Beast Mode: Bigger Sounding Guitars

So you want a big guitar sound; the kind that blows people away. But you feel like you’re coming up a little short. So how can you melt faces with the gear you have? Here are 3 pillars you need to get killer guitar sounds… Gear, Technique, & Dynamics.

 

Gear

Too many times I would get band come in the studio who did not even want to try the array of amps and cabs I had around the joint, because they just loved the sound of “their” amp. Only it wasn’t some amazing find that they acquired, it was usually a 8” speaker combo that came with their guitar package for $149.99 plus tax. To be honest, if that’s your sound and it works for your project, I’m cool with that. But then the complaints about how small & thin it sounds, and it’s nothing like - (insert guitar hero’s name here).

Fortunately we now live in a day where great sounding software emulations of Amplifies, cabinet impulse responses, and microphones can now be affordable for just about anyone who has a bit of ambition (a.k.a. Get a job and buy some gear).

Bias, Amplitube, and Wall of Sound III are my go to plugins for Guitars. I use them in combinations with each other. Using Bias for my pedalboard, Bias & Amplitube for amp heads, and Wall of Sound III for the cabinets and mic positions.

 

Technique

The two main things I want to address with the recording technique is Multiple Amps & Miking and Multiple Layers.

Using multiple amps & microphones is a great way to get a desired tone that you couldn’t get with just using one cab & one mic. Being able to split the signal between at least two amps that have different strengths can really add to a sound. Then, using multiple microphones on each cabinet will further thicken up the texture of the guitar tone. Just make sure that all of the mics used are in phase with each other.

Quad, Double, & Single Tracking The other main technique in recording is tracking multiple layers. Here are a few things to consider. How many guitarist are in the band? If there’s two (or more) You would mainly have one panned on one side and the second one on the other side. If there’s only one guitarist you would double track the one guitarists parts and pan them hard left and right. Do not just copy the one part onto another track. This will not give you the desired stereo width you’re looking for.

Recording the doubled parts are really important for bigger sounding sections like choruses and such. Single tracking is great for verses where you would a more personal touch to your song.

Now we get to quad tracking. I’ve seen this come into play lately, especially in the metal realm. I word of caution is that unless you’re really precise with your timing, it will come off sluggish and lack impact. If you’re trying to choreograph a move or sports play, it’s a lot easier to do it with less people. Trying getting six people to synchronize a few set movements. Now try to do it with fifty. A lot trickier right. You’ll notice when things are out of place.

 

Dynamics

Dynamics play a big role in how big a sound is. Sometimes the best notes are the ones we don’t play. As philosophical as this may sound, there’s truth to it. If you are on the coast and decide to take a hot air balloon ride and you float up to 2000 feet your palms may start to sweat. You can see the impact it makes from being up so high. Now come to Denver where it’s 5280 above sea level. Are you sweating? No because there really isn’t any visible change in the level.

If you want something to sound huge then you need to set it up so the listener can feel that change. The best advice I can give you is learn from your heroes. Find songs that have big moments and see what happened just before that slap in the face of awesome happened.

6 Tips For Faster, Better Mixes

Hearing how A-List mixers can mix in 4 hours while so many other take more than triple the time to get a sub-par version of what these pros can do. How? Here are some tips for getting better at mixing with ways to get out of your own way and make better creative decisions rather than time consuming technical issues.

Create A Template and Presets

We all have tendencies and habits that we subconsciously choose to do. Recognize those habits and use them to your advantage. I know when I just mixing I am going to apply Console emulation at the top each channel and a tape machine at the end of my 2 Mix channel. I’ll even create Aux channels for each track with named IO’s so I can just load in the tracks, route them into the corresponding Aux tracks, and tweak from there. Everything is adjustable this just saves time hunting down plugins I’m going to insert anyway and gets out of my own way.

Record First Impressions and Mixes

Being in the digital age we have so many advantages available to our fingertips. One of those is recording to playlist. I will throw up faders and mix a song as fast as possible to get my first impression. This is great for songs I haven’t help record and produce. I will then record it to listen back track and then later record my mix or mixes to the same track but on different playlist. I’ll A/B them to see what I might of missed of like from my first impressions.

Focus On Phase, Panning, and Levels First

One of the most crucial issues with mixing is the phase issues in relation to each other. Since most plugins these days have a phase switch start flipping things in and out and listening if the channel gets fuller or thinner. This will also help with EQ’ing headaches.

Now start to pan things out. There are some general rules and many swear by LCR (left, right, center), but one of the ways I like to pan is to listen in mono and start to sweep the track left & right until it sound the loudest. This is best done after you’ve done your core instruments - Drums, guitars, bass, vocals. This is really a great technique when you’re fitting in percussion and other effects.

Finally balance the level. This can be hard to judge sometimes and there are a lot of ideas on how to do this effectively. There’s the Pink Noise trick which can give you a nice starting point. I personally like to mix at very low levels and again listening in mono. I feel like I make better decisions this way.

Set A Timer

I try to give myself time limits on each section I’m trying to do. The most important stuff more time and be content with making fast decisions. I’ll often give myself 90 minutes to see what I can do and then 15 min break and so on.

Listen To References

Get your ears in prime listening mode by listening to reference tracks. This can mean full songs of even stems. This will also help you kow what to listen for and set the bar to what you’re trying to achieve.

Know When To Stop

This a pro attribute that CAN be learned. One of the ways is to stop when you’re fresh out of ideas and have done the tasks you know how to achieve a good sound. The time that you use to try to beat the song into submission is when you’ll start to slide down hill. The more time you put into it will give you little reward. This will also be a time where you start to second guess yourself.

These are a handful of ideas to help your mixes get done better and faster. Which one are you going to try next? Did I miss something? Please let me know. We’re all here to learn from each other.

Signal Chain: Snare Drum Tracking

This is the signal chain I generally use to record snare drums. The committing to sound mentality allows me to use enhance the sound with EQ. I will cut a some of the annoying miss in the snare sound though.

The other thing I will do is balance and sum the top & bottom miss together before I compress. This allows me to reduce the track count, but also not have issues of a pumping compression sound and more of a tighter sound I like with drums.

Find Your Sound: EQ

With so many plugins and emulations it can be overwhelming to know which one you need to reach for. You read that “so-in-so engineer” uses a specific eq but you’re having a hard time figuring out how they use it. Here are some tips for finding Your sound; EQ edition.

Hobby or Career?

We live in an exciting time in music because we’re not being restricted by time, budget, or location. Yes plugins still cost money, but having an SSL console at you fingertips for $750 in plugin form is a far cry from a $1,000,000 analog board. Not to mention the space, service, & power it needs on a daily basis. So I'm asking, is this your hobby or career?

Tracking or Mixing?

First lets understand what stage you’re at in the production process. Are you tracking or mixing? When I am mixing I tend to use the same console EQ to give the song a cohesive feel. This is how most mixing is done in the analog world and I like to work in that sort of mind frame. When I’m tracking though I like to use the EQ that fits the instrument I’m trying to capture. For instance, guitars reside mainly in the mid-range spectrum, so I will reach for a Pultec MEQ-5 style plugin to help enhance the mid-range. The Pultec MEQ-5 naturally complements the mid-range, so I usually reach it first when dealing with guitars.

Enhance or Clean?

Second, what are you using the EQ for? To clean up or to enhance? Not all EQ’s are created equal. If I need to clean up an instrument I will want to use an EQ that is very transparent and be able to have a narrow Q or even notch out certain frequencies. On the other hand, if I’m enhancing the track, I'll want some color added from the hardware emulation. That’s one of the benefits to using different analog models as long as they have been captured correctly. I say this a lot, I’d rather have a plugin that behaves like the original rather than just sound like it.

Now the fun part…

Pick an instrument you want to work on, in this case let's choose the bass guitar DI. Create a few AUX tracks and send the Bass DI signal to all of them. Next, Insert various & different EQ’s on each AUX track you created for the Bass DI and mute all of them. Now one at a time un-mute a track and EQ that channel. Check out how it fits in the song and how it stands out. Once you’ve got a something you like cleanse you listening palette by listening to a different song, then mute that aux track you just were working on and move on to the next track. Repeat the process how ever many times as you’d like. Now that you done so many tracks go through and listen to each one with the song and note which one is the most pleasing to your ear, what characteristics you like, and how much time & effort went into getting that sound. Write down your top three that you liked for that specific instrument. That way when you’re working on an instrument and you’re #1 EQ you like isn’t working you can try the next one you like.

Take Your Time

This at first may seem time consuming but in the long run you be able to discover effects you may not have at first wanted to try, and give you a new workflow. But this is your career we're talking about, right?