Help! My Guitar/Bass Tone Sucks!

[pixelseph]

Hi everyone!

Last night, I held a live webinar on YouTube about dialing in mix-ready guitar and bass tones for your remixes. You can find the VOD below:

VSTi and VSTs from the Webinar, also in the video description:

(not all were used in the webinar; all plugins listed below were curated for this webinar based on their quality and price - they're all free!)

Guitar:

• Cute Emily SG
• Shreddage 3 Stratus
• Unreal Instruments Metal-GTX (requires Plogue Sforzando)

Bass:

• Shreddage 3 Precision
• MODO Bass 2

Amp Sims:

• Ignite Amps SHB-1 (SHB-1 is a boutique tube amp sim for bass guitar; comes with it's own cab IR built in)
• Ignite Amps Emissary and NadIR (Emissary is their boutique tube amplifier sim, NadIR is a cabinet IR sim that can be used with ANY other amp sim)
• Guitar Rig 7
• Shattered Glass Audio ACE
• IK Multimedia Amplitube 5

Pedal VSTs:

• TSE Audio 808
• TSE Audio R47
• Plugin Boutique Face Bender

 

Edited June 17 by pixelseph

[Master Mi]

Nice one. ))

Without seeing the whole video with the length of over 4 hours, I would say the following things are crucial to bring some VSTi/VST-based electric guitar magic in the soundtrack:

1) a realistic electric guitar VSTi with a good amount of faithful articulations/playing techniques
2) a nice electric guitar and bass amp VST simulation that features lots of settings and effects
3) a good understanding of electric guitars and performing special guitar techniques in the DAW (so, everything about the technical things going on when playing a real electric guitar and how to translate it with all your DAW tools like the electric guitar VSTI interface, the MIDI editor and further plugins)
4) and lots of mixing experience

On the other side, even a real electric guitar in the mix can sound like a Goomba stuck in the sewage pipe if the guitar has bad pickups, you stole the fishy guitar amp from a grumpy octopus at the bottom of the shore or your playing and mixing skills just passed the toddler difficulty.

...

During this week in the first part of my summer holiday I also tried to implement a nice clean electric guitar into my coming Crisis Core remix composition - and I got pretty much inspired by the soundtrack "Everytime We Touch" by Maggie Reilly:
 

For the clean electric guitar that I've played more or less via MIDI keyboard in my DAW, I might have to do some work concerning timing and articulation.
But it already sounds like something I'd definitely go for in the coming remix version.

Here's a short audio sample of my early results:

 

You might turn up the volume a bit because I uniformly master my soundtracks at EBU R 128 loudness standard at around - 23 dB (LUFS).

Edited June 28 by Master Mi

[pixelseph]

Are you sure you didn’t watch the video yet? You just covered basically all of the video in your summary! 😂

[Master Mi]

7 minutes ago, pixelseph said:

Are you sure you didn’t watch the video yet? You just covered basically all of the video in your summary! 😂

Guess I had a good nose for some of the most illuminating 15 minutes of the video, skipping through the whole video content like a passionate and fiercely investigating hobby detective. ;D

[Master Mi]

Made some progress with the electric guitar part in my Crisis Core remix, by the way.

As a guitar player, what would you say about guitar playing techniques, composition and mixing for this part?


 

 

 

 

[pixelseph]

Tonally, everything is working as it should. The clean guitar doing the chord strums feels like it’s not changing velocities or picking direction, which exposes the fakeness of the sample.

I think you can get more mileage out of sliding the notes in your lead guitar as well, specifically on intervals that are greater than a whole step a part. The vibrato is great!

Be careful of how long the reverb tails are on the leads, especially if you’re using both delay and reverb. The wash from the verb is definitely part of the vibe (I can’t hear a swishy-sloshy hi-hat in 6/8 without wanting some tasty reverb wash) but it can get out of hand pretty quickly.

Good stuff, Mi! Can’t wait to hear what comes next

[Master Mi]

Thanks for the helpful tips.

I'm sorry that I haven't found the time to improve the soundtrack in the meantime - but I'll keep it in mind for the next update.

I wouldn't have noticed the acoustic guitar chords - but now that you mention it.
I actually only left the MIDI velocity dynamic range there at around 15 out of 127 parameter points.

I even had a larger MIDI velocity dynamic range in this guitar passage before, but somehow it drew too much attention to the chords and somehow it sounded really weird in places, especially since from a certain velocity level onwards a rather prominent articulation of the instrument was triggered almost as if without a smooth transition.

But maybe I'll get something useful going if I just accentuate a few chord notes with a much stronger or weaker MIDI velocity dynamic attack or - as you roughly said - add an occasional gentle slide.

...

Incidentally, my first real electric guitar just arrived a few weeks ago. ))

In a few minutes, I'll post a picture of the guitar stuff with some text in an earlier thread of mine on this subject.

[pixelseph]

Awesome!! Looking forward to it :)

[Master Mi]

Mi was highly ambitious 'n' got somethin' new for ya. ))

This time, I really went straight into the acoustic guitar section and put the mighty fire of dynamics and articulations in there.
It sounds soo much better and really vivid now - and I did it without completely butchering the virtual steel strings (kinda fits my Life Force mixing concept as well).

I didn't even thinkt that I could get surprising results like these out of the VSTi.
So, huge thanks for mentioning this stuff as a guitarist, things I wouldn't even have recogized in the whole mix.

As a bonus, I also composed a completely new and kinda heroic part with french horns (as well as lots of other new stuff that is not in this little part - but I still have to keep some secrets as a music wizard for the coming track ;D).

...

Here's the audio sample (you might have to play it and reload the site to listen to the full sample with the length of 1:07 minutes - same goes for all previous samples):


 

I'm really looking forward to your guitarist's opinion on this (after a good amount of nightly sleep, of course).

The next upload for my Crisis Core: Final Fantasy remix "Wings Of Freedom" will be the full track with a length of around 4:21 minutes. ))

 

Edited October 19 by Master Mi