The biggest aha moment for me pretty much ever, with regards to mixing, was realizing that 50% of your favorite guitar tones is a bass guitar, and the other 50% is mega tight dual or quad tracking. Isolated guitar tones often sound weak and thin. But throw in the bass, and track twice or more and now you have that brutal sound. As guitarists we try to emulate those tones “in the room” from a mono source, and damn if we don’t spend 100’s of hours just chasing lmao.
Well i have subzero sa-100h and i have cranked the gain but it still sounds like a jcm 800 with gain in 8 and remember normal jcm dosnt even have that much gain so i just boost my solo sound with tube screamer so i can say all the gain
This is something I’ve learned over the years of playing. It’s tone. If you listen closely to your favorite Metal bands, most of the guitars are not over saturated with distortion. Gain with tone, and how you play will definitely get you a heavy ass sound. It’s all about balance. Good stuff Taylor!
Some of my best gain tones I have learned with modern high gain amps is low output pickups.. I use a 7.7k passive alnico 2 pickup. Really has made my tones more forward with gain tones.
I'm not sure about the origins of that aproach, but somehow it became such a tradition in Polish metal studios and metal producers (working with Behemoth, Decapitated, Vader, Lost Soul and many many more) - that they ALMOST ALWAYS use 2 different amps with different gain value AT THE SAME TIME (signal splitter) and often times blend solidstate with tube amps. It gives both brutality and clarity with great pick attack. Watch Nail The Mix with Jason Richardson too as he even use CLEAN&COMPRESSED signal underneath a shitton of gain.
This method is actually my preferred approach. I typically implement it with Amp sims, but a similar strategy can be applied with either duplicated guitar tracks or Quad tracking. In the latter case, you can use two tracks with relatively low gain and then compensate by increasing the gain on the remaining two tracks. This technique results in a well-balanced mix with a combination of distortion and clarity, ensuring that the details of the guitar come through clearly.
This is definitely a good approach, but I would say is a bit more advanced. Typically the people looking for an idea of how much gain to use are newer to this, and don't quite have their ears dialed yet.
Excellent tips! Like most, I used to just crank the gain. Nowadays I use the least amount of gain needed to get a really good sounding chug. If I used pinch harmonics in my writing, I'd definitely use that as the metric instead.
What I usually do, is dial in the tone that I like. And then I drop the lows and gain by 1, and up the mids and high by 1. So basically lets say the tone I dialed in is Gain: 7 Low: 4 1/2 Mids: 6 High: 6 1/2 Now for example here's the changes Gain: 6 Low: 3 1/2 Mids: 7 Highs: 7 1/2 Those numbers are just an example of how I do it. I personally find that doing that, increases note clarity, and gets rid of some of the mush from too much gain.
I like the MLC plugin too. Yeah, automating is a advanced technique I'd say, but if you want to really dial it perfect, this is the way.
7 месяцев назад
i built a tone with all max gain to find out when it is really unplayable and it depends. The riffs are a limiting factor and the noise gate. You can check it out if you want i made some songst with it for a project called "Mudgod". Just like doom metal, slow groovy licks can totally work with a lot of gain and the gain structure is important, mixing fuzzier strctures with tighter tones in front the amp etc. works amazing. Staying in a similar gain structure when it comes to pedlas and the amp it self it can get harsh easily.
I find it's easier to just blend two guitar tones, especially with amp sims. You can take the same take, and run it through two instances of the same, or even different amp sims, set up with the gain and EQ done completely differently, and then just send the final product through the same IR's, so there's no phase issues. I've commented on may videos from different channels that I run an Orange style tone so that it's on the border between a "thick clean" and "edge of breakup" and then just run a precision drive into the front of it, where I turn up the gain a bit and have the volume dimed. This gives me more of a djent meets pop punk, mid gain hard rock tone. I then blend this with the most fucked up chainsaw tone I can muster. I do this for sims and for live amps, the latter of which I achieve with an ABY pedal, two amps, and two cabs. I use 1x12's that can handle high wattage because I'm a skinny, lazy motherfucker.
Honestly it depends on the situation. If I'm playing in a room for myself. I go nuts still because, why not? Lol it's fun. Playing with another guitarist in a band. I don't use that much. In a recording setting. All my tone depends on what frequencies the drums and bass take up. My tones and gain levels are completely different for each application.
