Printable Version of Topic
Click here to view this topic in its original format
GMC Forum _ GEAR & PRODUCTION _ Tips For A Better Rock/metal Sound
Posted by: gnarkill Oct 7 2015, 10:24 PM
All the effects I have to my name.... DigiTech Death Metal, everything that comes loaded on my Line 6 Spider IV 120w.
I have been playing around by ear on my amp to find a good sound, but I dont know the basics behind it. Any tips to help me tone in a better sound?
Secondly, any MUST HAVES for great sound? Something in the ballpark of $100. I know I was on the forums before and I believe Todd recommended an Avid 11 over the POD, but thats a tough sell to my wife atm (even though she wants to get it for us down the road, but not yet).
I am looking at tones for a good lead solo sound, and something with alot of clean kick for rythem/riffing.
Plus, any tips to get me a good sounding "In Flames" or "Trivium" sound is always welcome!
Posted by: Mertay Oct 7 2015, 10:49 PM
I checked the amp quickly from their website and seems the model you have is pretty loaded, its mentioned some presets from famous bands did you check them?
If you're new to tone shaping selecting a preset thats close to your liking then tweaking the parameters to nail what you want is probably best for you now.
Posted by: thefireball Oct 8 2015, 04:19 AM
Don't know if this would help, but just in case, this my http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=55031 I recently came across and it's FREE.
Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 8 2015, 04:15 PM
Hi friend! I wonder if you have seen my thread where I share all my guitar tones for my lessons. The plug ins that I'm currently using are free, and you'll find some based on death and metalcore bands.
Check it out http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=52512.
Also, you'll find this thread really interesting: http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=43940&view=findpost&p=579500
Posted by: Todd Simpson Oct 8 2015, 07:24 PM
You can use your AMP to connect to your computer via USB. At that point, hopefully you can disable the fx/sims on the amp via the software editor that you can download for the amp. Then you can use plugins to get great sounds like gabe is talking about. Basically he is talking about bypassing your amp entirely and just using it to connect to your computer and using software plugins (inside a DAW hopefully, reaper is free to download) to get whatever sound you like 
For about $100 you are not going to be able to do very much to your setup except for maybe add a pedal. You could try to add just a tube screamer clone to help clean boost before your amp to try to get the tones more articulate and less fizzy/fuzzy which the line 6 is prone to.
Todd
I have been playing around by ear on my amp to find a good sound, but I dont know the basics behind it. Any tips to help me tone in a better sound?
Secondly, any MUST HAVES for great sound? Something in the ballpark of $100. I know I was on the forums before and I believe Todd recommended an Avid 11 over the POD, but thats a tough sell to my wife atm (even though she wants to get it for us down the road, but not yet).
I am looking at tones for a good lead solo sound, and something with alot of clean kick for rythem/riffing.
Plus, any tips to get me a good sounding "In Flames" or "Trivium" sound is always welcome!
Posted by: fkalich Oct 8 2015, 09:25 PM
I get my sound primarily from tube amp, for the same reason, were I a violinist, I would prefer to play a Stratavaious, over playing a Yamaha Violin that had it's sound dressed up using digital processing. Sure your casual audience would not know the difference. But I would know.
That being said, what are not talked about here much, but what are critical, are speakers and cabinets.
If on a budget, Seismic cabinets are pretty nice for the price, $140 or less and free shipping in the US. Some complain about quality but mine arrived in perfect condition. Just be sure to front mount the speakers, they sound a lot better than rear mounted. Their Luke model is knockoff of the Avatar Contemporary. I have it stacked with my Avatar, one with Celestion Vintage 30's and the other with Lead 80's speakers. Not as sturdy as an Avatar, but still good for the price. These are huge 2x12's and huge is important if you want to sound like a 4x12. And you can carry a 2x12 around.
For cheaper speakers WGS is popular. I have the Veteren 30's mated with Panama Speaker's in my 2x12 Panama Cabinets, but it is in a different type of Cabinet that any of my Vintage 30's are in so I can't compare it to the Vintage 30's. But based on this is sounds fine in comparison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaQGV9muM5Q
Posted by: Todd Simpson Oct 12 2015, 10:00 PM
Fine point! For good "In the room" sound, you need a good speaker cab. Sadly, the Spider has a bit of a "make do" sort of speaker in it. Fine for the price but nothing to write home about. Adding an external speaker cab would probably help your "tone in the room" at least a bit, maybe more. But you are still using the spider as the source so it will probably sound like a spider with a better speaker.
