Re: Pearly Gates Overly Bright?
I realize this post is older, but I cant hear anything about the actual pickups with them drowning in all that frikkin reverb. I turned it off after a minute.
What a crappy way to demo something. For pickup demos I want a unaffected recording. Same with amps, and guitars for that matter.
It's more of an indicator of what that guy can do. He'd sound good on just about any guitar.
Oh man, you guys are right on the money here. It is quite difficult to achieve a flat and dry guitar tone that is actually interesting and sounds more or less good to the majority of players' ears.
I learned about the need for demos to be flat and dry pretty much here from you guys. Lots of great advice and ideas from you two, I try to keep y'all over my shoulder when doing SD demos.
Less gain is also very uninteresting... gain=extra harmonics and low gain+flat+dry is usually a recipe for a dull uninteresting guitar tone.
I changed my rig around a year ago and haven't looked back since. Gone is any FX or gain for that matter. The sound is clean when you play softly but overdriven when you hit it harder, you want more gain? Play
stronger. That's not a lot of gain where if you play lightly, the sound is clean... you basically can't have hardly any gain to do that.
I use room ambience through a figure 8 LDC about 3-4 feet back from the amp, that's it. I'm always conscious how much I use that microphone too so my sound doesn't get too big. I also try to write engaging pieces that allow this flat and dry tone to tell a sonic story.
Oh and you absolutely don't want some super slick player demoing pickups that the general public is going to buy and install. You don't want someone who has average skills either, that would be underwhelming or worse, boring.
You want someone who has above average yet
human abilities but can write/compose very well and has a good set of ears. That's why it works out well for me demoing SD pickups. I am good enough to play rather well yet not too good where my stuff is unplayable by average players... I'm just one of the guys next door. I've actually been doing this longer than a lot of guys. I entered my first studio when I was 13 years old to record a one man band type of song where I played all of the instruments except for the drums and I'm 41... which makes 28 years of recording, mixing and mastering for me. I think there are a lot of guys under 30 years old that take on a dynamic with me where I am the junior and they are the senior... gotta love the kids. :clap:
