so it's obvious i know next to nothing about working with guitars

[prophetik music]

as my last three or four tracks have always had the comment that the guitars sound like cast-iron dogshit. so i need some help.

i'm not an electric guitarist by any means, although i'm learning to play a bit. i've been playing acoustic for seven or eight years, though, so it's not like i don't know what strings are which or something. it's more that i don't have any idea as to how to make them sound...like anything, i guess. acoustic is so totally different than electric that i might as well brought my knowledge of the saxophone into learning to play the didgeridoo. i mean, i picked up mandolin in two weeks. i don't get why i can't make an electric guitar sound like anything but a dying cat.

i picked up shreddage when it came out, and i love it since all i need is some chugs, some powerchords, and the occasional lick, and it does that splendiferously until i learn to do all that myself. however, i can't get the full sound that i hear on radio tracks with it. i know the basics - i usually split the signal into left and right with different effects/distortion on both (guitar rig 4). beyond that, though, i'm lost. what else is supposed to happen to get that big full sound? for that matter, since i'm using the stock presets on GR4, are there more out there? there's only a few i use on a regular basis because i feel that most of them are mega-treble and don't have any body, but that might be just because i don't know what i'm doing.

for all i know, there's more info on how to do this either on the net or in the forum here somewhere, but it's 2am and i didn't see anything at a glance.

so, tl;dr version: how do i get that radio sound? because i suck at it, apparently.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Funny, I was just discussing this with Rozovian and Fishy. I've been playing for a long time, but don't know too much about mixing.

Here's what I do know, Double track the guitars. Put one left and one right. Some people pan them 100% some only 70%. I usually go 100%. You can also Quad track them. Playing the same part four times and using two different tones. Another trick is to delay one of the guitar tracks by around 20-40 milliseconds or so. That's called the "haas trick".

Btw, make sure you're tracks are two seperate takes. The variation in the performance is what counts.

Using some of the stuff I've been learning about guitar production, I started workin' on a new remix. Don't know if it's "radio quality though." Check it out here http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=35167

In that I have four guitar tracks and two different tones. I also used the haas trick.

[prophetik music]

shreddage is a guitar sample pack. i'm talking about doing this with faked guitars, not doing it live.

[Rozovian]

I also used the haas trick.

The Haas effect works with a single signal in both left and right channels, creating a pan effect because it's slightly delayed in one channel as if the sound would reach that ear later. If you're doing this with separate takes, it's as if it's a different guitar from a different direction - and if you've hardpanned this single track, there won't be sound in the other channel/ear for the effect to actually work.

If you already knew all that, it's info for ppl who didn't.

As for Shreddage, which I don't have (yet), you can still create a separate take by randomizing timing and velocity (if encessary) slightly and maybe detuning the guitars ever so slightly in different directions to get something more like different takes than just splitting the signal. Screwing with mutes vs half mutes would also help, dunno if this is a SX only thing... or if you have X. And that's if Shreddage doesn't have some two-separate-takes-at-a-time feature built in, one that keeps Kontakt from using the same round robins at the same time. zircon?

Beyond that, I guess it's only a matter of guitar sound and mixing.

[Frederic Petitpas]

[........]

[AngelCityOutlaw]

The Haas effect works with a single signal in both left and right channels, creating a pan effect because it's slightly delayed in one channel as if the sound would reach that ear later. If you're doing this with separate takes, it's as if it's a different guitar from a different direction - and if you've hardpanned this single track, there won't be sound in the other channel/ear for the effect to actually work.

If you already knew all that, it's info for ppl who didn't.

As for Shreddage, which I don't have (yet), you can still create a separate take by randomizing timing and velocity (if encessary) slightly and maybe detuning the guitars ever so slightly in different directions to get something more like different takes than just splitting the signal. Screwing with mutes vs half mutes would also help, dunno if this is a SX only thing... or if you have X. And that's if Shreddage doesn't have some two-separate-takes-at-a-time feature built in, one that keeps Kontakt from using the same round robins at the same time. zircon?

Beyond that, I guess it's only a matter of guitar sound and mixing.

oh......

Well like say I'm a noob with mixing.

[SnappleMan]

All my guitars are fake.

[prophetik music]

All my guitars are fake.

i've seen him play guitar in person, it's true.

[big giant circles]

All my guitars are fake.

Just like your boobs. But it's ok, they're still sexy anyway.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Guitar Rig 4 Pro isn't the best for metal. I suggest TH2 Overloud. If you can't buy it, get the demo. It inserts a little fade in-fade out white noise at random times but usually it's not too bothersome. If you like what results you get with the amp sim you could always render the guitars in chunks instead of the whole song to avoid the white noise.

Other than that, yeah, double tracking with slightly different timings and EQ settings are a must. You can randomize the timings in Kontakt I believe. If not on the shreddage front panel, then in the instrument patch settings itself. Reading above posts, I echo the different takes method for phattiness. On fake guitars, the best method is randomizing timings. Or you could painfully hand create your timings by mouse...

For you specifically, a big reason why your guitars are really weak is really just because they're too damn quiet.

