Crafting this guitar tone?

[timaeus222]

For metal experts:

How should I adjust this rhythm guitar tone to make it melt more faces? Both technical and simplified terms, please. Somehow, I think the bass is a bit subdued by the guitar.

https://www.box.com/s/1bv3z0hc82pv7u6cdbzq

Edited March 25, 2013 by timaeus222

[Jaxo]

Stick a Sausage Fattener on it, put the Color to about 50% and the Fatness to around 10%. This'll remove all dynamics (booo!) and give the guitar a nice fuzz.

You'll then want to sweep out the rumble so the guitar actually sits in the mix and doesn't overpower everything without having to halve the volume on it's channel.

Personally, I think this sounds great, but it's in the eye of the beholder. I use Shreddage X with Revalver HPse (that came with it), and use this technique ALL the time.

I don't mean to self-promote, but I did this exact technique here (20 seconds in), and it seems to work in that case.

Edited March 29, 2013 by Jaxo

[Garpocalypse]

Stick a Sausage Fattener on it

That plugin has to have the best youtube promo video i've ever seen.

[timaeus222]

Just tried it, and it sure felt like it did something. I can hear the difference, but I'm glad I can't overdo the fatness without hurting my ears, lol.

[Melodious Punk]

there's a lot of other ways to go about this. What is your guitar rig?

If you're going for a purely software approach, you can still apply many of the tricks that have been developed over years of complicated pedals, pickups, and amp setups.

Fo' Example:

If you're using single coil pickups(not recommended for ultra-fuzz:), you can use a noise eliminator to get rid of a 60hz hum, then you have a nice clean, and very bright tone to work with. A single coil tone typically has a wider frequency range than humbuckers, so you then have more sound to eventually contour and distort to your needs. This idea of starting with as much tone as possible, then removing and modifying the parts you don't want is a flexible recording/tone concept.

For super heavy fuzzy gain, I typically run bridge humbuckers to the following chain:

compressor -> TUBE amp effects loop -> pre-amp modeler -> fuzz pedal (muff sounds are nice) -> TUBE amp gain set high

getting the compressor in early isn't necesary though! Putting a compressor after the fuzz can sometimes produce really cool harmonics.

[timaeus222]

Well, I'm using Shreddage with Guitar Rig, but I do have Amplitube. I just used Guitar Rig for this since it takes up half the memory that Amplitube takes up (100 instead of 200MB). I can't really find a way to replicate what you suggested though, with Amplitube. I can't change the routing.

This is with Amplitube on Shreddage:

https://soundcloud.com/timaeus222/some-cinematic-metal-stuff

Edited April 1, 2013 by timaeus222

[Jaxo]

Well, I'm using Shreddage with Guitar Rig, but I do have Amplitube. I just used Guitar Rig for this since it takes up half the memory that Amplitube takes up (100 instead of 200MB). I can't really find a way to replicate what you suggested though, with Amplitube. I can't change the routing.

This is with Amplitube on Shreddage:

https://soundcloud.com/timaeus222/some-cinematic-metal-stuff

I use Shreddage as well. The copy of ReValver it came with has some REALLY nice presets (the .bank file it came with). Try putting 'Heavy Chug' on the left channel and 'Thick Riff' on the right (what zircon does in the tutorial).

[Melodious Punk]

I can't really find a way to replicate what you suggested though, with Amplitube. I can't change the routing.

ouch! but if you don't want to spend too much time twiddling, you'll probably get great results by matching presets like Jaxo suggested

[timaeus222]

I use Shreddage as well. The copy of ReValver it came with has some REALLY nice presets (the .bank file it came with). Try putting 'Heavy Chug' on the left channel and 'Thick Riff' on the right (what zircon does in the tutorial).

I just feel like Amplitube is easier to use, just my opinion.

[Melodious Punk]

and it had the word "tube" in the name. sold.

[Argle]

For metal experts:

How should I adjust this rhythm guitar tone to make it melt more faces? Both technical and simplified terms, please. Somehow, I think the bass is a bit subdued by the guitar.

https://www.box.com/s/1bv3z0hc82pv7u6cdbzq

Honestly, it feels too clinical, too detached from the rest of the mix. I'm not buying its authenticity. It sounds too thin to me, maybe back off the highpass filter to add some more meat to the sound. Or try a different amp model. Other than that, I don't know what to say.

[Moseph]

The tone is too midrange oriented. EQ it. Example mp3 (at 0:05).

This is the EQ curve that I used:

[timaeus222]

The tone is too midrange oriented. EQ it. Example mp3 (at 0:05).

This is the EQ curve that I used:

I did EQ it down at the mids, but I didn't want to do it that much so the power is retained. It was done inside the UI (which is honestly more practical than EQing in the EQ plugin. Do you get why? It's the fact that internal EQ and external EQ are different). If you're implying an overboost in the mids, I didn't do any boosting in the mids.

That is pretty much the EQ that I have now right after considering Melodious Punk's Sausage Fattener post, other than you not having a high pass above around 100Hz. You just have a peaking band. Why would you scoop it at 25Hz instead of doing a high pass? There isn't much of the bass guitar frequencies at 25, so why not just cut out the extra subs? There's also the issue that my bass guitar hits strongest near 60-80Hz (Fundamentals) and does have some frequencies near 100-200 which are the Presence, which is why I did that high pass on the guitar. I could hear the high pass being too much above 100, so I stopped the cutoff around there.

Edited April 4, 2013 by timaeus222

[Truemas]

EDit: Question answered. =)

Edited May 3, 2013 by Truemas