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  • Originally posted by d2718 View Post
    Re: General Tone Tips

    The last post in this thread was more than a year ago, but I've just read them all, and thought I'd add my own collection. Most of these have been touched on before, but, y'know, I can't not elaborate!

    1) Set up your guitar. If your guitar doesn't need any "destructive editing" (like filing nut slots or levelling the frets), this is super easy to do yourself with just a couple of allen wrenches (or maybe a screwdriver) and a strobe tuner. Peterson sells a strobe stomp box tuner for only slightly more than a new Boss tuning pedal (and less than the Boss Waza one). Get those strings up off the frets. If you play metal with heaps of distortion and lots of fast leads up high, this might not matter as much, but if you do anything else, your guitar will only ever produce one kind of tone: that weak, plinky sound of the strings spanking against the frets that's reminiscent of a cigar box and rubber bands.

    2) Record yourself. Until you've listened to a recording of yourself, there's no way you can divorce the perception of the sound coming out of your amplifier from the feeling of excitement and satisfaction you get in the moment of playing. It is vitally important to be able to experience your music like the audience will, and you'll never realize how bad your timing and tone are, how uneven your dynamics and articulation are, until you do. Also, recording forces you to work out all those transitions and nail down all those lead lines that you've been flubbing your way through or putting off finalizing. Use recording to figure out what you need to work on, and practice, practice, practice. All those little nuances that make you bite your bottom lip when you listen to great players are only possible when you have command of the instrument.

    3) Keep your signal chain simple. This one has been mentioned a lot in this thread, but I'd like to elaborate. Subtle tonal and timbral variations just aren't noticeable in a live situation. Your audience can't tell the difference between your fancy Strymon flanger and your MXR Phase-90, and when the rest of your band is playing, neither can you. Leave one (the expensive one) at home. Do you need a delay and a reverb? Do you even need either of them, or do they just clutter up the mix? Pick a few pedals that each make a unique, noticeable change that adds to what you're doing. As I'm sure you've heard, too many buffered (or unbuffered--they can both cause their own problems) pedals in your chain can attenuate and alter the frequency response of your signal in undesirable ways ("suck the life out of your tone"). Furthermore, fewer pedals means less stuff to haul around, fewer points of failure in your signal chain, less noise (unless you want to add a noise gate--oh, look, another pedal), fewer pieces of gear whose levels and settings need to be tweaked, less stuff to distract you from playing during your performance, less chance of losing or damaging your nice pedals, and there are probably more, but I think I've made my point. The one possible downside is that you won't dazzle the other guitar dudes in the audience with your collection of cool, obscure pedals. (I will be dazzled, too, but I'll be conflicted because I'm also judging you for having too many pedals.)

    4) Do not point your amp at your shins; that is not where your ears are. If your amp sounds good to you while it's sitting on the floor, pointed at your shins, it'll be an icepick in the faces of the audience. Point your amp at least somewhat at your head: Tilt your amp back a little (like with one of those purpose-made stands), get a cabinet with an angled baffle, or raise your amp up off the stage (grab a chair from the audience). This last option is particularly helpful for the sound guy if he's reinforcing your amp, because there's more rumble thumping around right down there by the floor.

    5) Turn that bass knob down. Those frequencies will just have you fighting with the kick drum and the bass player on their turf, where you are going to lose; the collateral damage from that battle is going to be a bunch more mud that makes the whole band sound loud but inarticulate. It takes a lot of energy to move air down there; let your amp use that energy where it will get a lot more mileage (y'know, the midrange).

    New additions are always welcome, that’s why it’s stickied. I don’t think your action should be too low even if you’re a metal shredder. I don’t want my tone to turn to garbage as soon as I go for a clean passage or any other style without heavy distortion and any decent lead guitarist doesn’t need the action so low ot sacrifices the sound of the notes. These are all very good, useful points and I totally agree.

    Recording oneself is the best thing you can for your playing, it really holds a microscope to the slightest mistakes you may not be aware, especially touchy timing issues you may have (which I’ve noticed is one of the most common issue with many musicians, even if they’re otherwise pretty good) and there’s no better way to learn superhuman precision double-tracking than to record yourself and then play to yourself. One thing that will absolutely come across to the audience is a band that plays dead on in sync with each other. A band that can do that as well as their studio tracks end up being come across sounding incredibly powerful.

