Every time I see people go off about which wood creates the best tone, whether tube amps or solid state amps are better for your sound and I always come back to the same thing: the audience doesn't care about that. They care about good songs and performances. They don't care if you're playing a guitar made of plywood, they just came to rock and you better rock that audience.
Excellent insight Bobby, I guess this could apply to other tracks in a sense also vox etc. it’s what the dish tastes like on the plate rather than an ingredient of the recipe.
Instantly when the 2nd mix kicked in i thought how the bass sounded so thick with that nice clanky sound n made the guitar tone sound so much clearer than the 1st
So true!!! Good tone is: 1) Being in tune!!! 2) Playing in time!!! 3) In your fingers 4) Beyond your control, once a mix engineer gets ahold of it. Beyond that, you're just looking for excuses to fail. 😅
Agree on all these, but you are missing one VERY important factor: Playing with ATTITUDE. When I was producing my band's latest EP, the guitarist was complaining about not finding a good tone, they all sounded weak to his ears. So I asked him to send me the DI tracks to test something. I recorded the same riff that he was playing and the difference was abysmal. When I showed it to him he agreed mine sounded way better but he was blaming his pickups! Which is funny because his pickups are hotter than mine, in theory he should get a heavier sound easier. The truth is I learned from years of recording my own playing that if you want to sound heavy, you have to play really f*cking heavy. Not saying you should play super hard and tense, but improving your technique and your pick attack so you get the strings really moving. Palm mutes are especially affected by this. You don't want a weak sounding tone? Don't play like a b*tch :b
Yes, a guitar planted in the mix sounds "thin" in solo mode. I think this realization happens quickly to everyone who starts learning how to mix rock/metal music.
I’m still a novice and hardly anything more than a hobbyist/hack. I too am a guitarist and I record and mix and all simply to try to give a gift to my 18 year old self who grew up in the 80’s when home recording was, well, not a thing. But here’s something that blew my mind when I was hacking away. I’d obsessed over tome and riffs and all that and played everything over a simple drum beat, just a glorified metronome. Nothing ever sounded good. So I decided I’d record a riff then a) add a bass line (ezbass) and b) a decent drum beat behind it, something that’s actually a groove. Sometimes I’d even record a keys/ambient layer too. Then I played the “mix” and holy shit it was like another world. Then I’d loop it and mute the bass and the keys. Suddenly it was wtf happened?? It was then I realized that the whole is way more than the sum. I’d also cut way off the bottom of the guitars, like up to 100-120. And maybe off the top down to 8k. I’d also cut that hiss around 35-4k. The alone tone sounded weak. But it made room for the other stuff and it’s the other instruments that make it come to life. The secret to a great riff and tone is the other parts and how they fit and support. It is a hit to our guitarist egos. But hey, there’s no I in team 😂😂😂
Im guilty of tweaking guitar tone but I'm slowly improving. However, thanks to you, Bobby, I've learned that keeping right balance between tracks and aligning them in phase gives massive difference. I think the key word of this video is "context".
It's also amazing what some simple high-pass/low-pass filters and a multi-band compressor on the mid-bass (and some low-mid) frequencies can do for guitars in a mix.
You've proven that the production as a whole is more important than just the guitar tone for the final result, not that the guitar tone isn't important.
I wonder where my mixing journey would have been if I haven’t encountered your videos. Always grateful for each content you create here. Thank you very much Mr. Bobby
I thought it was the same guitar tone but just a different bass tone. Wasn't even paying attention to the drums while focusing on differences between the guitar tones. Awesome content as always!
Bobby, not everyone is recording Cookie Monster-vocal THRASH metal. When the guitars are saturated and compressed to hell and back and the notes and chords are all staccato, your precious TONE goes out the window and all that really remains are the transients of the guitar. You have some decent videos but all of them relate to thrash metal.
really go vid! I've never blamed my guitar tone, just why the overall mix sounds like ass but after a long plateau, my mixes have gotten better recently!
Really interesting the way you made it shown that an isolated guitar part isn't the end all be all. It's about the mix as a whole. It is ironic that the best mix had a worse sounding isolated guitar, but that was your point, great takeaway! I love the Maniac shirt! That shotgun scene/head explosion is so awesome!