Yeah exactly, that's the whole point. I think people get way too obsessed with the setting vs just using your ears. That can really be said about most things audio related I suppose..
Relatively low gain on the amp but stick an od in front as a clean boost (max level no gain). I do this with my 6505 (gain at ~10 o’clock) with an sd1 in front, it doesn’t do much to the amps sound, but it really fattens the chugs and helps hit the pinch harmonics. (My guitar has Seymour Duncan distortions in it so that boosts the signal chain a bit as well)
"Set the gain as low as you can before the guitarist starts complaining" is a pretty good studio guideline. :D Thanks for using the MLC amp for your demo, Taylor! 🙌
Putting gain in my guitar is something I have to be careful about. With blinding lead, rhythm, and acoustic guitar together. I am going for a style to make the acoustic guitar sound as metal as possible. I put the most gain on my rhythm guitar and even lighter gain on my lead. For the acoustic guitar of course no gain, but what I do in the EQ of the guitar I push up the bass. So overall. If my gain heavy on the lead and rhythm it drains out the acoustic guitar. This is something I don't want to do, but enough to make it sound hard. I have been playing around with this for some time now and I would say it been interesting. Thanks for the great videos brother. Have a gentle heart and peaceful mind. Or have a gentle heart and peace mind, then after jump into the mosh pit and metal it out. hehehe :P
If only my mix could be so grossly incandescent \[T]/ Also, I think for live playing, it's really dawned on me over the last couple of years how little gain you actually need to pull off a great live sound. At home, I will rip my Splawn nitro or SLO and have gobs of saturation but on stage, I'm either using a silver jubilee with half as much gain or the UA Lion pedal and if I need more saturation, that's what the golden boy pedal is for. My old band recorded an EP with Rick Beato about 12 years ago (way before his youtube fame) and we went in with my Nitro and a Diezel Einstein and after the first take of our first song laying down a scratch track, he went and took both our gain knobs and cut them in half. When we listened to the first take vs the second take after he made that change, the increase in clarity was huge!
Depends on the style and vibe, but recently I'm leaning towards a looser sound. Like for my remake of the album St. Anger, I wanted it to sound like live amps that were cranked, so I used the Audio Assault Sigma EX on the Crunch channel and turned up both the gain and the master volume to 9, no boost. I ran them into a 4x12 Mesa cab IR, also from Audio Assault, and they sound huge. The palm mutes are on the edge of blowing up, and so is the entire mix, really. But I wouldn't use that sound for everything though. unless... 😏
Dude, your stuff is always awesome and your reviews are the best. I own the Amperium Live from St. Rock thanks to you and cant thank you enough. Its incredibly aggressive and has incredible cleans as well. Its really been the best solution ive found.
Paul Gilbert, Marty Friedman, Joe Satriani and John Petrucci, some of my favourite players, actually use the bare minimum and keep gain as low as they possibly can because it emphasize the dynamics and how clean and stellar their playing is. Marty calls it the women repeller: when you turn it up, the chicks go away.
For me, Jon Schaffer has the best rhythm tone out there and it’s not super high gain at all. It’s all about his overall rig setup from his guitar, pickups, Marshall cabs and custom Larry amp head. Amazing high end attack with deep bottom end
I have my gain set exactly at 59,758% on ALL amps ALWAYS, regardless of everything else : guitar pups model and their height, pedals in front and their settings, mix context and genre, number of layers of guitars in the mix, ... (NB : for those who didn't get it, it's a joke aimed at those thinking there is an ideal gain position which would be the same on all amps and in all situations)
Great! Very informative. Would be good if you can make a video about saturation in the mixes and plugins to be used for it. Thanks. Keep up the good work!
I suck and I am trying to emulate a good tone using what I own, which is literally just an acoustic electric. There is no gain setting that will fix that. But I'll revisit this when I am no longer too broke to afford even a entry level electric. Until then, I'll set the gain up as high as I can it without the fret noise and mud killing it, then close my eyes and pretend it doesn't sound like a steaming pile. My motto at the moment is: Embrace the Suck
Extremely helpful for me as a beginner guitarist, thanks for taking the time to make this! Also, is that riff at 4:43 supposed to resemble Down For Life? Have I finally found the only other Testament fan in the world?
