Lessons

Lesson Info

Real Amps and Mics

So I'm very excited for today this is one of my favorite things besides editing probably uh actually I think I like this better than I know about uh but I can't do this at all without editing without going through all the stuff that we went through yesterday you can't get to this stage today unless you go through what we talked about yesterday so if you haven't watched that um I think yet to purchase two to watch yesterday's but it's cheap today so get it um anyway well, I know we get I got a lot of questions about the ghost insides guitar tone um I'm gonna be going through that's gonna be awesome, okay? But we got a real amps. Um this is what I personally believe like I said before there's no substitute for mike in real am going to really cab I've it's not just me have talked to a lot of people that, um you know, they own all the same equipment or even even more than I have for forgetting guitar tones. What I've heard mostly about the difference between riel and am sims is that nasty ...

low end that you get that really grungy um this ball z sound out of a real amp I don't know why but that's just how it is and I love it so let's talk about how to get that today a bunch of other techniques I wish sins was good today, but what? They are in most cases yet I have faith and that's why I said yesterday one of the most important things I think that you can have it if you're doing things on your own or if you have a huge studio is a very fast computer because I believe in this software and I think it's she's going to keep getting better and better and more and more affordable, but, um, for now, my favorite is probably gonna be a really the ghost inside this is a very, very distinct guitar tone, and you will understand why when we get into this today, um, I don't know if you guys will be able to, uh, to actually get the same tone because of the strange equipment custom equipment we used, but you could probably apply it to, uh, your own equipment or, you know, it's all theories and stuff that we're working with, so it should be able to apply that yeah, that's kind of like what I said, this is only one that you can get with rhea lamps I tried dialing this in closely, but I could not wait, wait, wait all right, whatever there we go that's the that's, the tone we're gonna be going over, I love that tone it's so aggressive and raw and there are a lot of reasons for that. Actually, um, this is how this is basic rundown of this tone. What you're hearing is just two guitar tracks. Um, the guitars with the lt de deluxe e c one thousand with the engine we got one track of base. We're going to go into detail today about base because, as you guys know, one piece of that sweet tone pie we talked about which way? Have a slide of that today, right? Good guys, get toe look at that, you can taste it, but you can hear it. Um, the base was a music man. Uh, one of my favorite basis. Uh, made by ernie ball has a very kind of naturally mid scoop sound with a lot of like clicky nous on the high end and just really disgusting low and and very aggressive. That was just one track of base also, but there are ways to layer base in a certain way and we're going to go over that for guitar toe. Um oh, and aaron, uh, sorry about the profanity here. What erin's playing he plays hard as shit. It was ridiculous seeing him play like I thought the strings were gonna pop the whole time, but that's if if I ran through that and I tried to play play it myself it would not sound as crazy as it sounded but for this band in this style this tuning this guitar tone what worked the best was him just hammering the guitar uh yeah, the tunings the tuning had a lot to do with it I don't remember I'm sure you can look up what tuning that is exactly but it's slow that actually has a lot to do with your tone also if you're going to try to say play the same riffs and say d or e standard it's it's gonna have a different vibe yeah the uh the tuning was a sharp sounds like um yeah if you try to do that in d or e standard it's going it's not gonna have that same vibe and, uh, tone and vibe really go together uh a lot and the vibe has to do with the ring it's too. So you can't just be playing like, uh I don't know johnny be good with that tone and think that it's going to sound that heavy it has to do with your riffs this is the actual so now we're going to get into the actual settings uh that we used this these are the exact settings that we use we have generally mckinnon photo bombing this um as you can see in the background the little strip of tape that's down there that kind of scratch off is not the settings the settings are up top so that tone knob in the middle is awesome we're going to be going over basically that same pedal today and how to use it but this is the this is the tone that that we used on that pedal we had um tour jams but we didn't mean to these are both identical I think I know they're not one's an m k too well whatever one of them I'm pretty sure the orange one funny story whenever we were practicing writing these songs for the album the orange head just smoke just started coming out of it and I've actually never seen that happen before but I guess aaron is so aggressive that the amp decided teo and it's life I guess I don't know if that's too pg thirteen but um it's just an amp so chill out ah wei uh so we use the black one the