A dip into the nether-regions of Drop B, triplets, high gain, a slur between major and minor keys, and yes....a hint of some vocal work. This is actually the first thing I wrote after my triumphant return (read that as any return is good) to the music making world over a year ago. It's simple but a lot of fun to play thanks to the triplet sections and the grindage. I hope you enjoy!
I went about the tracking of this slightly differently from the past 2 songs. For rhythm guitars, instead of 1 guitar track on each side, this has 3. It allowed me heavily layer some sections and still keep it relatively clean. The same with the solo work - it's actually 2 separate guitars combined.
Let me know if you like it. Let me know if you hate it. Download for free if you would like or throw a few pieces of loose change into the guitar case.
UPDATE** I've retracked the guitar solo starting at around three minutes to fix some minor tuning issues I kept hearing. It should sound better now.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Impulse Response (IR) Review - Recabinet, Red Wire, and Free!
**UPDATED BELOW**
If you don't know, an IR is a very small .wav file that attempts to simulate something. In this case a guitar amp speaker cabinet (cab). You load the IR into a program that knows how to use it. This is my layman's explanation. For a more detailed answer, you'll have to look elsewhere. All I know is that it acts like a speaker cab with a particular mic at a particular distance and I'm not really worried about the rest. The end result is that it gives digital amp sims (like the ones I'm using) the equivalent of the speaker section. It's probably better if you don't worry about the technical stuff and just pretend it's a 4x12 guitar amp speaker cabinet. These days, IR's have gotten pretty good and make it hard to tell between the real speaker and the IR.
I recently decided to bite the bullet and go out and purchase a few IR's. Recabinet sells a full set that's composed of several different cabs, with different mics at different distances. Red Wire sells separate cabs individually, but many more IR's for that one cabinet (more mics, different qualities etc). And then there a lot of free sets out there, some good, some not so good. So which are the best? Which ones sound like what? Do they really sound like the real thing? I've thrown together a quick listen to try and get a decent comparison and find these things out for myself. Listen to this following clip and you can hear the different cabs, explanations follow:
Click Here for the Sound Clips
The only "real" hardward involved in this is my Les Paul guitar. All amps, speakers, mics, etc are generated inside the computer. This is not a scientific approch to compairing the IR's. I have EQ'd them to taste to remove fizzyness and other unwanted frequencies. I tried my best to take some time to do this so that they sound as much like the real thing as possible. There are 7 sound clips. Each one of them uses the same amp settings as I'll describe in a moment. My goal was to get a decent sound that could be used on my recordings. Some came out better than others and a few could use a little more work, I admit.
Amp settings: Lepou's Lextac amp sim, 1 instance of the sim on each of 4 tracks - 2 on left, 2 on right with slightly different settings. The amps are hosted in Revalver MKIII with Simulanalog's Tube Screamer pedal sim before the amp. Revalver's IR loader (RIR) holds 1 IR file per track following the amp and then the EQ on each track. The EQ consistes of a low/high pass filter and notch filters for specific frequencies. One playthrough for the 2 right and and same on the left panned 100, 86, 86, 100 respectively. This approch allows for more frequencies to come out and also makes each side sound slightly different lending a "bigger" sound in the end.
For the IR's, I tried to use the same mics and placement settings for each clip. This consists of SM57's on the grill at the edge of the cap in the 100% panned positions and the Royer 121 on the cone of the speaker set back around 12 inches or as close to that as I could get it. This is a fairly standard mic setup for recording guitar I think, and made it easier to have them all be as similar as possible.
Here are my thoughts and the descriptions:
CLIP 1: Red Wire's Uberkab v30. Nice mid-range sounds. Tight and agressive. I think I really like this sound, however it took the most tweaking of EQ to get it to sound how I wanted it. It's a little different from the norm. Does the difficulty to get it to sound good mean that it's a not-as-good IR? You be the judge. After some more playing with this one I think it might be put into my arsenal on a permanent basis.
CLIP 2: This is a wild card. Why? This is the setup I use on all my recordings these days for basic rhythm guitar parts. As you might notice, it mixes with the drums the best. It's the most production ready clip and sounds the "biggest" by far. What I only noticed just now is how mid scooped the sound is. I'm not generally a fan of mid scoop tones as much. I didn't do the mid scooping myself, the IR's just came like this. There are actually 4 IR's here working together, one on each track. This one also has the least amount of EQ of all the clips. The kicker: these are the free IR's found around the guitar modeling community. Alu's Engl new01, Dimi's Bogner 4x12, Recabinet's demo marshall cab, and Brohymn's MesaV30 respectivly on the tracks - Volume mixed almost exactly what you hear on my songs on this blogs.
CLIP 3: Recabinet's 1960a Marshall. Not tight but a good classic/British presence like these cabs are known for. With a little more work, this could sound better. Not so good for the chugga chugga, but the picked notes in the middle section really come through.
CLIP 4: Recabinet's Mesa IR. Well, it sounds like a Mesa....scooped, tight and punchy and fizzy on top. That's about it for this one.
CLIP 5: a combination of the Uberkab's left and the Mesa's right. This one isn't bad. It could use a little something else, but for the most part the tightness of the Mesa mixes well with the mid aggressivness of the Uberkab.
CLIP 6: This is another wild card. This is my most recent "We Die Young" tone. You can find more about this tone on that blog post. I'm sorry for sounding like a fan boy, but this sounds so good to me. It's so unique and simply does something naughty to my ears. mmmmm....tone. To bad it wasn't my idea.
