put a very, very slight phaser on one of the tracks as well.
Jan 19, 2003 10:19 am i use a little tiny bit of chorus...dunno why it works, but it does!
Jan 20, 2003 04:31 am neither can i actually...whats 'woot' btw?
Jan 20, 2003 05:04 am Quote:
whats 'woot' btw?
It's 'woot', usually spelled wOOt, it's a cheer. If we have to explain you wouldn't understand :-)
Jan 20, 2003 05:17 am hehehe, silly, out-of-touch brits :)
Jan 20, 2003 01:03 pm actually im not totally clear on what 'w00t!' means, either.
it is addictive. it is addictive enough that i can use it while not being entirely clear
on its origin/derivation.
Jan 20, 2003 09:52 pm heh.. the "woot" thong... man, i've seen it all now.
i know that sound you're going for. i call it the deftones fuzz sound. i get it with pedals like the Boss MT-2 Metal zone and my Ibanez Sound Tank SP-5 Slam Punk. Both make some very fuzzy grindy sounds and can get real hairy real quick. I find that lots of distortion over the entire audible bandwidth makes a real "wall of sound". distortion alone compresses the sound so the more the merrier. try chaining several distortion effects processors in a row to get it real dirty.
i think it's important for the guitar to fill in every little niche in every frequency range to get this sound, so too much EQ can actually ruin it. overdrive is the key. overdriving the signal will bring out all those hidden frequencies, pushing your sound closer towards "white noise".
Jan 20, 2003 11:16 pm please explain w00t to me.
nah, that deftones sound is a cool sound but thats not really what i meant. i am determined to EQ the hell out of my guitar, do anything it takes so that i can hear all the instruments and the vocals, while still getting a big surround-sound distortion. i have to go way beyond pedals and effects, because believe me, i have tried overloading on distortion before, thinking that everything just needed to be made 'louder' and that would solve everything. instead, everything in the mix became harder to hear. so i took to reading the mixing and engineering books, and i realize i have lots to learn. i dont really know how to set a compressor to get the sound i am looking for, and i think compression probably has a lot to do with what i am looking for. anyone heard the new danzig 777 album? i listened to the opening riff in track 2 and just scratched my head. its not a great sound necessarily, but's pro. not that i care about 'being pro,' but i do want my guitars to not suck. that danzig riff is loud, big, and multifaceted in terms of EQ. then theres stone temple pilots, from thier first album, core. that album had guitar punch but you could ClEARLY hear the high strings, which DeLeo was big on sticking into a lot of his chords. that sound right there baffles me, because with me it seems i have a choice: high strings or distortion. i cant make distored high notes sound good when they appear in a chord. but as for the 'wall of guitar' sound, the band hum, while not the best songwriters, had the handle on getting a huge multidimensional distortion sound.
Jan 21, 2003 03:14 am what I usually do to get a wall o' sound guitar sound is this: Pump your amp loud and mic it, put that on one track, go back and overdub the guitar direct and EQ it slightly different, then use a different amp and try micing it different' lay several small guitar tracks down, panned and EQ'd differently, and that'll make it sound big. Also use chorus, reverb, phaser, and maybe even flangers.
Jan 21, 2003 10:40 am Hmmm, sorry about the lack of Tute, I've been a bit pre-occupied of late... :\
Anyways, here's what I do with distorted guitar sounds in a nutshell:
Start of by Mic'ing up the Cab using a condensor close-mic'd. Once the signal is in your DAW, I apply a sod load of compression to it (about 5:1 with the threshold set fairly low) - however make sure you give it a decent amount of attack to still keep that 'punch' - also, dial up a quick release (not too quick tho).
Next, EQ. Start off with a Low Cut starting at around 150Hz, This will remove all the low end from the guitar, which may sound odd when you listen to it - but it will allow plenty of room for the bass guitar to come through in the mix, thus removing an potential "muddyness" where the two clash in the lower frequencies.
I find the "phatness" is around 1.2k - boost a little bit here. To add a bit of "air" to the sound (and help those top strings come through the mix) - boost around 4-5k, nice big phat open Q and not too much gain.
Finally, notch out around 2.3k - have a pretty tight Q and sweep around this frequency until you get it - you'll know when you do.