Thanks for the video Bobby. So true! After playing guitar for 20 years, it's taken me about 17 years to realise that the guitar tone/sound is based on 1) the performance 2) the attack from your picking hand 3) the IR/speaker. The rest isn't so important :-)
Way back, most guitarists got their first real amp aged between 16 and 18, and that's the amp they used throughout their 20s and 30s playing and recording. Two of my three closest guitarist friends use 100w amps from Fender and Peavy, the other downgraded his 70s Marshall to a 50w Marshall when it started misbehaving. Things are definitely different now. There's a whole lot of analysis paralysis, chasing tone is almost so accessible anyone can get hooked on it. It's become important only because it's possible, like all of 21st century life. Old man yells at cloud. I'm a bass player, but I've started playing guitar (badly) over the last decade and a half. I've tried amp sims, but I prefer my 70s 50w Marshall combo with a Two Notes power soak. (It's still too loud!) And that's because the amp sims I've tried are designed to be useful in a mix. They sound pants by themselves, but great tucked in amongst the bass and drums.
i figured out "mix context" and "freq carving" and hard panning a handful of years ago. went from producing sonic waffles, to mixes i prefer over half of what i listen to. all this checks out
Amazing video as always Bobby! I was wondering which type of microphones are better for clean vocals and screaming as well (like Deftones) because I'm starting on this. I was going to buy a cheap one like the Behringer xm8500 but now I don't know anymore. Thanks in advance!
rolled off the Bass/low-mids for tone #2 in the mix, it doesn't collide with the kick and the bass. The tone #1, had too much low end and it made more mud.. Hard panning.. LCR (or is it RCL hehe).. middle far left or far right.. works great
With palm mutes how to tame that booming sound? And how much of it you can get rid of and how much of it you think is acceptable? I use the basics aka high pass at 100Hz, Multiband comp from 100 to 200Hz, I wonder is there anything else you can do to tame that "boom"?
I`m struggling with balancing volume of different instruments, before messing with Eq/compression, would be awesome if you did something with this topic!
@@onoesmurlocs true that. I find references useful mostly for EQ decisions but not overall volume balance. Hope Bobby will notice us. Another trick I`ve learned from Let`s talk about Reaper channel is mixing with pink noise, but that doesn`t give decent results usually
I personally always try to find good tones, but I don't obsess with it. If it sound good, well, it's good! Hard to understand how a lot of people don't get that everything is related, you should work the production as a whole thing, not solo instruments...it's called "mixing" for a reason.. And yes you're right, all parts of the production should be given attention.🤟
I've come to the realization that some people just don't have the ear/mind for it. And alot of those people are musicians who otherwise have a great sense of rhythm, melody & harmony.
One thing I've learn is that heavy guitar sound are thin (What?, I know right1). Glenn Fricker and Scott Elliot talked about this. It's not about making the guitar heavy, but using the bass guitar the fatten up the guitar tone with the lows cut out. This should also explain why 2nd example sound more focus.
How DARE you imply that me spending too much on guitar plugings and not knowing how the fuck to dial them is the problem. No no no, i need another £100+ guitar vst
So.. help me out here.. I thought on the first mix the guitar was more prominent and the bass was more buried.. on the 2nd the bass popped out more so i heard more bass guitar and less guitar on the 2nd mix. Like the balance was shifted.. so am I bad for thinking the 1st mix balance (just the balance) not the timing or the other mixing issues.. just the guitar and bass balance
That’s actually a pretty crazy trick! The second guitars sounded more “midrange only” when played by themselves.. Do you roll off lows and highs on that one to give it more cut in the mix?
I have a similar issue as in this video but instead of Guitar I obsess over bass tone. Maybe not the tone itself but more the low end itself. Maybe I just need more practice mixing quickly and going a more trial and error approach. Great video btw!
The secret to sick metal bass tone: Brand new strings, aggressive & TIGHT/EDITED performances and balanced EQ settings on the bass itself (if using active pickups). 95% of a great bass tone comes from a quality DI.
I love this video. Tone chasing is pointless in most applications. I mean yea get a good sound, but 99% of people won't hear the difference in the finished product. Even guitar solos...just double track them and you get a great result.
I mean yeah but if you have a shit tone you will be less inspired to make cool music. When I have a filthy guitar tone it makes me wanna write and record stuff.
The one that got me is tight tracking and playing. I THOUGHT I was tight, until I spent a few months practicing specifically to a metronome, double-tracked, until it was tight enough to need no editing. The "tone" difference is huge, with exactly the same guitar tone that I started with. So now I don't skimp on the tracking / "getting it right at the source" stage any more. There's no fixing it in the mix - it should sound like a record as soon as your levels are more or less there.
Hey Bobby - awesome vid as always! Aside from tight performances, mixing in the context of the mix is crucial. Mixing in solo is a classic newbie fail..I know..I used to to do it too! I ditched all my graphic eq's, and only use knob based eq's like the SSL eChannel. I turn knobs till the instrument sounds like I want it in the mix...and use only my ears. Sometimes I've done a 15db boost at 8k just on the snare. Would never do that with a graphic eq cos it just looks wrong. With knobs..don't care..I keep turning till it sounds good
I think he is kinda right. Everybody talks about this search for elusive tone. I been playing 41 years and I found my tone not long after that. I can pretty much get almost any amp and guitar to get exactly the tone I want instantly. No eq trippin. My eqs are always between 4 and 7. Easy.