Clip 7: This is a mix of the Uberkab and the Marshall above. It's not my favorite. While I believe these cabs would sound good if mixed correctly, I didn't get there for this test. The mids clash and it's kinda honky to me.
So what does all this mean? Nothing really for most of you. On my first experiences with "paid for" IR's I've determined a few things for myself though. I now own enough of these things. It might just be the Uberkab, but with the difficulty I had EQing it over the rest, I'm not convinced Red Wire IR's are all that much better than the others. Recabinet sounds great and for the price of $15 for the whole library, I'm not sure the incremental "better sound" from they're competitors is enough for me to buy another 1000IR files that I don't really need. I'm hard pressed to say the store bought IR's are better than the free ones. With the free ones, I had less trouble getting the sounds I wanted at the time. The only real difference I noticed in the libraries was the shear amount of different settings, mics and organization you get with the paid for IR's. But if you're like me and find one thing you love and go with it, most of those will never even be touched. It will be very nice to have them when I need them though.
I will wrap this up by saying that if you like having options and really know what you're doing when micing guitar cabs, Red Wire and Recabinet will certainly be for you. The more I get into trying different things, I'm sure that I'll appreciate them more and more. But I'm positive someone that has a good ear can do the same thing with a few hours to collect some from around the internet.
Please do not take my opinions personally. I'm very happy I've purchased what I've purchased and I think that both Red Wires and Recabinet have done an excellent job and have an excellent product. Feel free to leave comments and thoughts about your favorites or why you like or dislike any of these sounds. Thanks for reading!
*UPDATE*
Re-tracked a “little bit” cleaner and purchased the new Soldano Ir's from Red Wire, and Mr. Red Wire himself was gracious enough to drop the 5150 cab on my account. So I decided an update was in order. Here's the update before EQ: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/IR%20testing3.1.mp3
And after MASSIVE eg: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/IR%20testing3.2.mp3
VERY brief explanations:
All same Lextac settings for the most part, I did adjust here and there on a few of them though. I wasn’t going for so much a comparison this time. Instead I just wanted to make them sound as best I could without spending too much time.
Clip 1 - Same as clip 2 from the first test but this time with some mids added to the EQ. I think it's very smooth and powerful...Free Ir's, still my favorite but only more so now.
Clip 2 - The new Soldano cab. It's airy and a little strange, but I kinda like it.
Clip 3 - The Ubercab, much better in my opinion and quite useable now. A little more surgical eq might do it a little more justice in the mids.
Clip 4 - the 5150 cab and Lextac. This cab doesn't sound bad at all. In messing around I found that it's high end could be used to give some brights to parts/cabs that don't have so much high end.
Clip 5 - The 5150 through...the 6505+ in RV MKIII.... :D I just had to see what this would sound like. I think it's usable and might mix with something else for a great combination, but there is something still just not right about it. This amp is simply fizzy when it’s turned up to 11 (listening back to old recording of my real 5150 I’m not sure I realized back then how much high end noise this amp really has if you’re not careful). Embrace the fizz until I find time to mess with this one more… and I will.
Clip 6 - Since they seemed to be the crowd favorite from above, the 1960a and Mesa cab from the first test mixed. These cabs work well together for real, and they do here as well. This tone, including the post eq that’s been added took around 6.2 seconds to come up with. These IR’s are simply easier to work with. They sound good and give a nice powerful tone.
Feel free to tell me my ears suck or something, I can take it.
Ps sorry, there was something going on my machine during the tracking that created some high end spikes and odd ambience, almost siren like. I’m lazy and didn’t feel like re-tracking. Deal with it.
*END UPDATE*
If you don't know, an IR is a very small .wav file that attempts to simulate something. In this case a guitar amp speaker cabinet (cab). You load the IR into a program that knows how to use it. This is my layman's explanation. For a more detailed answer, you'll have to look elsewhere. All I know is that it acts like a speaker cab with a particular mic at a particular distance and I'm not really worried about the rest. The end result is that it gives digital amp sims (like the ones I'm using) the equivalent of the speaker section. It's probably better if you don't worry about the technical stuff and just pretend it's a 4x12 guitar amp speaker cabinet. These days, IR's have gotten pretty good and make it hard to tell between the real speaker and the IR.
I recently decided to bite the bullet and go out and purchase a few IR's. Recabinet sells a full set that's composed of several different cabs, with different mics at different distances. Red Wire sells separate cabs individually, but many more IR's for that one cabinet (more mics, different qualities etc). And then there a lot of free sets out there, some good, some not so good. So which are the best? Which ones sound like what? Do they really sound like the real thing? I've thrown together a quick listen to try and get a decent comparison and find these things out for myself. Listen to this following clip and you can hear the different cabs, explanations follow:
Click Here for the Sound Clips
The only "real" hardward involved in this is my Les Paul guitar. All amps, speakers, mics, etc are generated inside the computer. This is not a scientific approch to compairing the IR's. I have EQ'd them to taste to remove fizzyness and other unwanted frequencies. I tried my best to take some time to do this so that they sound as much like the real thing as possible. There are 7 sound clips. Each one of them uses the same amp settings as I'll describe in a moment. My goal was to get a decent sound that could be used on my recordings. Some came out better than others and a few could use a little more work, I admit.