    I find a dry as possible sound is going to come across much better through FOH. Reverb is just going to have it wash out. Dialing in your tone with where the mic is going to be or the audiences head is important. What sounds good with your cab on the floor is probably going to leave you with far too trebly a sound.

    I would add that your whole band alongside knowing your material inside and out should have all your tones dialled in to cooperate in rehearsal. It makes the sound person’s job so much easier. If you’ve got all worked out in rehearsal, even the least involved sound person won’t take away the coherence of all your instruments and you will be heard no matter what, which ties in nicely with your point about turning the bass knob down.
    The opinions expressed above do not necessarily represent those of the poster and are to be considered suspect at best.

    Lead guitarist and vocalist of...



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    • What I would have told my starting-out self: there are no bad tones. But is the one you are using inspiring to you? If “yes,” that’s a keeper.

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      • Originally posted by DankStar View Post
        What I would have told my starting-out self: there are no bad tones. But is the one you are using inspiring to you? If “yes,” that’s a keeper.
        That’s a good point. Short of being unpleasantly jarring, distracting from the song or failing to get across the musical coherence you desire, there is not one-tone-fits all, therefore the right tone is whatever best suits the song or inspires. Be it you, or the listener.
        The opinions expressed above do not necessarily represent those of the poster and are to be considered suspect at best.

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        • Originally posted by Beer$ View Post
          That’s a good point. Short of being unpleasantly jarring, distracting from the song or failing to get across the musical coherence you desire, there is not one-tone-fits all, therefore the right tone is whatever best suits the song or inspires. Be it you, or the listener.
          And maybe everyone does this but if I find a keeper I document everything in the chain - what guitar, pickups selector setting, all amp settings, all pedal settings, mic distances,…

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          • Originally posted by DankStar View Post

            And maybe everyone does this but if I find a keeper I document everything in the chain - what guitar, pickups selector setting, all amp settings, all pedal settings, mic distances,…
            It’s thanks to Flemming Rasmussen doing exactly that, the signal chains to the puppetz and justice sounds are exhaustively documented. I do it whenever I update my production plans but I can’t help but notice that every studio/ studio tutorial youtube channel (SpectreSoundStudios etc.) makes no mention of them or seems to have any interest in addressing them when I suggest it when they welcome viewer comments(and I do mean zero interest) when it’s important to make it so much easier to achieve the sound on a track or album you’re imagining. It also comes in real handy for consistency if you ever have to move anything for any reason.

            I made a post in T&C with a copy of my band’s entire production plan for when we went into a studio for the lead-off song for our EP at the time in 2016. I guess they think it’s boring or unnecessary, when my production process has never been easier since I’ve drafted full production plans.
            The opinions expressed above do not necessarily represent those of the poster and are to be considered suspect at best.

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            • Originally posted by DankStar View Post
              And maybe everyone does this but if I find a keeper I document everything in the chain - what guitar, pickups selector setting, all amp settings, all pedal settings, mic distances,…
              I'm lazy, so I just name my tracks by the signal chain, like "LP - SLX - 1960A - SM57 - Vintech x73" and just use cell phone photos for recall, mic distances, etc.

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              • Eq all your **** as if someone was listening to it through an AM radio with a 3" speaker.

                Sent from my SM-A115A using Tapatalk

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                • I hate the whole "don't scoop your mids" approach as a rule of thumb. Not all amps' tone stacks work the same. Not all setups are the same.

                  When you run an EMG through a Tube Screamer through a 5150 through a V30 through an SM57 you're getting mids from so many places down the chain that if you don't ease up on the mid knob, you're going to get a honky cloudy mess from that tone. I cannot, for the life of me, comprehend how the "6-6-6" settings sound good to people on a 5150, but that's just me.

                  Mids does not always equal clarity. Especially not low mids. Especially not in a mix.

                  Yes, mids do cut through, but you gotta remember guitar is not the only instrument in the mix. I'm not saying drop your mid knob to 0 on a Dual Rectifier either. That sounds like ****. But be sensible of the whole rig (speakers, pickups, boosts, etc.) and EQ tasetfully. Not just run the mid knob high because forum "knowledge" nowadays is "bro, you need mids to cut through the mix" ignoring the whole picture.

                  JME.
                  Last edited by Rex_Rocker; 11-26-2023, 10:15 AM.

