Slipperman's Recording Distorted Guitars From Hell

[Drew]

By the way, on this:

Let's imagine a specific scenario that could happen to ANYBODY(Like probably 25 poor miserable AE bastards all over the world last week alone....).

Let's imagine 'Banjo-Boy' plays in an Screamo-Metal 'crossover'(doesn't the word 'crossover' seem to be losing some of it's effectiveness lately?) band that uses a lot of suspended chord voicings, displaced roots, and odd time signatures interspersed with faster chugging passages and plenty of clean guitar breakdowns....

BUT THE PROBLEM IS.......

He's REALLY INTO THE 'Morbid Angel' guitar sound.

Don't laugh, kids are fucking crazy.

A lot of young musicians are much better at hearing what works for SOMEBODY ELSE, IN SOME OTHER SITUATION, than they are at figuring out what works for themselves/their music/their songs.

SO ARE A LOT OF AE'S

That's where the shit can and often DOES hit the fan.

OK. His 'chugging' sound strikes a pretty decent balance between 'swing' and 'tight' and he's a good palm-muter who can, and does control the duration and depth of the 'chugging' shit pretty well. Hoo-ray. ALL IS NOT LOST.

Not yet.

Problem is....

His Drop-C tuned PRS sounds like COCK AND BALLS when he plays his pretty little suspended chords. You can't hear much difference between a C#5 barre-chord and a C#9. The ninth is getting HAMMERED by the amount to saturation he's dialed on the amp head... Or is it? Will a change in guitar be more effective than a change in 'twist' on the amp-face? What else does he got with him...? Maybe his old "It's cool but I never use it" - 1972 SG standard. Plug it in. Those fuckers can CHIME like a bitch and just might make the difference between disaster and salvation.

OK... So you try it....

IT'S AWFUL.

It's too fucking OLD.

It chimes alright... Sounds like a fucking busted church-bell being hydro-phoned by a crackhead to a submarine salvage vehicle thru a Korean-War era walkie-talkie.

Great. Strike 1.

Kid thinks you're a fucking retard.

OK. Twist the gain down a little.... That's a LOT BETTER BUT.... Now he's got that look on his face like somebody farted.....

His BLANKIE. Yer KILLING HIS BLANKIE, YOU ASSHOLE.

OK. Try twisting up the mids to get a little clarity back, as you do this you may be able to drop the gain a little, as the preamp starts to saturate more in the 'hurt zone'.

This is helping but, of course, the first thing the kid starts to do is CHUG again....."Dude, the chugs are sounding 'bleackey' he sputters". And ya know what? He's RIGHT, the chugs are coming apart. Very 'bleacky'(A technical term they teach at GIT).

Houston. We got a problem.

How you gonna get around this?

I can think of about 3 ways RIGHT OFF the top of me noggin...

Can you guys?

Kick it around if you'd like...

I'll be back soon.


SM.

He never actually comes back and addresses the three ways he's thinking of. You guys who are actually fairly good at this shit (I'm thinking Matt, mostly ), what are your thoughts? My first instinct would be to double the fundamental tracks with a way cleaner take mixed quite a bit back...

[Matt C]

A few ideas using one amp and one guitar:

1. Don't give up on using a different guitar than the PRS, the SG didn't work, but maybe something else will.

2. Try a different amp. Maybe something with that is a little dryer and a little more articulate.

3. Try different strings on the guitar. Heavy strings can be great for intonation and bashing on lower tunings, but they can saturate an amp too quickly.

4. Try adding an EQ to the equation. Keep his "scoop" by dropping some in the 200 range, but then boost in the 400 or 800 range to get some clarity. This should preserve the chunk of the sound as well as giving some definition.

If you can use multiple guitars and amps, it's a lot easier

Record two amps of the same performance, one with the death metal scoop for the chugga-chugga, one with more mids for the happy chords. Mix and match as necessary.

[Drew]

Thank you kindly, Matt.

Reading this shit REALLY makes me want to finish up the fucking demoing and get to work recording in earnest.

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Matt Crooks

Record two amps of the same performance, one with the death metal scoop for the chugga-chugga, one with more mids for the happy chords. Mix and match as necessary.

Reamping with both tones would have been my answer, since the real option of "teach kid how to play chugga with mids" isn't really viable.

[Matt C]

Well, he's going for the Morbid Angel uber-scooped chugga sound, and adding mids kinda defeats that But I do get what you're saying.

