Recording/Mixing Metal Guitars in Pro Tools

[Mike 24]

Hello: I recently purchased a digi 002 system and wanted to ask about advice for recording and mixing tips for all out Metal Mayem guitar tones. Any special micing tips,methods? I'm currently using a Sm-57 and a Sennheiser E409 and saving for a Md-421. What is the method of mxing metal guitars in pro tools, required plug ins that help, how to eq, whcih frequencies to deal with, etc.
Also, i wanted to ask about I hear people create great sounding mixes in front of their monitors but when they play the cd in the car or at home it sounds awful. Why is this so and how to correct this during mixing and or Mastering?
Thanks in advance.

[Andrew07]

I still suck at recording guitars. Brandon's got a bunch of different articles about it if you search thru some articles.

The most important thing is the guitarist has to be good. Get the amp to sound kick ass in the room and stick a 57 on the cone. Most guys say committ to the sound at first, but my ears still aren't good enough to judge how it should be sounding in the mix while we're tracking. I get everything as good sounding as I can, back off the gain a little bit, and also turn down the treble so it sounds darker than how I think it should sound. I also record a DI track in case I want to reamp it. In Pro Tools/Cubase I use Waves' C4 to compress the bass/low mids, then I EQ the SHIT OUT OF IT (this is usually a big no-no to people here) in any way it needs to fit in the mix. I also compress it with a UAD 1176 to give it some balls. What I've also been doing lately is sending both guitars at 0.0 db to a Stereo Aux where I have Waves Supert Tap-2 doing something funky (chorus, spring reverb, etc) followed by a compressor. I sneak this under the guitar tracks to give it some depth.

So I do a bunch of shit but most guys do nothing while mixing ha

[Mike 24]

Andrew:
Thanks for the advice. I'll give those ideas a try.
Mike

[brandondrury]

Here's a few of my electric guitar articles

I highly recommend the "My current approach" article.

Here's how it works.

The sound coming out of the amp is 99% of the guitar tone. When Hoobastank or Killswitch guitars sound huge on a record, it's because a huge sound is coming out of the amp.

Drums require lots of processing to sound like they do on modern rock and metal records. Vocals sometimes require lots of processing (sometimes not). Guitars, in my opinion, do not require processing.

The general rule of thumb for electric guitars goes like this: If I need to EQ during tracking, then I have screwed up. In other words, if the tone is happening going in, it will never be happening. EQ doesn't fix tone. It boosts/cuts frequencies.

So, I use my guitar fort to isolate a cabinet, crank a kick ass guitar amp up to 10, and then listen to my monitors to see what I'm getting.

The player is obviously a huge deal in getting great tone.

Another requirement for me is to have an EQ pedal between the guitar and the amp. This sounds NOTHING like Eqing after the amp because it allows me to control how hard we are hitting the tubes at various frequencies.

Brandon

[brandondrury]

One other thing. I do occassionally EQ when I'm mixing. Of course, when I'm mixing, I already have great tracks and I'm just trying to make everything fit together a little tighter than it did before (sonically).

So during mixing, I'll do whatever needs to be done..as far as processing is concerned.

I wouldn't focus on the plugin side of things while learning to get great guitar sounds. I would focus on arranging songs so that guitars can sound huge. I would focus on getting the amp to sound great in your studio monitors.

Brandon

[DogpitStudios]

LAYER. While getting a loud low gain mid boosted gut crunching guitar sound from your amp is the first and most important step, the trick I've found recently to huge guitar tones is overdubbing guitar parts. Maybe there is a breakdown in the song that needs something extra from the guitar. I'll get the guitarist to go over it again. That didn't help? We'll re-tune the guitar and play it with the strings a little looser. That didn't help? I'll grab an other guitar. That didn't help? I'll have him play it up or down an octave. That didn't help? I'll try them all and then I'll try mixing them together (levels only) in different ways until I get something closer to what I'm looking for. What am I looking for you ask? Usually to find out what I want, I'll listen to a recording that shows me that to the extreme. Then I'll press pause and listen to my own guitar tone. Usually this helps me pin point what needs to be added.

I used to have a lot of trouble with big guitar sounds on metal recordings. I thought EQ and plug-ins would fix my tiny tone. Recently, I haven't even been EQing my guitars, they just have been sounding huge from the start. The way I record, everything happens from the begining. You can't go into thinking things can be fixed later, because no matter what, they can't be 100% fixed.

Ben

[brandondrury]

Another thing about this layering business. Sometimes just using the same exact sound and doing 2-4 passes is all you need. It just depends.

Brandon

[adorian]

I've used different approaches with different bands, depending on equipment, studio time and mic availability, also isolation sometimes becomes an issue (if you have too many people you might have to do the guitar direct).
First a good sounding amp is a must. Get the guitarist to go drier on the distortion - sometimes too many distorted tracks turn things into mush.

Overall - I usually throw in a mic on the grille - sm57, sm58, e835 or AKG D880, Beyer M01 (all dynamics) and a bit away from the amp, maybe about a foot a room ambience mic, usually Oktava or AT4040, or maybe I use a PZM mic bolted on a piece of wood like a piano lid or piano bench. For ambience on drier guitar tracks I've also used an early reflection technique with a condenser pointing away at 30-45 degrees towards a wooden reflective wall and then sweep the phase of it until it starts sounding in phase with the dynamic mic on the grille. I usually compress a touch coming into the board and might even eq but nothing really heavy, you should generally get a good sound at source. Sometimes I use a safety track, such as a DI or a speaker emulated one from a H&K Redbox. I might put the guitarist directly via his processor into the board if we are short on iso booths.

[playsguitars]

another thing you can do is mic up the back of the cab/amp whatever in addition to using a 57 or 58 on the grille. this gives it a bit of an interesting tone. darker, and less focused, but when brought into the mix can add some beef. i usually remove the back covering of a cab and shove a mic in there somewhere to get that sound. experimentation is really the key, as with anything having to do with what we do.

[brandondrury]

I've never succeeded at metal guitars with open back cabinets, personally. I love open back cabinets for indie rock type of guitar tones, but could never make it work when I'm going for metal.

Brandon