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                  • Originally posted by Demanic View Post
                    Eq all your **** as if someone was listening to it through an AM radio with a 3" speaker.

                    Sent from my SM-A115A using Tapatalk
                    I think that's the classic black metal tone right there.

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                    • It's all in the strap . . .

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                      • Originally posted by Inflames626 View Post

                        I think that's the classic black metal tone right there.
                        What he means is mix the arrangement in a way that the weight, power and definition of each instrument in the song translates to any medium which could be an audiophile’s sound system or a phone speaker or sh!tty little earbuds. Funny thing is about one of my most complimented guitar sounds on one of my band’s songs where I’ve been thanks for not “scooping all the midrange out.”

                        I practically did dump all the mids for it to sound how I wanted in the mix, just in a fairly narrow bandwidth (but it wasn’t a surgically thin band either). That’s all part of mixing with your ears, not your eyes. Be careful with specific EQ advice or templates/presets because not only is every source different with no two of any track type calling for the same adjustments but every EQ is different, some being more transparent, others colouring the sound to a degree that some engineers will run their signal through one without even adjusting aby EQ parameters just for what the circuit adds.

                        My point is on that same guitar track, just because the mid knob on the equaliser was brought down as far as it could go, doesn’t mean the guitar has no mids. It just really sounded how it was supposed to when I pulled out that much of that frequency with that EQ.

                        A lot of EQs to me are really best for cutting, in fact I prefer to capture as much of an instruments bandwidth as I can and make cuts to fit together later. There are only a few EQs, most of them hardware based that I can stand listening to with a boost of more than 3db, especially trying to boost the treble of (for example) a guitar track captured too dark where if it’s not also raising hiss or other extraneous noise, it just sounds scratchy or fatiguing on the ears.

                        A hardware EQ that sweetens the treble (or a really well modeled software version) might be best for making broad bumps in the presence range and a completely transparent EQ like a linear-phase or FFT plugin might be better at making narrow cuts to problematic frequencies or eliminate standing waves. Every type has its place.
                        The opinions expressed above do not necessarily represent those of the poster and are to be considered suspect at best.

                        Lead guitarist and vocalist of...



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                        • Originally posted by El Dunco View Post

                          What he means is mix the arrangement in a way that the weight, power and definition of each instrument in the song translates to any medium which could be an audiophile’s sound system or a phone speaker or sh!tty little earbuds. Funny thing is about one of my most complimented guitar sounds on one of my band’s songs where I’ve been thanks for not “scooping all the midrange out.”

                          I practically did dump all the mids for it to sound how I wanted in the mix, just in a fairly narrow bandwidth (but it wasn’t a surgically thin band either). That’s all part of mixing with your ears, not your eyes. Be careful with specific EQ advice or templates/presets because not only is every source different with no two of any track type calling for the same adjustments but every EQ is different, some being more transparent, others colouring the sound to a degree that some engineers will run their signal through one without even adjusting aby EQ parameters just for what the circuit adds.

                          My point is on that same guitar track, just because the mid knob on the equaliser was brought down as far as it could go, doesn’t mean the guitar has no mids. It just really sounded how it was supposed to when I pulled out that much of that frequency with that EQ.

                          A lot of EQs to me are really best for cutting, in fact I prefer to capture as much of an instruments bandwidth as I can and make cuts to fit together later. There are only a few EQs, most of them hardware based that I can stand listening to with a boost of more than 3db, especially trying to boost the treble of (for example) a guitar track captured too dark where if it’s not also raising hiss or other extraneous noise, it just sounds scratchy or fatiguing on the ears.

                          A hardware EQ that sweetens the treble (or a really well modeled software version) might be best for making broad bumps in the presence range and a completely transparent EQ like a linear-phase or FFT plugin might be better at making narrow cuts to problematic frequencies or eliminate standing waves. Every type has its place.
                          Absolutely. I would also say every EQ is going to be different depending upon what else is in your mix.

                          I used this many years ago and still refer to it even though it's a primer.



                          Thoughts on intelligent/dynamic EQs/compressors vs. a multiband, El Dunco? My understanding is dynamic EQ sounds more transparent and can catch anything above the threshold, perhaps sounding less notched out that a usual cut.

                          I also still tend to go by the no more than -6 db cut rule, and boost only when absolutely necessary.

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