That's why folks are trying to point you towards getting better tone inside your computer. That way you can have better tone coming out your mixing monitors whatever they may be, and better tone to share via the web.
Even if you bought a brand new Marshall Stack, and it sounded great in the room, you'd still need to be able to record it and get the sound in to your computer in order to share it with anyone. Which means a mic or few and a computer and a daw. Thankfully, this stuff has never been cheaper
But by recording direct, you can sorta skip the marshal stack and instead pretend you have a mean marshal stack sitting in a perfectly isolated recording room somewhere and use plugins to bring the sound to life through your main mixing speakers. Not to mention it's a wad cheaper, given your budget.
What are you mixing speakers btw?
That being said, what are not talked about here much, but what are critical, are speakers and cabinets.
If on a budget, Seismic cabinets are pretty nice for the price, $140 or less and free shipping in the US. Some complain about quality but mine arrived in perfect condition. Just be sure to front mount the speakers, they sound a lot better than rear mounted. Their Luke model is knockoff of the Avatar Contemporary. I have it stacked with my Avatar, one with Celestion Vintage 30's and the other with Lead 80's speakers. Not as sturdy as an Avatar, but still good for the price. These are huge 2x12's and huge is important if you want to sound like a 4x12. And you can carry a 2x12 around.
For cheaper speakers WGS is popular. I have the Veteren 30's mated with Panama Speaker's in my 2x12 Panama Cabinets, but it is in a different type of Cabinet that any of my Vintage 30's are in so I can't compare it to the Vintage 30's. But based on this is sounds fine in comparison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaQGV9muM5Q
Posted by: Darius Wave Oct 13 2015, 06:19 PM
Hey there! If You want we have a special tone thread "hone your tone" Where yu could post some samples (even recorded through a camera microphone to capture the room sound as well, and we could work on it doing some adjustments. Would be a little easier to compare what you have at the moment to what you want to achieve and base our suggestion on particualr tone samples
Line 6 speciality is to emulate sounds of "real" amps. No matter how good those simulations are those are still a kind of...artificial.
I would agree on the importance of speaker cabinet or...a speaker model itself. Many times in my life I was surprised by how huge was a tone difference when plugging even a very cheap amp into descent cabinet. I was not just about the low end (depending on cabinet size) but the most important spectrum of guiatr tone - the midrange
If You need a good modern, heavy tone for recordings, you actually do not have to spent any money at all. A lot of good plug-ins are free to use and top notch sounding.
If you need a good live tone then it's a different story. It does not necessary to be really expensive though. A lot of talented people make DIY amps basted on Mesa or Peavey..or Soldano constructions. Those are the ones you should be mostly interested in considering the bands you've mentioned.
Proper (doesn't mean expensive) amp and speaker is like a wood in guitar. You can replace all the guts and make a lot of adjustments but your guitar will never work as it should , if the would is poor.
Time is doing a lot of good to a music gear market. Many manufacturers stared to reach more customers by making smaller versions of thier famous amps - just like Mesa or Peavey. Those 15 to 30 Watt beasts are totally enough to handle most of gigs, yet uncompareably more mobile and with some usefull, additional features - like line out with quite descent cabinet simulation
Aisde from the need of gear exchange there is just a quit tip.
Modern metal/core/heavy tones are slightly different than the 90's tought us to be. IT's no longer about mid scoop only. Today most of metal players cut a lot of treble and add a few dB of 1 kHz. The guitar still sounds artificially bright but if has more of freqwuencies that define the note you play. There's definitely less space ofr "the air" in modern metal productions. You can alwasy try to get close to this by purchasing descent graphic EQ (MXR for example) and plu it intop fx loop of your amp. Remove all above 5 kHz and boost 1kHz + 2 kHz regulators just a little
A Did that with Marshall amps years ago - I liked MArshall response for articulation, but I never liked it's treble end. With MXR Ten Band EQ I was able to get way closer to modern, post-processed tones...but straight from the cabinet
Powered by Invision Power Board (http://www.invisionboard.com)
© Invision Power Services (http://www.invisionpower.com)