Any good advice on matching the tone?

[Rot]

@joebegly

Sorry, I may not have been clear about this. Back when I was into mixing, they had plugins you could put on any track that would show you what the frequency response was. It looks like this:

Looks a lot like EQs I’m using with added stereo widener plugin:

@joebegly

Oh yeah, for sure. I think too much gain is a tone killer myself. Even for really heavy stuff. Well, that’s a relative statement I guess You are into much heavier music than I ever was lol! Killswitch Engage was as heavy as I’d go before my ears started begging me for mercy. But they definitely have a saturated sound (AND really good tone IMO), not so much that it kills their tone.

Usually when I’m mixing I throw in some tape saturator on master bus. Well maybe not master but a track that is a sum of all other tracks before hitting actual master. Maybe this will help?
Or just add some juice to guitars by either raising recording levels back up from -12db to something around -8dB or giving it a touch more gain on the amp?

@joebegly

This is a good point, what you’ve got does sound pretty good!!! I’d snapshot your settings because this is a usable sound. Then, continue on your journey of imitation And good luck!

I guess it depends on individual taste and sample. I posted 4, each better than the last, still there is a lot of space for improvement.
I doesn’t quite sound like studio quality and that’s what bugging me the most apart from getting similar tone.

[Fossegrim]

If you were able to get a solo sample of just the guitar, you could use a plug-in mastering suite like Ozone, and a ton others and use the auto EQ match function. It would require to you to have a general approximation of the gain and sound in place. There are a ton of EQ plugins that will do this,

Also, it sounds like they are adding some sort of digital clipping in with that sound like I mentioned before - like beyond hard knee limiting. it’s really exciting higher order harmonics, and I find it almost irritating. I think the sound you got sounds like a much better more professional version of it, but again that’s all in the eye of the beholder I guess.

[joebegly]

@Fossegrim

If you were able to get a solo sample of just the guitar, you could use a plug-in mastering suite like Ozone, and a ton others and use the auto EQ match function.

I’ve always wondered how people obtain the individual tracks. Rick Beato seems to get his hands on the multi’s of ANYTHING recorded ever.

[Rot]

@Fossegrim

If you were able to get a solo sample of just the guitar, you could use a plug-in mastering suite like Ozone, and a ton others and use the auto EQ match function

yeah I heard of those plugins, but I can’t really get my hands on soloed guitars.
Also the whole point is to learn how to dial the tone I have in mind without relying on tech wizardry.

@Fossegrim

Also, it sounds like they are adding some sort of digital clipping in with that sound

But do you mean the first clip (Obscure Sphinx) or the second one (Alcest)?
In case it is Alcest I don’t really aim to have it hard clipping. Actually amount of distortion is further down on my list of priorities. First one is to get that interesting frequencies right.

@joebegly

I’ve always wondered how people obtain the individual tracks. Rick Beato seems to get his hands on the multi’s of ANYTHING recorded ever.

Well, he’s a producer with a lot of friends in the business so it is not as surprising.

Now I noticed that the original somehow sounds darker in my DAW than on Youtube.
As it is brighter in reality I moved the low pass filter on guitars from app. 8kHz to 12kHz, but it’s not enough.
I wonder if I should boost highs or presence - I never quite understood the difference between the two.

[Fossegrim]

@joebegly

@Fossegrim

If you were able to get a solo sample of just the guitar, you could use a plug-in mastering suite like Ozone, and a ton others and use the auto EQ match function.

I’ve always wondered how people obtain the individual tracks. Rick Beato seems to get his hands on the multi’s of ANYTHING recorded ever.

Sometimes you can use similar software to remove or solo certain things too, especially if they take up very predictable space in the mix like vocals for example. That’s how people get isolated vocal and guitar tracks. It’s not perfect and you often still get bleed, but that’s typically how many people do it.

Regarding Rick, it wouldn’t surprise me if he does have those connections, but I also believe he has quite the arsenal of tools at his disposal to do that kind separation if he needed to. Dude clearly has a professional home studio at his disposal.

[Rot]

@Fossegrim

Dude clearly has a professional home studio at his disposal.

I think that dude actually lives in a studio.

Also:

@Rot

Now I noticed that the original somehow sounds darker in my DAW than on Youtube.
As it is brighter in reality I moved the low pass filter on guitars from app. 8kHz to 12kHz, but it’s not enough.
I wonder if I should boost highs or presence - I never quite understood the difference between the two.

Raised both a bit to see how it goes:

There is something harsh now that I’m not so sure I like.

And with some reverb:

[joebegly]

@Rot

Raised both a bit to see how it goes:

/uploads/default/original/2X/c/c27d9eeb9987f746563943ad0aaa50584cc643ba.mp3

The track you posted immediately after this was my favorite so far. Again, not sure it’s hitting your ‘target’ tones but it’s a good sound. Subjective, I know.

@Rot

And with some reverb:

Again, opinion here but I’ve never put any reverb on heavy rhythm guitars. It makes them sound too distant and washed out for my taste. I know there’s other mixes you’ve put up here where you were specifically going for a washed out sound though, so take my comment with a grain of salt there. At the end of the day, if it sounds the way you like, that’s what matters.