rocket from I think it's just one hundred it says she's not the em que tu I unfortunately don't know the difference it's anyone? They both sounded awesome here's our settings we went through and just put the little triangles because it's hard for you to actually see what the tone settings were no reverb on this if I'm ever going to use reverb on a guitar tone it's going to be a natural sounding room river, especially if you're doing aggressive music, if you're gonna try to put a coil sound a coil spring reverb sounds like playing surf rock from the fifties or something. Uh, I wouldn't recommend that for this style, um, volume, whatever, halfway, this doesn't really have a presence knob on it. I don't think so. This is it really simple amp really simple settings have that mid range craig cranked for clarity. Um, and the game is all the way up this the orange and if you ever used one, you'll notice that they're very low gain amps and you might wonder how it would ever work for this style, but it has a lot to do with the tube screamer. If you listen to this tone with the two screamer off, it sounds very strange. Um, so everything I talk about is absolutely important, you can't really leave something out like I'm someone that don't I don't really like to overcomplicate things, I think if there's less things to mess with, the better, so I I add as little as I can to these tones, I mean, ah lot of the stuff that you hear these tones or not even cute or anything like that it's just straight out the amp and I think that's the best way to go, so everything I do is important it's not because I love using petals because I'm some kind of weirdo I use it because I use it and I noticed a huge difference and that's that's all what that what this class is about um we put on equalizer peddle this is just made by boss you khun you could probably use a number of brands but notice the uh we ran this through the effects loop on the orange some amps actually the effects loop if you run anything through it will kill the tone which is weird but the orange was pretty good about that, um keeping the integrity of the tone, we have a little little bump at uh one point six k again for clarity I'm all about that whenever it comes to guitars question for young, less thes air all boosts do you rather than like, you know, typically with software you accuse, you know most would be subtracted yet these were all boast is that typical was for you to do with the hardware q r well, this was a trick that aaron had so I I went with him on this I might take that approach right away it's like, okay, well, I'm hearing something I need to id rather takeaway boxy nous or something like that, but he this was his method and he chose to use it and I said, you know, ok, let's, try it out because I I love trying new things, and it made an enormous difference. I think maybe if you did choose to take away instead of ad, it could help with clarity. Actually, so you never know. I mean, you know, with something like, you know, a pedal like this every cues gonna work differently, right? I mean, so, you know, you never know. Just because you boosted with this pedal doesn't mean you should boost with another one, and it'll work the same exactly right. But looking at the settings that he has on the pedal, you know, there's only certain frequencies that are really boosted and it's only by one or two decibels and like that one point six k, I mean, a lot of times that's, right where your pick attacks going to be, you know, kind of get that mid range chirp in there right around that range? Yeah. And then, you know, filling out the bottom and a little bit, you know, between one and two hundred that's. That's pretty common. I think I'm usually have settings that are similar similar to that, but with software you q yeah, hey. So you know, that's not that doesn't even look like extreme e q that's just like a sheep and that's something that's actually something that errant whenever he did this because I had never done it like this before, um when he was talking about this he's like, don't overdo this because you will ruin it immediately. And so if you are queuing especially if you're in queuing like this where you're going, where your adding to it it's so easy to overdo it if we were taking a what taking away it might be a little less, uh risky, but this worked and I thought it sounded awesome right away. Andi, I've heard a lot of tones and things, so I I'm I'm able to point those things out, but maybe at home you're not so quick to recognize when something is great so experiments a little bit maybe you should cut if you own years, whatever, so but when we say cut, we mean going down in decibels versus going up, which is adding if anyone was unclear about that, okay, this it's kind of my secret weapon for this tone um, I love this company omega enclosures um uh this was what this this isn't the exact cab we went through, but it is the same speakers that we went through I actually aaron had an enormous cabinet with way more speakers and I need I think it had four twelves and um one fifteen may have had I think that's all wass for twelve one fifteen which is overkill for this studio I don't need to have that so loud all the time. Um but these were the speakers that that that we used was the twelve inch eminence legend v twelve and that's a very high wattage speaker it's like nothing around three