Amp settings: Lepou's Lextac amp sim, 1 instance of the sim on each of 4 tracks - 2 on left, 2 on right with slightly different settings. The amps are hosted in Revalver MKIII with Simulanalog's Tube Screamer pedal sim before the amp. Revalver's IR loader (RIR) holds 1 IR file per track following the amp and then the EQ on each track. The EQ consistes of a low/high pass filter and notch filters for specific frequencies. One playthrough for the 2 right and and same on the left panned 100, 86, 86, 100 respectively. This approch allows for more frequencies to come out and also makes each side sound slightly different lending a "bigger" sound in the end.
For the IR's, I tried to use the same mics and placement settings for each clip. This consists of SM57's on the grill at the edge of the cap in the 100% panned positions and the Royer 121 on the cone of the speaker set back around 12 inches or as close to that as I could get it. This is a fairly standard mic setup for recording guitar I think, and made it easier to have them all be as similar as possible.
Here are my thoughts and the descriptions:
CLIP 1: Red Wire's Uberkab v30. Nice mid-range sounds. Tight and agressive. I think I really like this sound, however it took the most tweaking of EQ to get it to sound how I wanted it. It's a little different from the norm. Does the difficulty to get it to sound good mean that it's a not-as-good IR? You be the judge. After some more playing with this one I think it might be put into my arsenal on a permanent basis.
CLIP 2: This is a wild card. Why? This is the setup I use on all my recordings these days for basic rhythm guitar parts. As you might notice, it mixes with the drums the best. It's the most production ready clip and sounds the "biggest" by far. What I only noticed just now is how mid scooped the sound is. I'm not generally a fan of mid scoop tones as much. I didn't do the mid scooping myself, the IR's just came like this. There are actually 4 IR's here working together, one on each track. This one also has the least amount of EQ of all the clips. The kicker: these are the free IR's found around the guitar modeling community. Alu's Engl new01, Dimi's Bogner 4x12, Recabinet's demo marshall cab, and Brohymn's MesaV30 respectivly on the tracks - Volume mixed almost exactly what you hear on my songs on this blogs.
CLIP 3: Recabinet's 1960a Marshall. Not tight but a good classic/British presence like these cabs are known for. With a little more work, this could sound better. Not so good for the chugga chugga, but the picked notes in the middle section really come through.
CLIP 4: Recabinet's Mesa IR. Well, it sounds like a Mesa....scooped, tight and punchy and fizzy on top. That's about it for this one.
CLIP 5: a combination of the Uberkab's left and the Mesa's right. This one isn't bad. It could use a little something else, but for the most part the tightness of the Mesa mixes well with the mid aggressivness of the Uberkab.
CLIP 6: This is another wild card. This is my most recent "We Die Young" tone. You can find more about this tone on that blog post. I'm sorry for sounding like a fan boy, but this sounds so good to me. It's so unique and simply does something naughty to my ears. mmmmm....tone. To bad it wasn't my idea.
Clip 7: This is a mix of the Uberkab and the Marshall above. It's not my favorite. While I believe these cabs would sound good if mixed correctly, I didn't get there for this test. The mids clash and it's kinda honky to me.
So what does all this mean? Nothing really for most of you. On my first experiences with "paid for" IR's I've determined a few things for myself though. I now own enough of these things. It might just be the Uberkab, but with the difficulty I had EQing it over the rest, I'm not convinced Red Wire IR's are all that much better than the others. Recabinet sounds great and for the price of $15 for the whole library, I'm not sure the incremental "better sound" from they're competitors is enough for me to buy another 1000IR files that I don't really need. I'm hard pressed to say the store bought IR's are better than the free ones. With the free ones, I had less trouble getting the sounds I wanted at the time. The only real difference I noticed in the libraries was the shear amount of different settings, mics and organization you get with the paid for IR's. But if you're like me and find one thing you love and go with it, most of those will never even be touched. It will be very nice to have them when I need them though.
I will wrap this up by saying that if you like having options and really know what you're doing when micing guitar cabs, Red Wire and Recabinet will certainly be for you. The more I get into trying different things, I'm sure that I'll appreciate them more and more. But I'm positive someone that has a good ear can do the same thing with a few hours to collect some from around the internet.
Please do not take my opinions personally. I'm very happy I've purchased what I've purchased and I think that both Red Wires and Recabinet have done an excellent job and have an excellent product. Feel free to leave comments and thoughts about your favorites or why you like or dislike any of these sounds. Thanks for reading!
*UPDATE*
Re-tracked a “little bit” cleaner and purchased the new Soldano Ir's from Red Wire, and Mr. Red Wire himself was gracious enough to drop the 5150 cab on my account. So I decided an update was in order. Here's the update before EQ: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/IR%20testing3.1.mp3
And after MASSIVE eg: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/IR%20testing3.2.mp3
VERY brief explanations:
All same Lextac settings for the most part, I did adjust here and there on a few of them though. I wasn’t going for so much a comparison this time. Instead I just wanted to make them sound as best I could without spending too much time.
Clip 1 - Same as clip 2 from the first test but this time with some mids added to the EQ. I think it's very smooth and powerful...Free Ir's, still my favorite but only more so now.
Clip 2 - The new Soldano cab. It's airy and a little strange, but I kinda like it.
Clip 3 - The Ubercab, much better in my opinion and quite useable now. A little more surgical eq might do it a little more justice in the mids.
Clip 4 - the 5150 cab and Lextac. This cab doesn't sound bad at all. In messing around I found that it's high end could be used to give some brights to parts/cabs that don't have so much high end.