Notching out at 2.3k not only gives the guitar a very distinctive distorted sound - it also leaves a nice big gap in the freqency range for the vocals to sit in thus assisting the clarity of the lyrics somewhat.
Make sure you "double track" the bits that need it (the choruses, etc) - record the first take, process it as above and then repeat the process but this time invert the phase on the second recording.. Pan one left 85% and the other right 85%. This will create a very dense sound with a nice hole in the middle of the stereo field for bass and vocals to slide into.
As an aside, I shy away from phasers / flagers / choruses on my guitar sounds - not my cup of tea.
Hope that helped, let me know how it turns out.
Jan 21, 2003 03:30 pm thats jues, thats just what im looking for, something solid to try out. i would still love to see your expanded tutorial if you ever get it done. i might have other questions for you guys down the line. getting rid of my distortion problem is priority #1 for me. jues, theres only one thing i didnt get in your explanation: what does 'invert the phase' mean? turn crests into troughs somehow?
Jan 21, 2003 06:09 pm Got it in one mate - inverting the phase litereally flips all the troughs and peaks around - if you have an exceptionally good mixing console then it will have a phase invert button near the gain stage - however, I take it you don't :)
Nearly every single sample editor has a Phase Invert option (soundforge, wavelab, cooledit, peak, etc) - just apply that, it only takes a second.
Hope my suggestions help you - let me know how it turns out.
Jan 21, 2003 11:15 pm one more question, jues?
is inverting the phase important? if so, why? i'd like to know what it does. wouldnt it cause destructive interfernce?
thanks!
Jan 22, 2003 04:48 am Okay, phase inversal for beginers :)
If you have two identiacal samples lined up in your sequencer (eg: a drum loop) and then reverse the phase on just one of them, they will cancel each other out perfectly (resulting in you not hearing the drum loop when they are played together).
In the case above you have to different recordings (even tho you are playing the same guitar riff, the actual waveform will not look identical unless you are the worlds most amazing player (which would be a bad thing in this case!) - when you reverse the phase on one of these guitar tracks you will cancel out parts of the sound, this will create a psycho-acoustic illusion that there is a rather large hole in the middle of your mix which is exactly what we are after.
Hope that cleared it up a bit.
Jan 26, 2003 07:48 pm Just done that phase thing... What's going on? Where did it go?
It's in the left, in the right, but where's the middle???
Hehe!!! Never knew that, I'm feeling wired, best go to bed!!
Jan 26, 2003 08:00 pm It's a cool trick isn't it? Leaves plenty of room for the bass and vocals to sit nicley in the mix - but watch out, it will sound completly different in mono....
... dang!
Jan 26, 2003 10:13 pm Do you worry about the mono sound? Even the cheapest boom box or Walkman is stereo. I read somewhere that you should check your mix in mono, but I never fully understood why. I don't need you to launch into a tutorial or anything, I was just curious about that. C-ya
Ed
Jan 27, 2003 06:40 am Quite simple really.
There is one medium which hasn't latched onto the stereo revolution yet .... worked out what it is .... still thinking ....
... radio! If your song is destined for fame and fortune then it is gonna get some radio airplay - but if it sounds pants on the radio (due to it being in Mono) then not many people gonna like it ;)
jues.
Jan 27, 2003 11:18 am Is phasing commonly used apart from miking drums and such? Could you use it in any situation where space is needed or should it be used sparingly
Not sure if you've heard a track by, Ian Brown called, "Shadow of a saint" but I've been trying to replicate an acoustic guitar sound used in that track, it's crisp, clean and obviously compessed with loads of bottom taken off as it sounds like it's used just for the attack, anyway...The acoustic guitar is powerful through both speakers while leaving plenty of room in the middle, only I think it's delayed on one side to give it a bigger sound, would phasing acoustic guitar be a good or bad thing?
Jan 27, 2003 11:34 am i phase mine now...it simply gives a much better sound!
an ian brown fan eh murphy? i loved F.E.A.R. and most of the Stone Roses stuff...quality!
Jan 27, 2003 01:39 pm Yep! Love the Roses, I'm off to see John Squire this week.
I'm using a few tracks from "Music of the Spheres" as a guide mix.
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