@taylor danley : in your video there is only 1 guitar track being heard, where in MOST mixes there are several, and how many guitar tracks there are has a huge impact on how you should set your gain for each track. The gain you will set for a mix with only 1 guitar in the center (because you're demo-ing a guitar amp or something) will likely be too much for a regular mix with quadtracked guitars. EDIT : now... one may ask : how do you know how much gain you need on your ONE currently recorded guitar track ? Just track while having the context of the final mix in terms of how many guitar tracks you will have ; * if you don't prerecorded guitar (scratch or final) tracks : things like stereo rigs, dual tracker... to simulate the other guitar playing the same riff at the same time * if you have prerecorded guitar (scratch or final) : play your guitar alongside the other guitar tracks (except for the equivalent of the one you're already playing) from the mix
Normally on my 5150iii I use the blue channel with a boost for rhythm. I get a grittier drier distortion out of it. One where you can far better make out the individual notes. The red channel is great for leads but the blue channel is where the rhythm is at
It goes to 11 for a reason. J/k but seriously I tend towards lower gain for better clarity on chords, and rely on picking dynamics for more saturation generally.
07:30 the problem here is that it seems you not only toggle on/off the mixbus tape saturation, but also other things on the mixbus (Gulfoss EQ and SSL comp), so what we hear is not the effect of tape saturation alone on the mixbus (which was the point in the first place). If however the other 2 plugins are barely doing anything to that mix, then your tape saturation is pretty extreme for a mixbus and i'm pretty sure almost no pro mixer would use it like that. It's mostly used in a very subtle way on a mixbus.
I think folks confuse "saturation/gain" (i.e. amount of clipping... upper harmonics)... with sustain. Most of us when we first got a master volume amp figured the way to do it was turn down the master and turn up the pre-gain... which does give more sustain at lower final volumes... but when you mic it... tons of "fizz"... that the mic picks up and your ears shut out... So for recording the trick is how to get that sustain... without excess upper harmonics... enter compressors and limiters... At least that's how it seems to me as a guy that's into classic (or classic "metal") rather than the current Djent thing... which seems to be loaded the exact fizz us classic guys don't want, LOL! In the old days that sustain came from non-Master Marshalls that were cranked... I.e. the sustain came from the power amp... but the need for controllable output for smaller gigs made those impacticle. Enter the Master Volume amp... and generations of us dialed in too much pre-gain chasing the sustain... and wondered why it sounded so fizzy. Amp sims suffer this in spades too. Yet the Djent guys actually use that sound.
The amount of gain is indeed subjective, 'cause it REALLY depends much on the pickups and the amp and if there's a booster going on and the heaviness of the player's picking... Yeah, depends A LOT on a bunch of things, it's really a classic "sweet spot" case.
Could always have higher gain & back your guitar’s volume back a bit. Crank it for solos or aggressive beat down style breakdowns, back it off for intricate rhythm parts where you need clarity
@@djabthrash I know, Slayer's tone is mids on mids on mids, JCM800 boosted with a boss EQ pushing more mids going into Marshall cabs with Celestions which are typically midrange heavy. The whole "All the gain, no mids, slayeeeerrr!!!" thing comes from Collin from CSGuitars, it's a guitar based channell that's been around a long time, look up his "how to not dial in a metal tone" video.
" i would not go over 50% amp gain (noon position) " The gain knob effect is way different from one amp to the next, and also depends on what's coming before (guitar pups model and position, pick attack strength, pedals and their settings, etc ... 50% gain on amp A might sound like 20% gain on amp B and like 80% gain on amp C...
Yes you could go more then 50% with your amps gain knob but i am talking about a overdrive pedal before the amp, most of the time 5 or 6 is high enough with a overdrive pedal,you also could turn up the gain a little on the OD pedal and then you would not need to turn up gain too much on your amp!I think you do have to try different settings to hear what sounds best to you but i find around a %50 setting for amp gain and a overdrive pedal in front of a high gain amp sounds good for metal tones for me!
@@jimsimmons2674 What you say is mostly true, but you're missing the point i was making : with the exact same chain, 50% gain on say a 5150III on the red channel will not sound equivalent gain-wise as 50% gain on a JCM800 or a Orange Rockerverb... Fro instance it is likely that you will need gain on 75% on that JCM 800 to get as much gain as your 5150III with gain at 35%, etc
Kinda side topic but relevant to your interesting vid as you did use amp sims to demonstrate- a revelation to me is all amp sim makers benchmark their simulations with an input signal below the “safe” level of 0db on the input meter, neural dsp work at -12db….
