High Gain guitar reamping

[clancychrisParticipant]

This has aaaalways been an issue for me. I use a Kemper and have a lot of top quality, paid for profiles. Working mainly in metal I get sent a lot of DI's as theres a lot of bands who record at home (which is my main market).

I'm mixing a band at the moment, and have come across the same issue...

A) Getting the gain setting right. It's either under-driven, or it's absolute chaos.

B) There's always so much high end to deal with. Far too much notching, and cutting around 2.5-5k. It just gets so fatiguing, even to mix.

I'm starting to think that a lot of guitarists are tracking with too much gain, using plugins etc and when I re-amp the through something that's more "real" with a tone that is clear enough for mixing, it just doesn't come together nicely. I can plug in my guitar here, dial in the same tone and get a crystal clear sound with a nice amount of low end and clear highs.

Does anybody else struggle with this and/or have any solutions?

Things I've tried recently - clipping DI's before reamping. This means they're in the same sort of zone all the time so they drive the amp. This can add to the fatigue issue however...

EQ the DI before reamping... this just doesn't really make much of a difference and really shouldn't be necessary.

[Cris Sabater SabaterParticipant]

Hi clancychris, When I am mixing for a Rock Or Metal band I first of all upon them approaching me tell them how I want the tracks delivered. In my case I like tracks to peak at -12db. I also ask them to send a wet and dry version of the guitars. So either amped ( real amp) and DI or virtual amp printed along with a DI. This way if the wet files sent are not to my liking then I will use the DI and I have some very nice amp sims here that I can use to suit the needs of the song. Also if they are sending printed amp sim tracks they usually have all sorts of fizz going on between 2-7 khz. I find the offending frequencies and then notch filter them bearing in mind that too many cuts will take the credibility of the sound and performance away. I find tape sims do a very good job of helping with these sorts of problems too.

Cheers mate,

Cris

[clancychrisParticipant]

Tape sims! Great idea! I'll give that a shot.

The band recorded DI's at my request. I think the issue stems from the the amp they used while tracking in this case. They used an Eleven Rack and upon listening to that, there's far too much gain. I think it's encouraged lazy playing. Playing with an amp, you have to dig in a little to get that "feel" into it. I think that's been missed. In future I'm going to suggest they record with far less gain or with a real amp

[Cris Sabater SabaterParticipant]

Hi clancychris, you are spot on there, amp sims do make you lazy and inexperienced players think that whacking up the gain is how it is done! In fact even with real amps I always back off the gain probably to about 7 on the dial but it changes between amps and the same with amp sims. I also find a lot of people use the same sound when double tracking hard L & R. This also can cause problems and I would always track with different sounds and a really neat trick that works well is to play slightly different parts too.

Cheers mate and good luck,

Cris

[Warren HuartKeymaster]

Hi @clancychris, that's an extremely common problem. I think what happens a lot is when you're jamming at home guitarists love a huge amount of gain, especially at low volumes. Most of them haven't ever played out live or have only done a few shows. Playing live you learn that volume gives you the sustain you need without the massive amount of distortion. Session guys like Tim Pierce use a crunchy tone then dig in for more distortion, but then John 5 uses a slightly overdriven amp with a Boss OD 1. I've worked with Joe Perry, Slash and Lita Ford and they all normally just amp tones, not too heavily driven because they are using Marshall Amps, usually JMP heads. The secret is definitely less is more, if you get there DI's you might want to put something on them to fatten them up before the amp simulator, Bryan Carlstrom always used a Summit Tube DI for guitars then we reamped the guitars and they sounded fatter! Transformers soak up those aggressive transients, so I would try a a Tape simulator, I've always loved the Analog Channel by McDSP. Have a marvellous time recording and mixing, many thanks Warren

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Warren Huart.

[pilleParticipant]

Hi Warren, that was fun!
Great thing to do to the DI. I tried it a step further and tested the Fabfilter Saturn before the amp sim. You can really change the tone going in to the amp sim, and have it to work for you instead of the other way. Tape or warm tube works great with small amounts of eq. Definitely a wonderful way to start sculpting a guitar sound. Thanks!

Per

[Cris Sabater SabaterParticipant]

Hi guys, I took Warren's idea of putting something in front of an amp sim. I have loads of plugins like saturn but I though what about a pedal in front so I used my Blackstar HT DIST pedal with low gain about a 1/4 turned and the sound is great. This is for crunchy tones in conjunction with an amp sim. If going for clean sounds then dialing back on the gain should suffice. You are going through a tube pre-amp in this pedal and it seems to makes a difference!

Cheers,

Cris

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