Clip 5 - The 5150 through...the 6505+ in RV MKIII.... :D I just had to see what this would sound like. I think it's usable and might mix with something else for a great combination, but there is something still just not right about it. This amp is simply fizzy when it’s turned up to 11 (listening back to old recording of my real 5150 I’m not sure I realized back then how much high end noise this amp really has if you’re not careful). Embrace the fizz until I find time to mess with this one more… and I will.
Clip 6 - Since they seemed to be the crowd favorite from above, the 1960a and Mesa cab from the first test mixed. These cabs work well together for real, and they do here as well. This tone, including the post eq that’s been added took around 6.2 seconds to come up with. These IR’s are simply easier to work with. They sound good and give a nice powerful tone.
Feel free to tell me my ears suck or something, I can take it.
Ps sorry, there was something going on my machine during the tracking that created some high end spikes and odd ambience, almost siren like. I’m lazy and didn’t feel like re-tracking. Deal with it.
*END UPDATE*
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Alice In Chains Tone
UPDATE: NEW ATTEMPT
having recently purchased uberkab v30 from Redwirez, this is the newest attempt and the best sounding yet.
We Die Young Final Attempt.wav
The difference hear is only in the IR's. The amp settings are the same as below. Matrix's IR's on the left and right panned 100%. Uberkab v30 Royer 121 mic at 12" from the cone Panned 86% left and right.
END UPDATE
I just thought I'd share this quickly. This is a tone test where I try to recreate a certain tone. In this case - "We Die Young" (WDY) by AIC. The Idea came from this thread on the the Guitar Amp Modeling forums:
http://www.guitarampmodeling.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7829
This is probably my all time favorite tone. What makes this tone so unique I think, is that you can hear tons, and I mean A LOT of air being pushed by the real cabs. It's real hard if not impossible to fake that using sims. We know this already, but out of anything I've ever heard recorded, I don't think I've ever heard a "real" tone where you can hear it as prevalent. Listen carefully to the album version, it's almost like someone using their mouth and lungs and blowing across the tip of the microphone.
I came across something I haven't thought of yet while doing this and wondering why my tone doesn't sound quite right to me while listening back over all these samples and listening to the real "We Die Young". I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but oh well....
There are 2 "we die young" tones. One from the album version, one from the demo version. Both very similar, but by themselves actually have some distinct differences. When creating my tone from the shootout thing above [below], I was listening to the demo version without realizing it. Matrix I believe has been listening to the Album version. [Matrix is from the Guitar amp modeling forums and has created some wonderful IR's based on capturing the EQ of the master recording instead of a particular speaker/cab type. For more info on Matrix's work, visit:
http://www.guitarampmodeling.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=8461
In the below quick test, I compared all versions so that you may hear them. If you can't tell much difference between them, you probably need a good set of studio headphones. I'm not sure desktop speakers will do this justice. I'll go ahead and do the customary apology for the horrible playing on my part, I'm in a little bit of a rush to get this done this evening.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/We%20Die%20Young%20Tones.mp3
clip 1, Demo Version of the real song
Clip 2, My Original WDY tone - Lextac in Revalver, TS, New 01 IR, Bogner 4x12 IR, EQ to taste
Clip 3, Album version
Clip 4, Matrix's IR using my above settings with Lextac - small eq adjustments, but for the most part, I just added his IR's. I think I actually do like this one the best. Matrix, your IR really does sound great, Thanks!
But now so we've got some pretty good stuff going, what does it sound like if you combine them all together? You get this:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/We%20Die%20Young%20Tones%20allinone.mp3
Which if I do say so myself, sounds pretty awesome.
having recently purchased uberkab v30 from Redwirez, this is the newest attempt and the best sounding yet.
We Die Young Final Attempt.wav
The difference hear is only in the IR's. The amp settings are the same as below. Matrix's IR's on the left and right panned 100%. Uberkab v30 Royer 121 mic at 12" from the cone Panned 86% left and right.
END UPDATE
I just thought I'd share this quickly. This is a tone test where I try to recreate a certain tone. In this case - "We Die Young" (WDY) by AIC. The Idea came from this thread on the the Guitar Amp Modeling forums:
http://www.guitarampmodeling.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7829
This is probably my all time favorite tone. What makes this tone so unique I think, is that you can hear tons, and I mean A LOT of air being pushed by the real cabs. It's real hard if not impossible to fake that using sims. We know this already, but out of anything I've ever heard recorded, I don't think I've ever heard a "real" tone where you can hear it as prevalent. Listen carefully to the album version, it's almost like someone using their mouth and lungs and blowing across the tip of the microphone.
I came across something I haven't thought of yet while doing this and wondering why my tone doesn't sound quite right to me while listening back over all these samples and listening to the real "We Die Young". I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but oh well....
