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
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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! 🙌
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.
7 місяців тому+1
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.
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..
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 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.
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
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)
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!
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
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)
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.
@@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.
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.
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!
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.
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
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... 😏
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
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.
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?
" 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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).
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.
@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
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.
@@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
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.
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Can you show us how to us EQ and Comp pedals?
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.
SUPER important point. Yeah if your band/tracks are sloppy, they will never sound that heavy.
All the gain duh.
dont forget zero mids
@@Sam_336 what’s a mids?
@@dieseleddie3324 A myth
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
@@Sam_336 lmao
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.
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.
It's not just tone.
It's Dynamics.
Most guitar players want a guitar sound that is actually the sound of bass and guitar combined.
However, don't make that mistake (been guilty for a long time) of cuttting too much lows from your guitar tone.
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.
Too much gain can definitely give you mush, but too little can also kill your sustain, really depends on the amp!
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.
@@Soldano999 I’ve heard Marty say that. Higher volume helps in lowering the gain imo.
"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! 🙌
😅 great rule! Of course, thank YOU for making such bad ass plugins!
Great points Taylor, I agree with everything you said ! I often automate the gain depending on the riff. That MLC plug sounds hectic. Super cool
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.
rolling the gain back to 3 was great. go to four and dont be lazy with those pinches
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.
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.
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..
@TaylorDanley agreed. I don't always agree with Glenn flicker on things but I do when he says people listen with their eyes rather than ears.
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 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.
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
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)
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!
Yep, that will definitely give you more clarity. It's all about finding that sweet spot for your application!
Where are my Beato Bees at? 🐝
settings at Midnight always surprisingly sound great.
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
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)
Killer content man!! Gain can really make or kill a tone. Never thought about it really
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.
Thank you! Yeah that's low key one of my favorite modelers of all time.
You need Dimebag amount of gain.. and then a little more.. then you should almost be there.
Let's be honest, many pro's are recording the squeals separately
Doesn't work if squeals are in every single riff, Zakk Wylde style :)
All the gain. No mids. SLAYER!!!
Slayer is plenty of mids actually LMAO
@@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.
@@ilikepotatoes1345 I will check out this video haha (i've seen some of his videos in the past i think). Thanks in advance for the enlightenment :)
i was dialing my tone in and my drummer was like yo whatever you just did made it sound way fatter! ALL I DID WAS LOWER MY GAIN
Just a thought, dial in a badass bedroom tone on a seperate track. Monitor that for playing. Later dial in a more mix ready tone.
The beauty of recording a DI! That's why I always suggest doing it that way.
Alternate solution : dial in a tone that fits great in the mix, and get used to recording with it :)
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.
Yep, exactly.
I do with the lowest amount of gain I can get away with. When playing with others I also drop the bass and up the mid and high end
No pain, no gain
Thank you for this video! Learned a lot from it. Really does make sense!!! Thanks dude!!
I keep mine low for southern rock/country
it needs all of it, simple!
i see that Ancient Matriarch DEATHCLAW in your T-shirt
I paid for all the gain, I'll use all of the gain😎
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!
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 😂
Yeah a good boost is necessary for any high gain enthusiast IMO
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.
Hearing the guitars in isolation, I'm still impressed by how the gain on Metallica albums is actually way lower than what you would think.
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
I also really like the blue channel with a boost!
@TaylorDanley dude it's so good!
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... 😏
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
I have my gain at around 9 o'clock and that's more than enough. Any more than that and the unwanted string noise is unbearable
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.
All the gain, plus some more
The solution, a gain boost for leads!
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?
answer: ALL OF IT, AND AN EQ WITH A GAIN BOOST IN FRONT OF IT, and a few noise gates in various spots along your signal chain LOL LOL LOL, LOL
I stay around 2. pushed with a drive, boost, preamp, eq, cab ir to the mixer and speakers
Is it weird that I feel smarter when I hear words like “caveat” used by my favorite UA-camrs?
😂 No, totally normal. I'll start throwing them in here and there for you.
According to youtube comments, always more or less than you currently have
Only always.