hundred watts or something. Um and then the fifteen inch that's the monster that's where all that rumbly low incomes from the fifteen inch delta pro fifteen eight with a custom crossover I think we're cutting the frequency it around to one or two hundred hertz so on ly that low and rumble is coming through and this is a small cabinet but if you if you heard this thing in real life it sounds you would never know it it's a very loud, very powerful um, cabinet so after a record with the ghost inside I contacted this company immediately. I heard you guys to check it out. I think they did stuff for mirror they've done stuff for a day to remember um a ton of other bands it was making custom cabs. These guys a great super knowledgeable, another really awesome thing about this company and whatever they designed a cabinet they ask you what tuning you're going to be playing in because they tuned the cab to your tuning so for instance this we're going to be demo ing this later this mesa slanted four by twelve that we're using is probably tuned for c c to d drop drop t um which a lot of bands are playing a lot lower than that now they're playing in g and all kinds of crazy stuff which is cool but if you really want to get that bottom end you need a cabinet that's tuned um for your tuning because the cab resonates and that's part of the tone um so check it out omega enclosure stop calm very cool stuff I had to come I had to have this custom made for me after I did this it was so cool all right so this is the miking set up on we have these mikes here today for you and we're going to go over the different characteristics of these microphones and when to use them and why um we got the fifty seven that's that's all this is uh yeah this is just showing the fifty seven mainly from the side and if you can see it's uh it's about an inch away from the from the edge of the of the speaker um we have the cover off so you can see it really well but it's just it's it's kind of right in the middle you could see it you can look on the screen and see the picture on the right is it's off access of the of the cone, which when you do that and I'm going to be demonstrating that today but when you have it right on the cone, eat a lot of harsh dizziness which is almost impossible to get rid of, but I actually have a tip to get rid of it with a dual miking technique we're going to get into that a little bit later um actually we're getting into that next uh and then on the fifteen we used the d six, which is a kick drum mike um and it has a natural mid scoop to it. It has a really loud boost on low end and it has has pretty high high end, but the speaker's not pumping out any high end, so we're just capturing the low frequencies like a like a bass cabinet or something. Couple questions from the chat rooms here crow's nest audio uh asks I've heard multiple times with ghost inside are big advocates of the bb sonic maximize er did use one on this album? Um I didn't know they were advocates of that, I don't think that even came up in the studio at all um and no, we definitely didn't use no our funny ale on audio hammer absolutely hates that thing and always telling me like I've used personally if we're going to talk about that I've used the pedal version and the rack mount version the pedal version at first when you start messing around you like this is kind of cool but then you realize that it's super noisy on dit does message your tone up in a weird way I think what happens when people put that on it's kind of a mid scoop really um which you kind of immediately here a difference but if you sit with it for any amount of time you'll notice your clarity is missing um your mid range is gone but it's not in a good way not at all so uh whether it's the rack mounted version that you're putting after the distortion or the or on the signal chain right after your guitar I wouldn't recommend using that's like it's like talk about like feels great at first taste you know you love it at first but then half an hour later you like maybe that wasn't such a good idea we're not going to get into detail about that but I disagree I love taco bell actually so all right I have another question from snickers bar fifty who was with us yes was with us yesterday asking amazing questions and snickers bar is back so the question is when you eat who equal your guitar before the pre empt can you? You can determine the saturation amount of each frequency rather than drastically altering the sound happy has andrew a style or tricks for e killing guitar tone before the distortion stage get kind of the the two screamer does that um and it's very cool. I have experimented in many different ways about a cuing before you get to the amp, you know, without having a pedal or anything like that. Um but it's it's it's been pretty strange sounding so I found that the two screamer which we're going to be going over today is pretty inexpensive for thee. Enormous difference it makes um so it kind of is a trick. I can't I wouldn't do a tone without it unless it was ah, different genre than heavy, heavy music. So all right. Overview of microphones at some fifty seven I love as some fifty seven's they're my go to mike I feel like I just always end up using a fifty seven no matter how much crazy experimentation I do, no matter how many mikes I put on the cabinet, I always end up I like taking away and seeing what part of