Well, depends on the musician ear, touch sensation, I think that about every component matter. On the recording it isn't that a real issue as the mic / DI becomes the catalyst, beside a high gain amp, metal music in particular doesn't requires anything very specific, there's so much inharmonics on the distortion that a rosewood or ebony fretboard will do only the tiniest difference for the one who play the guitar. While recording Jazz music I can guarantee you that even switching from high carbon to nickel plated steel strings or using Alnico 8 instead of Alnico 3 do a dramatic difference. 1st and foremost, just like Frank Zappa once said to Steve Vai: the "tone" is in your head.
The L-C-R thing must just be a heavy music standard. I listen to a lot of podcast interviews with famous mixers, and I can assure you that at least half of them don't advocate for strict L-C-R.
not all of acord, the guitar tone counts and a lot. Through the tone it is the musician who expresses himself. If the tone is bad, the performance will be bad because the tone is uncomfortable. Guitarist identifies with the tone, that's his signature!
What comes out and cuts through the guitar tone more is what the rest of the tracks lack. If your guitar sounds sizzling and harsh, add that sizzle and harshness to other tracks and your guitars will sound great. Or vice versa.
I love this video. We rarely get to hear just the "final mix" guitar tone out of context and it really does lead us to spending so much time and money chasing a good tone. I always said guitar sounds like butthole and I hate mixing it. I needed this video 10 years ago lol. It took me so long to just give up on my tone, focus on bass, drums and the master before I realized.. wow my guitar tone sounds better for some reason.
to be honest i still felt like the secont tone was better even in isolation, the first one has too much gain and is kinda harashy imo and the second one has better mids a more full sound, the only thing is that the second tone sounds like only has a filter to sound like "old" and lo-fi ish but thats it
Been playing for over 45 years. Bars, big stage, parties, outdoor events, small gigs,recorded reel to reel tape, cds, even old school records, digital every which way etc….you get the idea. Nobody, but nobody gives 2 #$*@s about guitar tone that just listens to music (non musicians or producers) just average Jane or Joe. As a guitarist it matters to me so I am not fighting my gear but frankly nobody else in the real world cares. It’s the song, hook and beat or as my wife says just the words if she can understand them…….kinda like an artist that obsessed over a brand of paint….yet we keep on tweaking just because we can……
As a guitarist. I obsess over bass tone when recording and mixing. I already know how I want my guitar to sit in the mix. Bass has been fun but a pain in the ass lately.
Great video. I think for a great tone for heavy music u want tighter low end sound lower the bass so it won't be all booomy and thud over the sound and gain I keep gain not high too much it will be harsh and buzzy middle I keep low just my taste in a good metal death metal sound I use actives ahb3 mick thompson jackson dinky drop A
While I agree on the premise but this is not a fair comparison because you compared two different mixes and not the guitar tones. A fair comparison would be to keep the other instruments the same and change only the guitar tone.
That's the whole point. The idea is that the surrounding production directly affects the perceived guitar tone. So many people think they have a guitar tone issue, when they really have an editing and mixing issue.
Tone not important!? My life, wasted! Kidding. I agree with other subs, I have no idea how shitty my mixes would sound if I didn't have this channel to make my production a whole lot better!!! Thank man!
I think you’re the only one who understands ‘bedroom musicians/producers’. Not everyone wants to spend money on plugins etc in the beginning coz you never know if people would like your music🤷♂️.Your videos are very helpful Bobby. I bought one of your courses and I didn’t waste the money for sure🤘. However…there’s a lot Atmospheric/Depressive Black Metal one man bands like me. I would say thousands. Unfortunately, nobody’s made a video how to mix, balance songs in this genre.Something like Thy Light- A crowling worm in a world of lies, Autumn Nostalgie- fallen leaves or ColdWorld- tortured by solitude. Black Metal scene is huge but the mixes aren’t made well. This is because good engineers don’t care of the genre so it’s really hard to find any advices from professionals like you.
This is why I think all guitarists should learn mixing. They have to learn the fact that their glorious and fat and punchy and basy guitar tone is the last thing you want to put into a full band mix. Especially the tube amp snobs. They think their 10 thousand dollar amp with a tun of punch, bass, and stupidly loud volume is the pinical of good tone, but it's almost never what their audiences get. They should try listening to isolated guitar tracks of of say Like Van H, Zack W, both Erics, Metalica, and so on. They listen to their tones isolated from the rest of the band especially from the base guitar, they will realize that their tones are nothing but either fizz fest, or a mud fest, or sound like they are coming out of a 2 inch speaker.
I do gotta say this though...as someone who does front of house, it's always the players with the minimal/simplistic rigs that seem to have the best tones.
@@FrightboxRecording I agree with that for sure. I'm using a Fractal FM3 so my signal chains are pretty basic and comparable to being simplistic. Helps translate better to production.