[Rot]

@joebegly

I’ve never put any reverb on heavy rhythm guitars. It makes them sound too distant and washed out for my taste

The goal with the reverb is to imitate room here. I know they recorded the album with whole band playing at once.
I just want to add a bit of depth and life this time, nothing else really.

[joebegly]

I see. To make stuff appear in the same physical space, I usually used an effects channel that had a really saturated amount of reverb/delay. I would then send certain tracks to this. My DAW had the ability to send anywhere from 1 - 100% of any given track to the effects track. I’m sure that’s fairly standard, but I don’t know since Cubase is all I’ve ever used.

https://steinberg.help/cubase_ai_le_elements/v9/en/cubase_nuendo/topics/audio_effects/audio_effects_overview_c.html

It kept the mix cleaner but still had the impact of “gluing” together various groups of tracks/instruments.

[Fossegrim]

@joebegly

I see. To make stuff appear in the same physical space, I usually used an effects channel that had a really saturated amount of reverb/delay. I would then send certain tracks to this. My DAW had the ability to send anywhere from 1 - 100% of any given track to the effects track. I’m sure that’s fairly standard, but I don’t know since Cubase is all I’ve ever used.

Insert Effects and Send Effects

It kept the mix cleaner but still had the impact of “gluing” together various groups of tracks/instruments.

The other thing you can do, and this is what I do, is that I make a copy of the track, and then I drench that one 100% with whatever reverb and/or delay I want to use. I then mix the two together with some panning so that they are spaced a bit in the stereo spectrum, and then bring the level of the 100% wet track up to the level where it mixes well which for me is when it’s barely audible, maybe more so for lead. That gives a nicer reverb sound and clarity in my experience than putting it directly on the recorded track, and you can make it boisterousor subtle as you want. This way you have individual control of the track and the types of effects on it, instead just a master buss.

[Rot]

I created whole new track with reverb at 100% wet and sent all instruments there.
It is more noticeable on drums, but otherwsie barely audible.
Dialing it in is a bit trickier - lots of parameters and options to set:

[Fossegrim]

@Rot

I wonder if I should boost highs or presence - I never quite understood the difference between the two.

As it applies to guitar amps, it’s a little complicated, but the presence control in your typical guitar amp is semi active, and is speaker dependent, meaning you could get a different response depending on the speakers and cab you use.

If you are curious exactly what happens and why, and want me to go into it, I will, but it may be pretty long winded just to warn you.

[Fossegrim]

I usually just copy the track I want to effect so I can set everything up individually.

[Rot]

I have just been told what gear was used to record the song:

POD XT Pro + Sonic Maximizer into Marshall JCM800 2204 into Laney IRT 412 for one guitar,
POD XT Pro + Sonic Maximizer into Peavey PV900 poweramp into Orange 412 cab for the other.

Now only if I could find myself correct IRs that would be great.
Also need to find out what were the settings on PODs and what exactly is Sonic Maximizer.

[joebegly]

I used to have a plugin called a Sonic Maximizer by BBE. I can’t remember using on anything that I kept or what qualities it had. If I am remembering correctly it had pretty simple settings.

People these days probably laugh at POD xt since there are so many “better” products. Still, back before Periphery got big Misha got some really great sounds out of a POD xt and not really much else in his chain.

[Rot]

I was right about the JCM and Peavey though. It felt to me like they were using some JCM and Peavey-like amps, but did not occur to me they could be using anything digital.

[Fossegrim]

I have an older bbe sonic maximizer in a rack case. It was originally a piece of outboard studio processing gear that added more or in their words corrected hi and low end response. It was essentially an enhancer. It in reality kinda of just makes things sound a little scooped and ratty.

[Rot]

@joebegly

I used to have a plugin called a Sonic Maximizer by BBE.

Is it available for download anywhere?
I’ve found some JS plugin that is supposed to do the work, but I am not sure if that’s how it’s supposed to sound.

@Fossegrim

I have an older bbe sonic maximizer in a rack case. It was originally a piece of outboard studio processing gear that added more or in their words corrected hi and low end response. It was essentially an enhancer. It in reality kinda of just makes things sound a little scooped and ratty.

Yup, pretty much what the JS plugin I’ve found does. Only it’s very subtle, so much in fact that I could as well just not bother.

[joebegly]

@Rot

Is it available for download anywhere?

I’m unfortunately not aware of any. I’m totally out of the loop on obtaining plugins without paying for them. In fact, I’ve always been and the only non-paid plugins in my possession were given to me by Misha Hopefully that doesn’t incriminate him lol!!! It’s not like I ever made money off my recordings, they were just a fun little hobby.

[Rot]

Too bad. I’ll have to experiment with JS one.

Also forgot to mention - there are some feedbacks in the song, especially on fade in. I tried to replicate it in a DAW with plugins and routing but no luck.
So I decided to plug guitar into a cheap amp in parallel to the plugins, and placed mic just for kicks. Didn’t bother with proper placement.
To my amazement that cheap, terrible amp sounds not too shabby when miced, but mixing it with ampsims yields interesting results.

I could probably try again and post some samples if you want.