There are 2 "we die young" tones. One from the album version, one from the demo version. Both very similar, but by themselves actually have some distinct differences. When creating my tone from the shootout thing above [below], I was listening to the demo version without realizing it. Matrix I believe has been listening to the Album version. [Matrix is from the Guitar amp modeling forums and has created some wonderful IR's based on capturing the EQ of the master recording instead of a particular speaker/cab type. For more info on Matrix's work, visit:
http://www.guitarampmodeling.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=8461
In the below quick test, I compared all versions so that you may hear them. If you can't tell much difference between them, you probably need a good set of studio headphones. I'm not sure desktop speakers will do this justice. I'll go ahead and do the customary apology for the horrible playing on my part, I'm in a little bit of a rush to get this done this evening.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/We%20Die%20Young%20Tones.mp3
clip 1, Demo Version of the real song
Clip 2, My Original WDY tone - Lextac in Revalver, TS, New 01 IR, Bogner 4x12 IR, EQ to taste
Clip 3, Album version
Clip 4, Matrix's IR using my above settings with Lextac - small eq adjustments, but for the most part, I just added his IR's. I think I actually do like this one the best. Matrix, your IR really does sound great, Thanks!
But now so we've got some pretty good stuff going, what does it sound like if you combine them all together? You get this:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/We%20Die%20Young%20Tones%20allinone.mp3
Which if I do say so myself, sounds pretty awesome.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Amp Sim Shootout
Click the link below to hear 6 amp sim guitar tones.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/tone%20testing.mp3
This is what I consider to be the best of the best, however I do still have my likes and dislikes. What is your favorite? I'll post the answers to what they are later. Keep in mind this is how I would set up these amps, it might not be the way the general public of guitarists who enjoy these amps a certain way because x artist/guitarist said this is how to do it. Was that a runon sentence fragment? Who cares, I'm tired and don't care to fix it right now...enjoy the rock!
Thanks to redoubt9000 from the Guitar Amp Modeling Forums for the tracks in the form of DI .wav files.
UPDATE: this may be misleading, notice there are 6 sound clips and 5 amps listed. The sims used are Bogner Ecstacy, Soldano, Rectifier, Engl and 5150. Also note that IR's made using a particular amp might slightly color the IR with that amps characteristics. High/Low pass filters where used and there is no bass guitar. This is a biased test, meaning some of these have been disected and put back together in order to sound GREAT and others have been put together in 5 minutes. I highly recommend a good set of headphones while listening so that you may hear the little differences as well as the big.
*WARNING - ANSWERS BELOW*
I host all of these amps as if I'm using a real amp. For example, one amp sim instance for each speaker cabinet per track. using a different setting on the individual amps helps bring out more harmonics and I believe makes it just that much more realistic....and if not realistic, at least much "bigger" sounding. It's hosted inside Revalver MKIII because I like Revalver's IR loader. It does color the IR's slightly, but I like the end result much better than Kefir or Lecab or whatever other IR loaders. Also, when I refer to Tube Screamers, I'm using Simulanalog's TS with settings 0,5,8 for the most part. As stated before, these might not be the typical uses for these amps, but It's how I use them.
clip 1: the unprocessed signals
clip 2: this is my Alice in Chains "We Die Young" tone. It was my attempt at capturing that airyness of the guitars at the beginning of the song. 1 Lextac amp for each track, with Alu's new 01 on the left and Dimi's Bogner 4x12 IR on the right. The panning is a little weird on this one because it's compensating for the thought that Jerry Cantrell actually used 3 tracks, left ,right, and center to record this. I'm only using 2 here, so it doesn't quite sound right, but you can hear it's pretty close to the tone. I'm pretty sure I used a Tube Screamer on this, but I might not have. I really like using this by itself for solo's.
Clip 3: This is "My Tone". This is what I'm using for basic rhythm tracks on my recordings right now. Four tracks total panned 100%, 84%, 80 %, 100%. Volume is mixed to taste. Left side: Clean 1, doubled and Lextac red channel on each track, this is basically the clip 2 tone, but all in the left ear. Tube screamers on each track. Right side: clean 2, Doubled and lextac red channel on each track and tube screamers. Ir's for these two are a Damien (marshall from recabinet free trial) and Brohymn's Mesa V30. By far, I've spent more time working on this one than the others.
Clip 4: SoloC on 2 tracks, Catharsis Ir's, no tube screamer. This is a great little warm crunch to heavy setting. It actually works best for a warm tone that's not too over the top. Since at the moment there's no real great Diezel sim out there, I might use this for a very rhythmic associated guitar part, similar to what Tool's guitarist does with less distored parts.
Clip 5: Revalver's 6505, 2 tracks. I think I used Catharsis Ir's and Brohym's Mesa V30 on this, but for some reason I think I might have switch out the Mesa IR for Demi's Bogner at the last minute. One of the under-used wonderful abilities of the 5150 style amps is they've got a mid range that will cut through a mix like a knife. I like to bring that out because when mixed with something else, it can really be heard and sounds good. I use this for solos and parts that I want to stand out very clearly. Tube screamer on both tracks. Other than the normal high/low pass I believe I added a little extra mid boost post eq at around 1k.
Clip 6: I'm not a fan of the "mid cut" sort of tones from the past decade or so. But I do recognize that these amps sound great if that's what you're looking for. This clip is LE456 with Alu's New 01 on the left and x30TSE with New 01 on the right. Tube screamers on both tracks. I'll admit, someone else can probably do much better than me with these amps, but I hope i did them justice. I can't remember at the moment, but i'm pretty sure there's a notch filter to tame some fizz.