1st off how dare you 2nd of all yeah you're right. I just find a tone I like and dial it in the best I can before mixing. I spend very little time on guitars I wish bass and drums were as easy
I'll tell you exactly why guitar players freak out about hard panning, If you have ever had a car stereo where one of the speakers were broken, now you can't hear 1 of the guitars. What if that guitar is your guitar that you or the listener can't hear.😂 I always hard pan the guitars, it sounds better.
The day I got an evertune was like a curse in disguise because now I hear all the bad guitar player habits 😂 Jokes aside, that was an ah ha moment for me that helped in noticing that a lot of production 💩 comes from before the mixing phase. Thanks Bobby, these vids and pdf have helped a lot this year since I came back from my music hiatus 🤘
This is genre specific. Metal is more slammed, in your face than grunge, blues, soft rock. Especially if there's parts only the guitar is playing. Good video tho
Great info! So, how do you handle something with a solo guitar, like the intro to Ratt's "Lay It Down"? You put that intro on a different track? Jeez, I love that tone. ua-cam.com/video/27NMF6u14DU/v-deo.html
I agree people spend too much time playing with gear and tone and not enough time practicing, but this insinuation in the title is too big an over correction. To me tone is about using your gear effectively, hearing what pairs well together and being sensitive to how it sits in a mix. There is nothing dumb about that, that is called maturity Now if you buy $100 dollars in quarters to find the exact year of quarter Van Halen had on his frankenstrat because “tone”. Of you never start a project because you always need that next piece of gear. Or if you piece together your equipment based on the highest ratings from a website… these are all techniques that are not useful in being productive. It is true often times people obsess over “tone”: that next micing technique, compressor setting, eq hardware, or distortion pedal will make them sound good (and almost always does not)
The only thing I disagree, and I'll fight to my death on, is editing guitars to the grid. Cutting noise, scrapes and whatnot? No problem. Putting everything to grid? Fastest way to heavy yes, but also generic sounding guitars. Play til there's a good performance, then leave it. When edited every heavy band sounds the same. Also real drums DON'T QUANTIZE THEM (unless shitty drummer). Unless it's industrial metal or something. I'm so tired of tiddy mixes that all sound like programmed drums. Not that programmed drums sound bad, it's just that they all sound EQUALLY good, over alll bands, over various genres, over all records and I end up looking for old metal to hear some actual drumming that I can hear the human struggle to play. Rant over, good video tho
I hear you, but tight guitar tracks and edited parts pay the bills. I'd have next to no clients if I left things "natural" and most modern pro producers follow a similar approach for good reason. With that being said, I do run a second business where I record bands 100% live with no editing (because I love that stuff too, it's just not that popular): www.youtube.com/@frightboxproductions
Great video. It reminds me of how the guitar tone Max Norman got for Randy Rhoads is often praised even though heard in isolation it sounds like pure crap. Norman just knew well what you're teaching in this video. Good company to keep I think Bobby, well done.
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Most people buy gear, tweak tones and watch gear demos. A few play, write and actually release music.
LMAO...you're 1000% spot on. It's sad, but true.
Some of us do both lol
Every time I see people go off about which wood creates the best tone, whether tube amps or solid state amps are better for your sound and I always come back to the same thing: the audience doesn't care about that. They care about good songs and performances. They don't care if you're playing a guitar made of plywood, they just came to rock and you better rock that audience.
Sorry Bobby, I have to justify all the money I spent, will pretend I didn't see the video. But very cool video.
🤣
Excellent insight Bobby, I guess this could apply to other tracks in a sense also vox etc. it’s what the dish tastes like on the plate rather than an ingredient of the recipe.
Instantly when the 2nd mix kicked in i thought how the bass sounded so thick with that nice clanky sound n made the guitar tone sound so much clearer than the 1st
So true!!! Good tone is:
1) Being in tune!!!
2) Playing in time!!!
3) In your fingers
4) Beyond your control, once a mix engineer gets ahold of it.
Beyond that, you're just looking for excuses to fail. 😅
Also maybe not obsessing about having the same tone as guitarists from other bands that you like if you're not in a tribute band.
@@StephGV2 Couldn't agree more!
Agree on all these, but you are missing one VERY important factor: Playing with ATTITUDE.
When I was producing my band's latest EP, the guitarist was complaining about not finding a good tone, they all sounded weak to his ears. So I asked him to send me the DI tracks to test something. I recorded the same riff that he was playing and the difference was abysmal. When I showed it to him he agreed mine sounded way better but he was blaming his pickups! Which is funny because his pickups are hotter than mine, in theory he should get a heavier sound easier.
The truth is I learned from years of recording my own playing that if you want to sound heavy, you have to play really f*cking heavy. Not saying you should play super hard and tense, but improving your technique and your pick attack so you get the strings really moving. Palm mutes are especially affected by this.
You don't want a weak sounding tone? Don't play like a b*tch :b
@@Osoch Gotta hand it to you, I think you're right. Being able to nail the style with the right attitude plays a big role!!! 😎
Yes, a guitar planted in the mix sounds "thin" in solo mode. I think this realization happens quickly to everyone who starts learning how to mix rock/metal music.