[SnappleMan]

Guitar Rig 4 Pro isn't the best for metal. I suggest TH2 Overloud. If you can't buy it, get the demo. It inserts a little fade in-fade out white noise at random times but usually it's not too bothersome. If you like what results you get with the amp sim you could always render the guitars in chunks instead of the whole song to avoid the white noise.

Other than that, yeah, double tracking with slightly different timings and EQ settings are a must. You can randomize the timings in Kontakt I believe. If not on the shreddage front panel, then in the instrument patch settings itself. Reading above posts, I echo the different takes method for phattiness. On fake guitars, the best method is randomizing timings. Or you could painfully hand create your timings by mouse...

For you specifically, a big reason why your guitars are really weak is really just because they're too damn quiet.

It's pretty ignorant and baseless to say that a guitar or an amp or even an amp sim isn't "good for metal". Guitar Rig 4 is perfectly fine for any genre of music, especially metal. It all comes down to the playing and mixing. Some of the most quintessential "metal" tones have been produced by Strats (non-metal guitars, as the inexperienced call them) running through relatively low gain amps.

[prophetik music]

For you specifically, a big reason why your guitars are really weak is really just because they're too damn quiet.

good to know that you've got such a great grasp on my style from that one song that i did particularly since the guitars were just background in that track except for one part.

also, GR4 is fine to do any style with. don't know where you're getting the 'not good with metal' idea from - even i know that you can get some crazy awesome stuff out of it, and i've barely played with anything but the presets.

i've played around with using a delay effect set to wet only to delay one side of the guitars, but i'm wondering if there's a tidier way of doing that. since it's way easier and more efficient RAM-wise to use one or two instances of kontakt and just route the hell out of it with different amp sims on each channel, i'm curious if anyone knows of an effect that just delays by some amount of milliseconds. while not randomizing the sound, it'd allow me to work in a functional delay between channels.

[Nabeel Ansari]

I never said it isn't "good for metal".

I said it's not the best, which means there are better. That doesn't mean it isn't good.

And it wasn't the one track, I recall you having the too quiet problem with your other track in GMRB (cyber peacock vs. slash beast). Is that an exception, too? Could you post an example of how you would usually mix your guitars? I think we could better help you if we knew what was wrong.

Also, are you using one MIDI channel routed to both guitar patches? Try one for EACH and then set one back a few millibeats.

[zircon]

A few things based on what I heard:

1. If you're using Shreddage, you need to be on those double-tracked patches. Load up one of the master DT multis and then pan the two Kontakt outputs hard left and hard right (I mean 100% for both.) Then put different amp sim presets on both. From GR4, I recommend stuff like Chemical Thrash, Slip Note Wide (with delay turned down or off), Nickel Power and Big Monster. This alone will make your tone sound way better. It's what I designed the library for.

2. Layering the guitar with bass in the same octave makes it sound worse. Put the bass an octave below.

3. Guitars could come up in volume for clarity, and then you can futz with the EQ of them vs. the bass (I like for the bass to be really low, and not low-middy/round like yours is now.) Sometimes the guitars can be EQed with lots of low presence for that extra power.

4. Watch your palm mute sequencing. I believe in a few points, you used some short palm mutes that didn't 'connect' to anything. Generally, you should be dragging out the length of your mutes so that you hear the full sustain of them. It's counter-intuitive but believe me it sounds better than having the sound die out completely between mutes.

5. Check the release time of the guitars. You want it to be low. In Shreddage, I think values of 50-55 are good. This means you need to be more careful with sequencing but real guitarists wouldn't have their notes fading out in a passage, they would all be manually muting them to silence. You might turn up the chordstops/releases to compensate.

Some practical advice for ya. Hope it helps.

[prophetik music]

A few things based on what I heard:

1. If you're using Shreddage, you need to be on those double-tracked patches. Load up one of the master DT multis and then pan the two Kontakt outputs hard left and hard right (I mean 100% for both.) Then put different amp sim presets on both. From GR4, I recommend stuff like Chemical Thrash, Slip Note Wide (with delay turned down or off), Nickel Power and Big Monster. This alone will make your tone sound way better. It's what I designed the library for.

2. Layering the guitar with bass in the same octave makes it sound worse. Put the bass an octave below.

3. Guitars could come up in volume for clarity, and then you can futz with the EQ of them vs. the bass (I like for the bass to be really low, and not low-middy/round like yours is now.) Sometimes the guitars can be EQed with lots of low presence for that extra power.

4. Watch your palm mute sequencing. I believe in a few points, you used some short palm mutes that didn't 'connect' to anything. Generally, you should be dragging out the length of your mutes so that you hear the full sustain of them. It's counter-intuitive but believe me it sounds better than having the sound die out completely between mutes.

5. Check the release time of the guitars. You want it to be low. In Shreddage, I think values of 50-55 are good. This means you need to be more careful with sequencing but real guitarists wouldn't have their notes fading out in a passage, they would all be manually muting them to silence. You might turn up the chordstops/releases to compensate.

Some practical advice for ya. Hope it helps.

this is good stuff here. exactly what i was looking for =) thanks so much, andy.

i was using the DT patches, but i didn't think to pan the kontakt outputs themselves hard left and right. that makes a lot of sense.