this tone do I really like? What is it coming from? Do I like this, mike? Do I like this might better and if I like the original mike I don't know why I'm adding anything to it because it's just sometimes it's just making it louder or sound a little bit different but not any better um so we're going to talk about when to use multiple miking and when getting away with one microphone is awesome the addicts I five is similar to the fifty seven it doesn't have the exact same presence boost but if you have one I just I just want to mention this mike because I absolutely love the I five um and uh I'm a huge onyx fan so the arctic cy five if you have one laying around maybe you can throw it on the cabinet to I know it's a popular mike and some people might have that if you can't get a fifty seven sennheiser four twenty one little more expensive I wish I could demo that for you guys today but we weren't able to get one in the studio um but the sennheiser has a really awesome base rohloff filter and and you can use it in combination with other mikes to get pretty cool sounds but I think I think I would always use a sennheiser with another mike not just by itself royer are one twenty one that's another very popular guitar microphone this one is a really doesn't have a presence at all to it it has its ah very warm I would never use this by itself personally for a guitar tone but it has a lot of low end a lot of roundness to it I just know it's a it's a it's a microphone that I heard a lot about and I finally got one and to be honest I was a little bit let down because it I would choose a fifty seven which is ten times cheaper yeah clean tones would be awesome for it actually if you if you are if you have a tone that super harsh or something are you a tiny probably a tiny amp or someone like that would probably make it sound pretty full um the e k g c three thousand is another mike that I've heard a lot of people use and uh I've I've used different condensers a bunch of different condensers and this one is a cool one to use with the s m fifty seven to help get rid of fizz I know it seems like the opposite because a condenser has a higher frequency range than a dynamic mike which the fifty seven is a dynamic mike well, the onyx is a dynamic unlike sennheiser is a dynamic mike the roya is a ribbon mic the e k g is a condenser mike um and when you use it in the method that I'm going to show you soon um you can get rid of high and fizzy nous uh norman you eighty seven how many people have this it's a very expensive microphone but I used one of these on an orange cabinet before uh absolutely sounded incredible I actually couldn't get the orange cabinet to sound like I wanted to but I threw you eighty seven on it and suddenly it sounded incredible so um yeah this is these are pictures of the microphones number one go to love it forever and you know whenever I talk that's the that's that's the kind of text that's going through my head when I say that we're love it's a little thing like that with the three uh great presence how's things come through don't mix including snares uh I've used this on snare drums um but I don't really anymore because everybody's hits the tip off in one second and then hits the diaphragm microphone microphone is destroyed uh or they try to put the capsule back on and they smashed the diaphragm by helping trying to help. So thanks um this is the arctic cy five as you can see it's a very rugged build so you can hit the end of that with your sticks all you want and you're not going to break through that. Um yeah, I've experimented with it for guitars, but I've never officially use it for guitars sounds unfortunate this is a lot of stuff that I said um okay said that yes oh yeah I didn't mention this this doesn't have as much presence as a fifty seven it's a little warmer um has a it's like I have this memorized ah yeah I I really wish I had one of those two that's with um yeah, this is one that we're going to be demo ing with the fifty seven we have two fifty seven's at a d six uh to mess with this is gonna be cool when we're getting a guitar tone um and it's the bass response from this microphone that I absolutely love and it's that lohan that comes from real cabinets in amps that captures very well this is the one we used on the fifteen inch speaker for the ghost inside very very warm warmest of all these mikes uh deep low end oh, yet it can handle very loud stuff um oh yeah if I was going to use it in combination this reuters is kind of how it will use the d six um but I'm I like that I like the six here's how I think uh I was going to the demo in a second um yeah, lots of presidents like the fifty seven on this but this is a, uh it's a better mike than a fifty seven for vocals and stuff oh yeah I want to talk for a second there's a company called pollux so they make circuit for circuit clones of these microphones and I own one, and it is absolutely incredible. They're way, way cheaper. You save thousands of dollars by going to police. So dot com, I'm pretty sure that's the website, but the company is pollux, so please write that down. Memorize that. Whatever we used, uh, a clone of the u forty seven, which is it made by norman for all the vocals on common courtesy, and I fell in love with the mike. I've never had such a a clear, a warm micro microphone is a sounds exactly like a u forty seven by norman that's. Very cool.