It's counterintuitive even when you 'know.' I changed quite a bit of my old EQ habits because of production.
I’m still a novice and hardly anything more than a hobbyist/hack. I too am a guitarist and I record and mix and all simply to try to give a gift to my 18 year old self who grew up in the 80’s when home recording was, well, not a thing. But here’s something that blew my mind when I was hacking away. I’d obsessed over tome and riffs and all that and played everything over a simple drum beat, just a glorified metronome. Nothing ever sounded good. So I decided I’d record a riff then a) add a bass line (ezbass) and b) a decent drum beat behind it, something that’s actually a groove. Sometimes I’d even record a keys/ambient layer too. Then I played the “mix” and holy shit it was like another world.
Then I’d loop it and mute the bass and the keys. Suddenly it was wtf happened?? It was then I realized that the whole is way more than the sum. I’d also cut way off the bottom of the guitars, like up to 100-120. And maybe off the top down to 8k. I’d also cut that hiss around 35-4k. The alone tone sounded weak. But it made room for the other stuff and it’s the other instruments that make it come to life.
The secret to a great riff and tone is the other parts and how they fit and support. It is a hit to our guitarist egos. But hey, there’s no I in team 😂😂😂
Im guilty of tweaking guitar tone but I'm slowly improving. However, thanks to you, Bobby, I've learned that keeping right balance between tracks and aligning them in phase gives massive difference.
I think the key word of this video is "context".
It's also amazing what some simple high-pass/low-pass filters and a multi-band compressor on the mid-bass (and some low-mid) frequencies can do for guitars in a mix.
You've proven that the production as a whole is more important than just the guitar tone for the final result, not that the guitar tone isn't important.
I wonder where my mixing journey would have been if I haven’t encountered your videos. Always grateful for each content you create here. Thank you very much Mr. Bobby
Thank you. Yes I suffer from this. When it comes down to it SOMETIMES it is preference and not perfection. That is subjective.
I thought it was the same guitar tone but just a different bass tone. Wasn't even paying attention to the drums while focusing on differences between the guitar tones. Awesome content as always!
Bobby, not everyone is recording Cookie Monster-vocal THRASH metal. When the guitars are saturated and compressed to hell and back and the notes and chords are all staccato, your precious TONE goes out the window and all that really remains are the transients of the guitar.
You have some decent videos but all of them relate to thrash metal.
He's a rock and metal producer.. go figure!!! if you get nothing from his content that relates to you then go elsewhere.
really go vid!
I've never blamed my guitar tone, just why the overall mix sounds like ass
but after a long plateau, my mixes have gotten better recently!
What do you do about the High-gain noise, with out loosing the Sustain, and that aweful trailing 'crackle' with the noise gate? always a pain..
Really interesting the way you made it shown that an isolated guitar part isn't the end all be all. It's about the mix as a whole. It is ironic that the best mix had a worse sounding isolated guitar, but that was your point, great takeaway! I love the Maniac shirt! That shotgun scene/head explosion is so awesome!
Thanks for the video Bobby. So true! After playing guitar for 20 years, it's taken me about 17 years to realise that the guitar tone/sound is based on 1) the performance 2) the attack from your picking hand 3) the IR/speaker. The rest isn't so important :-)
Way back, most guitarists got their first real amp aged between 16 and 18, and that's the amp they used throughout their 20s and 30s playing and recording. Two of my three closest guitarist friends use 100w amps from Fender and Peavy, the other downgraded his 70s Marshall to a 50w Marshall when it started misbehaving.
Things are definitely different now. There's a whole lot of analysis paralysis, chasing tone is almost so accessible anyone can get hooked on it. It's become important only because it's possible, like all of 21st century life. Old man yells at cloud.
I'm a bass player, but I've started playing guitar (badly) over the last decade and a half. I've tried amp sims, but I prefer my 70s 50w Marshall combo with a Two Notes power soak. (It's still too loud!)
And that's because the amp sims I've tried are designed to be useful in a mix. They sound pants by themselves, but great tucked in amongst the bass and drums.
im to lazy to double trk my rtm gtrs so i copy an paste with some time apart seems to work for the stereo sound for me when panned!
i figured out "mix context" and "freq carving" and hard panning a handful of years ago. went from producing sonic waffles, to mixes i prefer over half of what i listen to. all this checks out
Amazing video as always Bobby! I was wondering which type of microphones are better for clean vocals and screaming as well (like Deftones) because I'm starting on this. I was going to buy a cheap one like the Behringer xm8500 but now I don't know anymore. Thanks in advance!
rolled off the Bass/low-mids for tone #2 in the mix, it doesn't collide with the kick and the bass. The tone #1, had too much low end and it made more mud.. Hard panning.. LCR (or is it RCL hehe).. middle far left or far right.. works great
With palm mutes how to tame that booming sound? And how much of it you can get rid of and how much of it you think is acceptable?
