Guitar Editing and Mixing...

[supersean89]

Hi.

I am fairly new to protools, and I have recorded a guitar track which i want to use.

What techniques and tools can i use to make the sound of the track better?
Commpression and EQ seem to be used quite alot... High and Low pass filters?


Its a distorted guitar, not too heavy but still resonably distorted. When I play it back, it has a bit of unwanted bass... It sort of sounds like I recorded bass and guitar at the same time.

Any help and tips are greatly apriciated :) Thanks,
Sean.

[elicious]

all in on the hpf... digi's eqIII is fine for that...
consider automating it between parts where it's on top of the kik & bass vs when it's solo.
when you get some more time under your toolbelt, experiment with multi band compression so your gtr won't thin out when it's higher up the frets.
otherwise you need to have a vision, a goal for your tone.
if you're kinda new, import a couple of relevant song examples (making sure they're not going through any mix buss comp or eq) and use that as a guide.
b.o.l.
e

[supersean89]

Thanks for the help...

I do a have sound in mind that i want to reach in the end. But i guess its just trial and error untill i get it right.

I have the protools LE ignition pack 2... Do you think there is any need to go and buy additions plug ins ect that are required to get a decent sound?

[elicious]

hey sean, don't know what comes in the ignition pack, but no matter, the free digi rack plugs sound fine, and for now, use and abuse them to learn what effect they have on your tone... just like on a gtr; just crank a few knobs till it's right.
i know you're kinda lookin for the step 1, step 2 advice on the holy grail gtr sound (y'know the "sounds sick" plug), but really it gets back to the gtr, head, cab, mic, and where you place it.
i can tell you that some of my best mixes i didn't do nothin except take the credit because the gtrs were recorded tight (ok, maybe a little hpf...)
so attack it at the source (especially mic placement) and we can chat again sometime about doubling the trax or using room sounds to capture the gtr at a distance to get that natural time delay (so you're not relying on digital fx) and to capture the warmer tone at a distance ( just like when you stand up and walk away from the cab)
experiment; it's fun and slimming
e

[O.G. Killa]

My biggest suggestion with distorted guitar is to try and get the tone as close as possible when recording. If it feels like you have a little too much bass in the guitar tone, make a mental note to roll off the bass on your amp a little more.

One very common mistake I see people make is that they think they need a lot of bottom in the guitar tone to get a "full", "phat", "big" guitar tone. The opposite is actually true. The bass guitar is what makes the distorted guitars sound full. The guitars themselves shouldn't really have anything significant below 100~150. Otherwise you'll get an overlap with the bass guitar and your guitar tone will turn to mud.

I try to NOT eq guitars unless absolutely necessary. Distorting a clean guitar creates all these harmonics which make up the desired "tone". EQ'ing it starts to add phase shifting and can COMPLETELY change the tone and usually kills the sound of the guitars. Not always though, this isn't so much a rule as it is a guideline.

By nature, a distorted guitar is compressed. That is what distortion is. When distorting a guitar you are, in essence, compressing it to the point of distortion. The more gain you use, the less effective compression will be later on. Usually I'll compress clean or semi-clean sounds. But compressing distorted guitars can remove even more of the attack. Which makes the guitars sound very "drone-like".

That's not to say you can't use a compressor... sometimes you might be able to bring out a little more attack with a compressor or expander... But again... if you tweak the amp and guitar to get the sound the way you want it, you don't have to use plugins to "fix" it later. Anytime you use anything to try and fix the sound, the result will usually be less desirable instead of more desirable.

One very simple but effective thing I do on guitars... clean up the spaces where you aren't playing and/or use a noise gate pedal before the amp. Makes the parts sound much tighter if you don't hear the amp noise and finger movement noises when you are not playing.

And as elicious mentioned... it all comes back to the guitar, head, and cabinet. The same guitar and head will sound completely different through two different cabinets. At the studio I work out of, we have a Boogie Rectifier Cab and a late 70's Marshall cab. Taking any head, without changing the settings, and A/B'ing the two cabs, you would swear it's a completely different Amp and guitar. That's how different the cabs can sound. And same obviously goes for the amps and the guitars themselves. Marshall amps "break up" or distort differently than Vox and Boogies sound different than Diezels and so on... And the type of pick up you are using will drive the input of the amp differently... and so on and so forth...

I'm sure you already know all this... but, it really makes a HUGE difference when recording. You might hear a subtle difference standing in front of your amp when you switch from your Neck to Bridge pickup...but when listening to a close mic of your amp that same switch can be much more substantial.

One other suggestion. Most guitars I've worked with tend to crank the gain and usually end up using too much gain, even for blues or country. When tracking, set the gain where you think it should be, THEN back it off a little bit. ESPECIALLY if you are going to double track rhythm guitar parts. Back the gain off from where you think it should be. When you hear the sum of the guitars, the distortion usually compounds and it will sound more distorted than it did when listening to any one of the guitars solo'd. Then for a lead, you can turn the gain up and get some nice creamy overdrive which will cut through the rhythm guitars easily without needing to EQ anything.

Another little tip I do sometimes (not all the time). I put a 7 or 10 band graphic EQ pedal in the chain before the guitar goes into the amp. Then I pull the first 2 or 3 EQ sliders down (cutting out anything below 125Hz~150Hz). This drives the amp much differently since the tubes and rectifier section aren't reacting to all the low freq. information that comes from the guitar. It works much better than just rolling the bass knob on the amp down (which on most amps, the signal passes through the gain knob first, then treble, then mid, THEN bass, then master volume). If you want a thick distortion but you also want it to sound "tight". The EQ pedal really helps get rid of any "junk" on the bottom end before the gain knob. Especially helpful on high gain amps like Boogie Triple Rectifiers, Diezel, Soldano, Buddha, etc...

Another suggestion, I always multi-mic guitar cabinets. My standard setup lately has been an SM57 and R121 ribbon mic right next to each other centered on one of the speakers in the cabinet, and then either a Beta52 or MD421 centered on a second speaker in the cabinet (or on the edge of the same speaker as the 57/121). The combination of the mics usually yields a much fuller guitar tone and you can adjust the sound by changing the relative volumes of the different mics instead of trying to EQ. It just sounds more "pleasing" for lack of a better term. If you need more brightness, turn up the 57, if you need more bottom, turn up the R121, and so on...