Recorded guitar sound advice

[element0s]

I’m starting to realize the faster you go the more you need that “responsiveness” in tone. I feel like a lot of notes that I know I’m hitting don’t cut through enough. In a mix I’m sure they’ll get buried even more, so I see what you both are saying about the mix making the guitar sound completely different.

Filter out the low-end of your tone to about 100hz (depending on tuning… use your ears) for rhythms and even higher up for leads. Use the “Andy Sneap” multiband compression trick on the low mids to clamp down on excess buildup. Reaper comes stock with a multiband compressor perfect for this trick, message me when you get there and I’ll walk you through it. Use an Overdrive pedal somewhere in the chain to tighten up the low end response. I like my lead guitars to be more mid-focused so the notes pop out.

In my experience, you generally need less low end in your full-mix guitars than you expect

EDIT: I would also recommend against BIAS. I’ve tried it a few times and I think it’s low-quality for the money you pay. If you’ve got a spare hundo to spend I would just go right to one of the Neural DSP suites. Fortin Namless, NTS, Plini, whichever suites your style the most. I also like Mercuriall stuff a lot but I’m not sure if they do standalone software. Fantastic sounds though.

[Prlgmnr]

The Soreption one was all improvised using old patterns and was pushing it way too hard at 190-200 BPM.

In my opinion that gave it a really pleasant to the ear old school death metal sort of feel, like back in the day when people weren’t playing to a click and were pushing themselves a touch beyond what they could actually play.

[guitarenthusiast]

I just tried the Fortin Nameless demo and it is the most brutal sounding plugin ever. I was actually shocked at how realistic it sounded, felt, and responded.

[tommo]

I just tried the Fortin Nameless demo

Yeah, that one seems very highly rated in the industry (as in: I see a lot of positive comments about it on various FB groups etc etc). Unfortunately I tried the demo when I had near zero experience with ampsims, so I could not really appreciate it. I am patiently waiting for a discount (I already have too many ampsims to justify another full price purchase) - got some small hopes for black Friday!

PS: try the mercuriall SS-11X demo as well. I think it goes for around $30-40 but has top quality high-gain tones.

EDIT 246: it also does Hendrix tones actually!

[element0s]

Yeah the Neural DSP stuff is out of control and Mercuriall is on a similar level, imo. If their Spark amp sim (a full Marshall modeler) goes on sale I might pick it up because the lead tones you can get out of that thing are deadly. Accept have been using it on their newer albums.

I might start a separate thread for recorded guitar tone show + tell, if anyone thinks that’d be useful

[tommo]

I might start a separate thread for recorded guitar tone show + tell, if anyone thinks that’d be useful

Yes please! 20 characters

EDIT: the only thing missing in spark is an IR loader.
You can of course load IRs with an additional plugin but then you lose all the nice post-effects included with spark (delays etc.). Unless you want them between amp and IR, but this is typically discouraged.

Or you can load two copies of spark sandwiching the IR loader plugin, but it feels somewhat inelegant

[element0s]

EDIT: the only thing missing in spark is an IR loader.
You can of course load IRs with an additional plugin but then you lose all the nice post-effects included with spark (delays etc.). Unless you want them between amp and IR, but this is typically discouraged.

That’s interesting, I didn’t realize it worked that way. I have some pretty sexy delay plugins on hand so I probably wouldn’t have to worry too much about this but it definitely seems a shame to cut options away at the knees like that.

I think I’ll go ahead and make the topic I mentioned. I’m working on DI tracks for a song so I’ll post a few different variations on the guitar tone and how I got them. Will probably have to wait until tomorrow though!