Clip 7: Last but not least, Revalver's MKIII Flathill (Mesa duel Rec). I've never hated an amp so much in my life than the Rectifier. It's not versitile and every guitarist who uses it sounds exactly the same (but that's opinion I know, please don't hate me :mrgreen: ). Anyway, I wanted to give this one a try so I can at least say that I tried it and I'm fair. 2 Tracks, Tube screamers and Brohymn's Mesa V30 (what else would I use :lol: ) Ir's. Modern channel. I used a notch to filter out some fizzyness in the upper mids just before the low pass filter.[/COLOR]
I hope that I did these amps justice. If you guys have any questions, I might get a few moments free this week to sit down and look over the project files better for more details.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3406793/tone%20testing.mp3
This is what I consider to be the best of the best, however I do still have my likes and dislikes. What is your favorite? I'll post the answers to what they are later. Keep in mind this is how I would set up these amps, it might not be the way the general public of guitarists who enjoy these amps a certain way because x artist/guitarist said this is how to do it. Was that a runon sentence fragment? Who cares, I'm tired and don't care to fix it right now...enjoy the rock!
Thanks to redoubt9000 from the Guitar Amp Modeling Forums for the tracks in the form of DI .wav files.
UPDATE: this may be misleading, notice there are 6 sound clips and 5 amps listed. The sims used are Bogner Ecstacy, Soldano, Rectifier, Engl and 5150. Also note that IR's made using a particular amp might slightly color the IR with that amps characteristics. High/Low pass filters where used and there is no bass guitar. This is a biased test, meaning some of these have been disected and put back together in order to sound GREAT and others have been put together in 5 minutes. I highly recommend a good set of headphones while listening so that you may hear the little differences as well as the big.
*WARNING - ANSWERS BELOW*
I host all of these amps as if I'm using a real amp. For example, one amp sim instance for each speaker cabinet per track. using a different setting on the individual amps helps bring out more harmonics and I believe makes it just that much more realistic....and if not realistic, at least much "bigger" sounding. It's hosted inside Revalver MKIII because I like Revalver's IR loader. It does color the IR's slightly, but I like the end result much better than Kefir or Lecab or whatever other IR loaders. Also, when I refer to Tube Screamers, I'm using Simulanalog's TS with settings 0,5,8 for the most part. As stated before, these might not be the typical uses for these amps, but It's how I use them.
clip 1: the unprocessed signals
clip 2: this is my Alice in Chains "We Die Young" tone. It was my attempt at capturing that airyness of the guitars at the beginning of the song. 1 Lextac amp for each track, with Alu's new 01 on the left and Dimi's Bogner 4x12 IR on the right. The panning is a little weird on this one because it's compensating for the thought that Jerry Cantrell actually used 3 tracks, left ,right, and center to record this. I'm only using 2 here, so it doesn't quite sound right, but you can hear it's pretty close to the tone. I'm pretty sure I used a Tube Screamer on this, but I might not have. I really like using this by itself for solo's.
Clip 3: This is "My Tone". This is what I'm using for basic rhythm tracks on my recordings right now. Four tracks total panned 100%, 84%, 80 %, 100%. Volume is mixed to taste. Left side: Clean 1, doubled and Lextac red channel on each track, this is basically the clip 2 tone, but all in the left ear. Tube screamers on each track. Right side: clean 2, Doubled and lextac red channel on each track and tube screamers. Ir's for these two are a Damien (marshall from recabinet free trial) and Brohymn's Mesa V30. By far, I've spent more time working on this one than the others.
Clip 4: SoloC on 2 tracks, Catharsis Ir's, no tube screamer. This is a great little warm crunch to heavy setting. It actually works best for a warm tone that's not too over the top. Since at the moment there's no real great Diezel sim out there, I might use this for a very rhythmic associated guitar part, similar to what Tool's guitarist does with less distored parts.
Clip 5: Revalver's 6505, 2 tracks. I think I used Catharsis Ir's and Brohym's Mesa V30 on this, but for some reason I think I might have switch out the Mesa IR for Demi's Bogner at the last minute. One of the under-used wonderful abilities of the 5150 style amps is they've got a mid range that will cut through a mix like a knife. I like to bring that out because when mixed with something else, it can really be heard and sounds good. I use this for solos and parts that I want to stand out very clearly. Tube screamer on both tracks. Other than the normal high/low pass I believe I added a little extra mid boost post eq at around 1k.
Clip 6: I'm not a fan of the "mid cut" sort of tones from the past decade or so. But I do recognize that these amps sound great if that's what you're looking for. This clip is LE456 with Alu's New 01 on the left and x30TSE with New 01 on the right. Tube screamers on both tracks. I'll admit, someone else can probably do much better than me with these amps, but I hope i did them justice. I can't remember at the moment, but i'm pretty sure there's a notch filter to tame some fizz.
Clip 7: Last but not least, Revalver's MKIII Flathill (Mesa duel Rec). I've never hated an amp so much in my life than the Rectifier. It's not versitile and every guitarist who uses it sounds exactly the same (but that's opinion I know, please don't hate me :mrgreen: ). Anyway, I wanted to give this one a try so I can at least say that I tried it and I'm fair. 2 Tracks, Tube screamers and Brohymn's Mesa V30 (what else would I use :lol: ) Ir's. Modern channel. I used a notch to filter out some fizzyness in the upper mids just before the low pass filter.[/COLOR]
I hope that I did these amps justice. If you guys have any questions, I might get a few moments free this week to sit down and look over the project files better for more details.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Basic Recording Setup and Getting Started - My take on the subject
This will require a little upfront recording knowledge, but you can find this anywhere on the web these days.