I use the basics aka high pass at 100Hz, Multiband comp from 100 to 200Hz, I wonder is there anything else you can do to tame that "boom"?
I`m struggling with balancing volume of different instruments, before messing with Eq/compression, would be awesome if you did something with this topic!
I second this.
yeah me too , I found references helps , but its still feel like I can never settle on a good balance.
@@onoesmurlocs true that. I find references useful mostly for EQ decisions but not overall volume balance. Hope Bobby will notice us. Another trick I`ve learned from Let`s talk about Reaper channel is mixing with pink noise, but that doesn`t give decent results usually
I personally always try to find good tones, but I don't obsess with it. If it sound good, well, it's good!
Hard to understand how a lot of people don't get that everything is related, you should work the production as a whole thing, not solo instruments...it's called "mixing" for a reason.. And yes you're right, all parts of the production should be given attention.🤟
I've come to the realization that some people just don't have the ear/mind for it. And alot of those people are musicians who otherwise have a great sense of rhythm, melody & harmony.
One thing I've learn is that heavy guitar sound are thin (What?, I know right1). Glenn Fricker and Scott Elliot talked about this. It's not about making the guitar heavy, but using the bass guitar the fatten up the guitar tone with the lows cut out. This should also explain why 2nd example sound more focus.
I'm in the process of endlessly tweeking my guitartone right now... Good times, haha
How DARE you imply that me spending too much on guitar plugings and not knowing how the fuck to dial them is the problem. No no no, i need another £100+ guitar vst
So.. help me out here.. I thought on the first mix the guitar was more prominent and the bass was more buried.. on the 2nd the bass popped out more so i heard more bass guitar and less guitar on the 2nd mix. Like the balance was shifted.. so am I bad for thinking the 1st mix balance (just the balance) not the timing or the other mixing issues.. just the guitar and bass balance
That’s actually a pretty crazy trick! The second guitars sounded more “midrange only” when played by themselves.. Do you roll off lows and highs on that one to give it more cut in the mix?
Well, you've totally got me this time, Bobby. I was really surprised!
I have a similar issue as in this video but instead of Guitar I obsess over bass tone. Maybe not the tone itself but more the low end itself. Maybe I just need more practice mixing quickly and going a more trial and error approach. Great video btw!
The secret to sick metal bass tone: Brand new strings, aggressive & TIGHT/EDITED performances and balanced EQ settings on the bass itself (if using active pickups). 95% of a great bass tone comes from a quality DI.
Hey Bobby! Could you make a video about mixing the background vocals like the harmonies and doubles?
Hey, Bobby! Great video, man! Can you make a video about editing guitars? It would be great. Cheers.
I really want to hear tone 1 with mix 2.
You should have seen my face on the second guitar isolation lmao
Thank you for this video, it's a must seen one !
Bobby, that is one of the best videos on this subject! Thank you for making it!
Do you have a mixing template in reaper?
Why do all the instruments sound like midi instruments? Are you locking in the guitar and bass to grid too?
I love this video. Tone chasing is pointless in most applications. I mean yea get a good sound, but 99% of people won't hear the difference in the finished product. Even guitar solos...just double track them and you get a great result.
I mean yeah but if you have a shit tone you will be less inspired to make cool music. When I have a filthy guitar tone it makes me wanna write and record stuff.
The one that got me is tight tracking and playing. I THOUGHT I was tight, until I spent a few months practicing specifically to a metronome, double-tracked, until it was tight enough to need no editing. The "tone" difference is huge, with exactly the same guitar tone that I started with. So now I don't skimp on the tracking / "getting it right at the source" stage any more. There's no fixing it in the mix - it should sound like a record as soon as your levels are more or less there.
Very cool video, and spot on!
definitely been guilty of this but I think I'm getting there
Hey Bobby - awesome vid as always! Aside from tight performances, mixing in the context of the mix is crucial. Mixing in solo is a classic newbie fail..I know..I used to to do it too! I ditched all my graphic eq's, and only use knob based eq's like the SSL eChannel. I turn knobs till the instrument sounds like I want it in the mix...and use only my ears. Sometimes I've done a 15db boost at 8k just on the snare. Would never do that with a graphic eq cos it just looks wrong. With knobs..don't care..I keep turning till it sounds good
I'm glad you finally have someone to articulate it.
I think he is kinda right. Everybody talks about this search for elusive tone. I been playing 41 years and I found my tone not long after that. I can pretty much get almost any amp and guitar to get exactly the tone I want instantly. No eq trippin. My eqs are always between 4 and 7. Easy.
Best production series ever, period.
sounds like there are differences in the first two tracks besides the guitars, which clouds any comparison of the guitar tones.