Totally. That's why I said it's a topic for another video because you can go pretty deep on this. This includes really ALL digital versions of analog plugins.
I always forget that with amp sims you can always go back and change the gain later so that once you have your mix u can raise or lower it til it sounds right with your mix. Also you can move the mic around on your cab sim till it fits
This is true, although I would say once you have it where you like it to get in the habit of leaving it, or printing it. I find you can second guess your mixes too much if you leave too many options open, and it can convolute your process.
Been playing for 5 years and also been struggling with that for 5 years, every time I think i figured it out, I end up changing my settings after a week. This time I think i got it tho, I dial the gain until where it's kinda high gain and crunchy but it's still a little bit hard to play leads, when i'm at that point, I just add .5 to the gain(so on my amp, I go from 3 to 3.5 on the gain knob).
That's all of us, hate to break it to you but I don't think that ever changes 😂 The only advice I can give is try not to dial at too loud of a volume, or you will certainly get ear fatigue and not be able to hear clearly the longer your session is.
With the right OD you can drastically scale back the gain without having to dial in more drive via pedal. I’ve found in terms of recording it’s gonna sound drastically different than if you were practicing in say a home studio. And yes I’m that dude that turned his closet into w recording studio bc like who needs clothes? In the process of redoing the room for better acoustics and to also not get killed one night in my sleep bc I live in a high rise apartment building 😂
For sure idk why people knock on boosting an already driven high gain they just don’t understand the benefits it to it, 90% of us use them more for tone shaping, tightening things up and also allows us to push the saturation output by hitting the front.
I think you need to find the bare minimum you need to get you comfortable playing. I pretty much use a boost on every thing so that is one of my preferences but I have slowly learned through the years that less is more. Most high gain amps are usually way too gained out. You can’t deny how great modded plexi’s and stock 800’s sound in a mix with a boost in front. That would be one of the best examples of high gain tones using less gain that I can think of. Clear, Articulate and Punchy with just the right amount of saturation. I still love higher gain amps but you tend to have to roll that gain back otherwise it can lose that punch
8:00 - Interesting that you find it to be a bit dry. I think it was perfect for the mix and even in its own. Still has enough saturation and adequate definition.
Yeah, more based off the feel of playing it rather than the actual tone itself. Hard to demonstrate that over YT, you just have to kind of take my word for it that I was digging in quite a bit more 😂
@@TaylorDanley definitely. The feel factor is nigh impossible to relay over a video. Sometimes, something can sound great in the context of cut/mix or to the audience, but doesn’t necessarily provide the sort of feel for the person is playing the instrument, which can then potentially impact playing and focus in a negative way.
how when you turned your gain to full, there was no mudding. my 7 string goes AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH if i turn it up fully I'm thinking about lowering my pickups
@@rossbalchSure, but you need some to get that Recto tone, whereas for some other amps/tones it's mostly about the preamp gain and master volume is just for volume, not character. NB : a Recto is kind of a Soldano SLO preamp into a different poweramp, and that makes that unique Recto tone
@@TaylorDanley here's an Idea of the bands I listened to during the 70s and 80s. Starting with the God fathers of it all: Black Sabbath * Coven Venom Napalm Death Morbid Angel Celtic Frost Cannibal Corpse Death Angel (this is just honorable mention). I figured I would keep the list short. The 90s were a mixed bag and garbage I mean grunge became a big thing. I hated grunge then & I hate it now. I will always prefer the feeling and the sound of real amps and real pedals. Anything else would just be a phony imitation.
This vid comes at a funny time as I’ve been so unhappy with my 8 string tone. Too much gain sounds very hissy and not enough gain is dull and flubby. Using a Headrush mx5 engl amp sim.
I can't get along with the Engl amp sims on my head rush. They lack the ability to dial in any girth and sustain without getting woofy. I'm using 7 strings of various tunings and I enjoy the Mark 2 c+ model on the headrush the most.
If you're a bedroom warrior - more gain. If you play in a band, adjust the gain to suit. If you want tight and technical, dial the gain back bit by bit and replace the lack of gain by hitting the strings like a man. Think of the signal chain, the very first thing that happens is your pick hits the string. It makes the string vibrate over the pickup. Play like a wuss, sound like a wuss.
Not that simple or even the oppositde for some things : if you don't mute correctly, then more gain will emphasize the mess in your guitar playing. More gain means richer and more compressed sound, so it emphasizes details (and mistakes).