LMFAO :)
If your using a overdrive in front of a high gain amp or amp sim i would not go over 50% amp gain (noon position)!
" 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
You can NEVER have too 'much' gain! LOL!
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.
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
Metal Zone, all gain, no mids, most heavy lol. Completely unrelated, but how do you like the Osmo Pocket 3?
I LOVE IT, thanks for asking! It makes my life a lot easier when making content for you guys!
Keep it all at 6 everything even strings
Gain always at 1 o clock for me
Personally I have my gain set to 6-7.5 depending on the amp
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
That's not a bad guideline!
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.
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.
It depends on the amplifier and pickup selection.
The whole chain really!
What does corpsegrinder think?
How much ? Never enough ! ^^
I hated the subzero it had no ass when I tried it
It's more of a modded marshall tone, which yes.. marshalls have flat booty 😂
01:07 Way off imo : saturation added in the mixing process has very little or even nothing to do with how much gain your guitar needs...
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.
Definitely siding with Nicke Andersson on this subject.
Wish I could gain down after tracking with my KSR amp through my Torpedo, is there a way to do this without hurting my brain?
That's why it's a good idea to record a DI straight out of the guitar when you track!
Have some kind of dual chain that sounds like 2 guitars on each side when tracking, but only record one.
You can also just saturate your instruments individually as well.
You sure can! But also, unless you are doing it all DIY, you don't have much control over this..
@@TaylorDanley True
I use real pedals and real amps. How does computer digital simulations help me?
you obviously never listened to early 90's death metal 😂
@@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.
Hi, looking for the best or the most recommended cab for metal, using a multi effect processor, thanks in advance.
Mesa Boogie Standard 4x12, only always.
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.
@@shredenvain7 oh cool. I haven’t tried that amp yet. What cab or Ir are you using?
@@dustinhopkins6470 I like using Kristian Kohler dv77 eminence pack and his Chainsaws and Rainbows pack.
5150 II crunch channel boosted on the head rush is incredible
But yeah, the engl is weird. Tried to like it but it goes from too dry to buzzy, woofy and bloated
As long as it goes up to 11… 😂
All this new metal ( everything after 1990 ) is way way way too much distortion and gain. It all sounds like you're trying to play drums on guitar.
some guy was playing an 8 string at guitar center earlier and it sounded like a bass
I mean, it BASSically is a bass lol.
*the older you get, the less gain you need*
my older brother said people use gain to hide poor playing-- is that true?
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).
Never enough gain lol.
ALWAYS MOAR GAIN
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.
WHEN YOUR ACTUAL GUITAR TONE STARTS TO SOUND LIKE THE JACOBS LADDER IN A FRANKENSTIEN MOVE, that's too much, kick it down a little
Around 7 to 8, then I use my volume knob to control it too
A man of culture
@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
Well how much gain do you have into the Audio interface and on the guitar then? That also makes a difference
Enough is all you need
BUT WHAT IS ENOUGH?
@@TaylorDanley Enough is when it doesn't sound too dry for the mix :)
Crank it until it sounds like crap and the back it off a little bit. Glad I could help.
pull the middle tone down a tad. and the gain wont be so screechy
for me, 10 is the only way.
Damn, enough with the cuts!
I need all the gain I can find, stay brutal 🤘🤘🤘🍕🍕
Hell ya pizza
the answer is not enough.
This is the kind of educational info that I really appreciate.
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.
I came for guitar gain tip but stayed for the Skillshare commercial and acrylic painting!
Depends on the genre! Wouldn’t use the same amount of gain for classic heavy metal as for brutal death metal or goregrind stuff hahah
Another one is setting the master volume too high and getting unwanted power amp distortion. It actually tends not to help in high gain situations.
That's true as well, but also amp specific! Not all amps do that.
Poweramp distortion is essential for the Recto tone.
@@djabthrashI dunno if it's poweramp distortion and more the way the master volume interacts with the mids. Turn it too high and it still gets mushy.
@@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
Please what gauge of strings and what tuning, 440hz?
EB heavy slinky, c standard 440hz
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.
@TaylorDanley rule#2 make a decision and stick with it.
Also convoluted is a great word.