Well, depends on the musician ear, touch sensation, I think that about every component matter. On the recording it isn't that a real issue as the mic / DI becomes the catalyst, beside a high gain amp, metal music in particular doesn't requires anything very specific, there's so much inharmonics on the distortion that a rosewood or ebony fretboard will do only the tiniest difference for the one who play the guitar. While recording Jazz music I can guarantee you that even switching from high carbon to nickel plated steel strings or using Alnico 8 instead of Alnico 3 do a dramatic difference. 1st and foremost, just like Frank Zappa once said to Steve Vai: the "tone" is in your head.
The L-C-R thing must just be a heavy music standard. I listen to a lot of podcast interviews with famous mixers, and I can assure you that at least half of them don't advocate for strict L-C-R.
Brilliant examples! Thank you once again!
not all of acord, the guitar tone counts and a lot. Through the tone it is the musician who expresses himself. If the tone is bad, the performance will be bad because the tone is uncomfortable. Guitarist identifies with the tone, that's his signature!
What comes out and cuts through the guitar tone more is what the rest of the tracks lack. If your guitar sounds sizzling and harsh, add that sizzle and harshness to other tracks and your guitars will sound great. Or vice versa.
I love this video. We rarely get to hear just the "final mix" guitar tone out of context and it really does lead us to spending so much time and money chasing a good tone.
I always said guitar sounds like butthole and I hate mixing it. I needed this video 10 years ago lol. It took me so long to just give up on my tone, focus on bass, drums and the master before I realized.. wow my guitar tone sounds better for some reason.
to be honest i still felt like the secont tone was better even in isolation, the first one has too much gain and is kinda harashy imo and the second one has better mids a more full sound, the only thing is that the second tone sounds like only has a filter to sound like "old" and lo-fi ish but thats it
Been playing for over 45 years. Bars, big stage, parties, outdoor events, small gigs,recorded reel to reel tape, cds, even old school records, digital every which way etc….you get the idea. Nobody, but nobody gives 2 #$*@s about guitar tone that just listens to music (non musicians or producers) just average Jane or Joe. As a guitarist it matters to me so I am not fighting my gear but frankly nobody else in the real world cares. It’s the song, hook and beat or as my wife says just the words if she can understand them…….kinda like an artist that obsessed over a brand of paint….yet we keep on tweaking just because we can……
Agree.Its like you are on YT and you get lost from your original mindset, there are too many choices.
So I just realized it's not the tone but my mixing skills that sucks lol
Awesome video as usual
Remember that tracking and editing are just as (or more) important as the mix itself 🤘
As a guitarist. I obsess over bass tone when recording and mixing. I already know how I want my guitar to sit in the mix. Bass has been fun but a pain in the ass lately.
Great video. I think for a great tone for heavy music u want tighter low end sound lower the bass so it won't be all booomy and thud over the sound and gain I keep gain not high too much it will be harsh and buzzy middle I keep low just my taste in a good metal death metal sound I use actives ahb3 mick thompson jackson dinky drop A
Wow! This video opened my eyes a good bit! Thanks brotha man!
While I agree on the premise but this is not a fair comparison because you compared two different mixes and not the guitar tones.
A fair comparison would be to keep the other instruments the same and change only the guitar tone.
That's the whole point. The idea is that the surrounding production directly affects the perceived guitar tone. So many people think they have a guitar tone issue, when they really have an editing and mixing issue.
Another great vid! Eye opening!
2:25 the baassss
Been saying this for the last year or so. I always notice that when I have better sounding drums, everything sounds better. Its really all drums lol
I can't hear the bass in the first example but I can definitely hear the bass articulation the second example
Some of your videos are exactly the ideas I had but never did cos lazy ass. I really like this channel!!
Great vid dude!
Awesome video. I agree 100%
Tone not important!? My life, wasted! Kidding. I agree with other subs, I have no idea how shitty my mixes would sound if I didn't have this channel to make my production a whole lot better!!! Thank man!
I think you’re the only one who understands ‘bedroom musicians/producers’. Not everyone wants to spend money on plugins etc in the beginning coz you never know if people would like your music🤷♂️.Your videos are very helpful Bobby. I bought one of your courses and I didn’t waste the money for sure🤘. However…there’s a lot Atmospheric/Depressive Black Metal one man bands like me. I would say thousands. Unfortunately, nobody’s made a video how to mix, balance songs in this genre.Something like Thy Light- A crowling worm in a world of lies, Autumn Nostalgie- fallen leaves or ColdWorld- tortured by solitude. Black Metal scene is huge but the mixes aren’t made well. This is because good engineers don’t care of the genre so it’s really hard to find any advices from professionals like you.
without reading comments or hearing your answer, the bass guitar is what shapes it.....
This is why I think all guitarists should learn mixing. They have to learn the fact that their glorious and fat and punchy and basy guitar tone is the last thing you want to put into a full band mix.