I think what SM was getting at here is that trying to make your songs sound like someone else when you are not the exact same style is a recipe for disaster. Kinda like a drummer wanting a Jazz fusion kick sound on a power metal album.

[Drew]

Originally Posted by Matt Crooks

Well, he's going for the Morbid Angel uber-scooped chugga sound, and adding mids kinda defeats that But I do get what you're saying.

I think what SM was getting at here is that trying to make your songs sound like someone else when you are not the exact same style is a recipe for disaster. Kinda like a drummer wanting a Jazz fusion kick sound on a power metal album.

...and he actually gets at kind of an interesting problem for guitarists. Most of us have "our" sound, that we spend ages crafting alone in our bedrooms, and is manifest in our choice of guitars, choice of amps, and choice of effects.

Most of us then go off and start a band, with a bunch of other guys who all have "their" sound on their respective instruments, that were also developed in isolation. More likely than not, for each band member they're playing something a little outside the circle of influences that helped shape "their" sound.

This is kind of a potential recipe for disaster. In every band I've played in, I've made a point (less based on this concrete observation than on intuition) of trying to spend some time getting the band to shape "their" sound to work as a group. This usually doesn't go very well - in particular I remember playing with this one bassist who had this rather nice Fender and some sort of a Haarke rig with built in compression. He'd play along with the song, and then go to play a bass fill and REALLY dig in on the strings, and suddenly what'd have previously been a balanced mix was all bass. I tried to get him to use his amp's compression, but he refused because it wasn't "vintage." Keep in mind that we were playing your typical high school cover band mix of classic and modern rock, and that I was playing a seven string into a Mesa combo.

But, it's always worth trying.

...also, an observation that came to me as I was writing this, typically, when tracking, I'll loop out a drum track, record rhythm guitars, record bass, and then record melody and solo guitars. And, probably 3 times out of 4, I'll then go back and re-record the bass guitars or the rhythm guitars or both, but more often than not rhythm. I should probably start off with the bass track, and then dial in a rhythm tone to fit THAT, rather than the other way around...

[Slipperman]

Hey fellaz!!!

My sincere apologies to those who were put off by the bluster of the original posts in the thread.

Certainly even metal guitarists must be smart enough to realize I was sensationalizing a fictional animosity towards individuals unfortunate enough to have chosen the instrument.

HOHOHO.

It was never originally designed as a serious "tutorial". It was a series of(hopefully) funny posts which were intended to answer a question about rampant frequency dependent dynamic swing problems some chap from Argentina(?) ran into when he attempted to record some heavy distorted drop-tuning guitars.

Then, quite horribly, after about a 1/2 a year of posting on this one thread... it inexplicably turned into some kinda crazy "General AE bootcamp" mission which usually had me posting at 4am or some god-forsaken hour... trying to answer all sorts of questions which were germane to wherever the thread was wildly and tangentially leading us.

It never occurred to me that after all was said and done... and the original post site which hosted the whole god-forsaken mess was kaput, that people I have never met or had any contact with to this day... would collect the sum total of those threads... take out everything but my content(which I'm not even REMOTELY suggesting was the best content in those threads), and jam them up on the internot for all to er... admire(ahem).

No biggie.

I will say this.

Very little about my opinions(however uncomfortably expressed) on the subject matter has changed in my estimation.

Pretty remarkable(to me) as it's been 6 years or so, and I usually find myself changing my mind about anything else under the sun every 23 minutes or so.

No matter. Happy to be here amongst the enemy(as it were), and glad to defend or explain my "rants" to anyone who would be interested in such an explanation or defense.

In any event. Sorry for the sudden(and belated) intrusion and best regards and wishes to all.

SM.

[Matt C]

Welcome. Please stick around, some of us don't even bite.

[Josh]

Originally Posted by Slipperman

Hey fellaz!!!

My sincere apologies to those who were put off by the bluster of the original posts in the thread.

Certainly even metal guitarists must be smart enough to realize I was sensationalizing a fictional animosity towards individuals unfortunate enough to have chosen the instrument.
...

In any event. Sorry for the sudden(and belated) intrusion and best regards and wishes to all.

SM.

Wow, great to hear from you, SM! Honestly, I think most of us read your sarcasm and fictional animosity as just that, and it was a very good and funny read. If you want to continue to post info on this stuff, feel free; we've got a number of fairly knowledgeable guys (and a bunch of newbies like myself) who would love to hear your insight and debate with you on the finer points of your experience and beliefs.

[MFB]

I tried reading it but was overwhelmed by the wall of text