A wise man once said, "Keep it simple stupid." Sometimes it's hard to do that these days with all the options and hearing that this famous producer says do it this way or that. But in all honesty, if you're not a famous producer or engineer, chances are you don't know why it is you do it that way anyway. This is especially true when using software these days that makes it so easy to switch and swap and try this and that quickly. Now, I'll admit that if you're actually micing and recording a drum kit from scratch, the rules change a little bit. But for some amateur engineers, guitarists just trying to get a decent recording of their songs, or simple songwriters, we don't need to go to all this trouble. My entire setup consists mostly of software found for free on the internet. I have purchased a few things to make life easier, but all in all I've spent hundreds less than what a brand new Marshall half stack will cost you...and through the software I have just about any amp I could ever want.
First we need to start with good sounds. My guitar uses passive Gibson pickups, most likely along the lines of Burstbuckers or PAF's. I've heard people say that active pickups will work best for amp modeling because the signal is stronger. But in all honesty I'm not sure it's all that much better than a good set of passive pups. Decent cables will work and clean fresh strings of your choice. If you're using an interface of some type, you want the pickup gain to be strong enough so that you're getting a nice loud signal, but you don't want it to clip....at least until you know why you want it to clip. Add your amp sims or whatever until it sounds good. The same goes for drums. I make the kit sound good to start with, which makes the rest of the process much easier. There are plenty of tips and tricks that can be found on forums across the interweb or youtube. Test out different things until you find something that works for your ear.
Now on to a few more details. For guitars, I use Peavey Revalver MKIII as a shell program to host it's amps (this one might cost a little, but I was fortunate to be given a copy) and outside amp sims, like Lepou's amp sims (free - see the link to the side.) I use Revalver this way because I like the sound of the IR loader, or speaker cabinet simulation (there are free IR loaders out there that work great). If you're using guitar amp simulators, just plug it in and think of it like you would a real amp, only this one is in your vst chain. You have your amp, your cab, and your effects. If you can get a good tone through your real amp, all you need is basic mixing knowledge to get a decent tone from an amp sim (although some are better than others). And with all the options of free sims out there these days, you can get REALLY good tones. In fact, most people (even guitarists that won't admit it and say "sims will never sound like the real thing") can't hear the difference between real and sim when done well...and it will cost you nothing.
The only real recording knowledge you need is how to setup tracks like a real studio. Most studio rhythm guitars are 2 or 4 separate playthroughs. I usually use 2 playthroughs, one for the left side and one for the right. I then double them to make 4 tracks total. Pan them somewhere around 100%Left, 80%Left, 80%Right, and 100%Right. This will differ based on your tone and volume. I tend to use 1 amp instance for each track with all four guitar tracks using 4 seperate IR's (Impulse Responses) for the speaker cabinet simulation. After that, EQ is recommended as a high and low pass filter at least. You get rid of the high's to remove unwanted fizzyness and the lows to get rid of frequencies that can interfere with the bass guitar. I don't like mid scooping very much, but if that's your cup of tea, do a notch filter. Most DAW's will come with a decent EQ to get you started with this stuff. If your ear is good enough, you should be able to tell what you like and dislike. If I'm feeling froggy, I might send the 4 tracks to rhythm guitar bus for a little extra verb or something to help it sit in the mix a little better.
I use the same basic principles for bass guitar except that I tend to use two tracks. One with Ampeg SVX (free version) bass amp simulation for the lows, and then a guitar amp (I'm loving Lepou's lextac blue channel for this) for some highs and string noise. It's usually easier for me, not being a bassist really or knowing that much about mixing bass, to get my final bass eq after I've got a drum track and guitar track. This leaves me the ability to EQ around those parts, to add and subtract frequencies where they are needed to fit the other tones.
My drums are handled with Steven Slate drums EX. I picked this up not long ago for $20 on sale. It generally go's for around $99. This program sounds great out of the box. But to get it so sound good in the mix, you need a little more than that. I send the output to a separate track for each drum in my daw. Each drum is then EQ'd, gated, compressed, reverb-ed, etc to my taste (it might be best if you do your own reading up on drum mixing for more details). It's then send back to a master drum bus with more reverb and compression to pull it all together. Plugins of note that I like using for this process are Stillwell's 1973 EQ and Major Tom Compressor and Bootsie's Density MK II and Epicverb. The bus uses Epicverb to add a little extra verb than what you get from the room mics, Major Tom adds a first stage compression for a slight "pumping feel" and then a light touch of Density MKII brings it together as a whole. The only real headache of doing drums this way is the endless hours you can spend tweaking the midi note placements. But I actually kind of think it's fun and it really doesn't bother me that much like it does some people.
So this really isn't that much work yet. My philosophy of "keep it simple stupid" means that I save these tracks as templates or presets after they are individually sounding good. After that just bring up the volume levels. Although some settings will need to be adjusted, at this point, you should have a fairly decent sound and you didn't have to send kick and snare to a bus and do crazy routing things to do parallel compression and such. Last but not least I do a little more eq if needed on the master track, a limiter to bring the volume up, a tape simulator for some saturation and more compression to glue it all together. I actually prefer to mix into this final compression instead of adding it after the fact. I also don't use a lot of compression on any one compressor. I tend to stay around 4:1 or less on all of them.
While using more advanced techniques is of course the goal, it's not hard to get a good sound without them if you start with good sounds. I know this explanation isn't going to give anyone a step by step process, but it explains my theories a little behind the recording I'm currently working on.