Especially the tube amp snobs. They think their 10 thousand dollar amp with a tun of punch, bass, and stupidly loud volume is the pinical of good tone, but it's almost never what their audiences get.
They should try listening to isolated guitar tracks of of say Like Van H, Zack W, both Erics, Metalica, and so on.
They listen to their tones isolated from the rest of the band especially from the base guitar, they will realize that their tones are nothing but either fizz fest, or a mud fest, or sound like they are coming out of a 2 inch speaker.
It's the little things that matters. Hi from Finland 🇫🇮
Another eye opener
Agree/disagree. Obsession with guitar tone for production doesn't matter, but live tone does matter. I get your point though. Thanks for the tips!
I do gotta say this though...as someone who does front of house, it's always the players with the minimal/simplistic rigs that seem to have the best tones.
@@FrightboxRecording I agree with that for sure. I'm using a Fractal FM3 so my signal chains are pretty basic and comparable to being simplistic. Helps translate better to production.
Kudos to the title name. Damn does that pull someone in lol.
Guitar tone matters for inspiration while playing, in the mixing phase it's all fair game.
Very impressive.
It seems that in the context of a full mix that less guitar is more guitar. 🎸
1st off how dare you 2nd of all yeah you're right. I just find a tone I like and dial it in the best I can before mixing. I spend very little time on guitars I wish bass and drums were as easy
I'll tell you exactly why guitar players freak out about hard panning, If you have ever had a car stereo where one of the speakers were broken, now you can't hear 1 of the guitars. What if that guitar is your guitar that you or the listener can't hear.😂 I always hard pan the guitars, it sounds better.
The first guitar tone doesn't work in the context of the mix because the high end and fizz is competing with the cymbals.
The day I got an evertune was like a curse in disguise because now I hear all the bad guitar player habits 😂
Jokes aside, that was an ah ha moment for me that helped in noticing that a lot of production 💩 comes from before the mixing phase.
Thanks Bobby, these vids and pdf have helped a lot this year since I came back from my music hiatus 🤘
Agreed. It really doesn’t make any difference with that racket! Both tones sound like a fart in a jar to me.
The 2nd mix sounds better, but it's also slightly louder.
All tones are important. Everything is made out of different tones.
They both sounded computer and similar to me.but the endless struggle is real
Awesome!
So you are saying i'm dumb? Jokes on you i already knew that! Check mate!
This is genre specific. Metal is more slammed, in your face than grunge, blues, soft rock. Especially if there's parts only the guitar is playing. Good video tho
Great info! So, how do you handle something with a solo guitar, like the intro to Ratt's "Lay It Down"? You put that intro on a different track? Jeez, I love that tone. ua-cam.com/video/27NMF6u14DU/v-deo.html
by the way maybe because im not a bass player but i care none the less but it seems that i can dial in bass tone in 10 minutes! lol
Listening to this on phone speakers I honestly thought you were gonna say that the tones were the same😅
I bet the difference is in the thickness of the nitrocellulose lacquer on the guitar body 🤷🏻♂️
😂
I agree people spend too much time playing with gear and tone and not enough time practicing, but this insinuation in the title is too big an over correction. To me tone is about using your gear effectively, hearing what pairs well together and being sensitive to how it sits in a mix. There is nothing dumb about that, that is called maturity
Now if you buy $100 dollars in quarters to find the exact year of quarter Van Halen had on his frankenstrat because “tone”. Of you never start a project because you always need that next piece of gear. Or if you piece together your equipment based on the highest ratings from a website… these are all techniques that are not useful in being productive. It is true often times people obsess over “tone”: that next micing technique, compressor setting, eq hardware, or distortion pedal will make them sound good (and almost always does not)
Fuckn sick Maniac shirt
The only thing I disagree, and I'll fight to my death on, is editing guitars to the grid. Cutting noise, scrapes and whatnot? No problem. Putting everything to grid? Fastest way to heavy yes, but also generic sounding guitars. Play til there's a good performance, then leave it. When edited every heavy band sounds the same. Also real drums DON'T QUANTIZE THEM (unless shitty drummer). Unless it's industrial metal or something. I'm so tired of tiddy mixes that all sound like programmed drums. Not that programmed drums sound bad, it's just that they all sound EQUALLY good, over alll bands, over various genres, over all records and I end up looking for old metal to hear some actual drumming that I can hear the human struggle to play. Rant over, good video tho
I hear you, but tight guitar tracks and edited parts pay the bills. I'd have next to no clients if I left things "natural" and most modern pro producers follow a similar approach for good reason. With that being said, I do run a second business where I record bands 100% live with no editing (because I love that stuff too, it's just not that popular): www.youtube.com/@frightboxproductions
Great video. It reminds me of how the guitar tone Max Norman got for Randy Rhoads is often praised even though heard in isolation it sounds like pure crap. Norman just knew well what you're teaching in this video. Good company to keep I think Bobby, well done.