A wise man once said, "Keep it simple stupid." Sometimes it's hard to do that these days with all the options and hearing that this famous producer says do it this way or that. But in all honesty, if you're not a famous producer or engineer, chances are you don't know why it is you do it that way anyway. This is especially true when using software these days that makes it so easy to switch and swap and try this and that quickly. Now, I'll admit that if you're actually micing and recording a drum kit from scratch, the rules change a little bit. But for some amateur engineers, guitarists just trying to get a decent recording of their songs, or simple songwriters, we don't need to go to all this trouble. My entire setup consists mostly of software found for free on the internet. I have purchased a few things to make life easier, but all in all I've spent hundreds less than what a brand new Marshall half stack will cost you...and through the software I have just about any amp I could ever want.
First we need to start with good sounds. My guitar uses passive Gibson pickups, most likely along the lines of Burstbuckers or PAF's. I've heard people say that active pickups will work best for amp modeling because the signal is stronger. But in all honesty I'm not sure it's all that much better than a good set of passive pups. Decent cables will work and clean fresh strings of your choice. If you're using an interface of some type, you want the pickup gain to be strong enough so that you're getting a nice loud signal, but you don't want it to clip....at least until you know why you want it to clip. Add your amp sims or whatever until it sounds good. The same goes for drums. I make the kit sound good to start with, which makes the rest of the process much easier. There are plenty of tips and tricks that can be found on forums across the interweb or youtube. Test out different things until you find something that works for your ear.
Now on to a few more details. For guitars, I use Peavey Revalver MKIII as a shell program to host it's amps (this one might cost a little, but I was fortunate to be given a copy) and outside amp sims, like Lepou's amp sims (free - see the link to the side.) I use Revalver this way because I like the sound of the IR loader, or speaker cabinet simulation (there are free IR loaders out there that work great). If you're using guitar amp simulators, just plug it in and think of it like you would a real amp, only this one is in your vst chain. You have your amp, your cab, and your effects. If you can get a good tone through your real amp, all you need is basic mixing knowledge to get a decent tone from an amp sim (although some are better than others). And with all the options of free sims out there these days, you can get REALLY good tones. In fact, most people (even guitarists that won't admit it and say "sims will never sound like the real thing") can't hear the difference between real and sim when done well...and it will cost you nothing.
The only real recording knowledge you need is how to setup tracks like a real studio. Most studio rhythm guitars are 2 or 4 separate playthroughs. I usually use 2 playthroughs, one for the left side and one for the right. I then double them to make 4 tracks total. Pan them somewhere around 100%Left, 80%Left, 80%Right, and 100%Right. This will differ based on your tone and volume. I tend to use 1 amp instance for each track with all four guitar tracks using 4 seperate IR's (Impulse Responses) for the speaker cabinet simulation. After that, EQ is recommended as a high and low pass filter at least. You get rid of the high's to remove unwanted fizzyness and the lows to get rid of frequencies that can interfere with the bass guitar. I don't like mid scooping very much, but if that's your cup of tea, do a notch filter. Most DAW's will come with a decent EQ to get you started with this stuff. If your ear is good enough, you should be able to tell what you like and dislike. If I'm feeling froggy, I might send the 4 tracks to rhythm guitar bus for a little extra verb or something to help it sit in the mix a little better.
I use the same basic principles for bass guitar except that I tend to use two tracks. One with Ampeg SVX (free version) bass amp simulation for the lows, and then a guitar amp (I'm loving Lepou's lextac blue channel for this) for some highs and string noise. It's usually easier for me, not being a bassist really or knowing that much about mixing bass, to get my final bass eq after I've got a drum track and guitar track. This leaves me the ability to EQ around those parts, to add and subtract frequencies where they are needed to fit the other tones.
My drums are handled with Steven Slate drums EX. I picked this up not long ago for $20 on sale. It generally go's for around $99. This program sounds great out of the box. But to get it so sound good in the mix, you need a little more than that. I send the output to a separate track for each drum in my daw. Each drum is then EQ'd, gated, compressed, reverb-ed, etc to my taste (it might be best if you do your own reading up on drum mixing for more details). It's then send back to a master drum bus with more reverb and compression to pull it all together. Plugins of note that I like using for this process are Stillwell's 1973 EQ and Major Tom Compressor and Bootsie's Density MK II and Epicverb. The bus uses Epicverb to add a little extra verb than what you get from the room mics, Major Tom adds a first stage compression for a slight "pumping feel" and then a light touch of Density MKII brings it together as a whole. The only real headache of doing drums this way is the endless hours you can spend tweaking the midi note placements. But I actually kind of think it's fun and it really doesn't bother me that much like it does some people.
So this really isn't that much work yet. My philosophy of "keep it simple stupid" means that I save these tracks as templates or presets after they are individually sounding good. After that just bring up the volume levels. Although some settings will need to be adjusted, at this point, you should have a fairly decent sound and you didn't have to send kick and snare to a bus and do crazy routing things to do parallel compression and such. Last but not least I do a little more eq if needed on the master track, a limiter to bring the volume up, a tape simulator for some saturation and more compression to glue it all together. I actually prefer to mix into this final compression instead of adding it after the fact. I also don't use a lot of compression on any one compressor. I tend to stay around 4:1 or less on all of them.
While using more advanced techniques is of course the goal, it's not hard to get a good sound without them if you start with good sounds. I know this explanation isn't going to give anyone a step by step process, but it explains my theories a little behind the recording I'm currently working on.
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