n00b alert: how to make "thick" guitar sounds

[rhynoclemmis]

Hello,

I'm pretty (and) new 'round here and not used to english terms in music (yet). I guess this question was asked about a gazillion times already and I promise to search the forums in the future, but currently I don't know what keywords I should look for.

The problem: I have is a more or less synthetic sounding-guitar. I recorded a few songs with bass (which souns EXCELLENT, even better than in rehearsals) but the guitar-playing of my friend sounds very "dry" when in distortion.
We recorded using
- a high quality guitar (don't know which one, but at least it was expensive)
- a UX2 Toneport
- riffworks, d'oh
- a not-so-premium effects board (? Do you know what I mean?)

Gearbox was set to "Standard Guitar Tone" and recording in Riffworks was at the end of the green volume dots with no clippings at standard 50% volume.

Could it be the low quality effects board? Are there any standard tips on how you work on your guitar sounds?
I've begun to work with the EQ, but the basic sound stays as synthetic as it is, more or less. I've tried to double or triple the guitar layers to build a "sound-front" (of course turned down each), but the "wow"-experience has yet to come.

Any help would be appreciated, links to threads, tips, obscene insults...

thanks, rhynoclemmis

[gatorjj]

Hello rhynoclemmis, welcome to the forum! Do you have any samples of the sound or songs that we could listen to?

J.J.

[redbaron]

I´m not sure if I understand your problem correctly, but is there a particular reason you work with a digital effects board when Gearbox already comes with all effects you´ll need built in? Why would you not use them and work with the dry tone instead?

In any case, I guess most people trying to get familiar with the range of Gearbox sounds will start with the many preset sounds and tweak it from there. Have you tried the presets? There´s a drop down menu in the upper left hand corner, and there you find many dozens of factory presets some of which sound quite "wow"-y, I´d say.

[rhynoclemmis]

Thanks for the welcome!
I posted a sample riff here: http://www.riffworld.com/Members/rhynoclemmis/test-for-guit-sound/
It's very basic and lacks melody in order to focus on the sound.

It doesn't sound too bad, actually. Perhaps I'm just too spoiled from all the million dollar productions on all the CDs. It's two times the same riff (bass off), first version with my EQ settings, second raw and pure. The EQ makes it better, but Im not completely satisfied. For my taste, it sounds too "dry" and unrefined. The EQ tips in the Riffworks manual helped a bit, though.

@redbaron:
The reason we started recording with our own effects boards was that we wanted to recreate the original sound of our band. For my bass with my effects board (Korg AX30B) it worked very well, but I fear that the "cheap" board of the guitar player may cause the unsatisying results. Now I'm just a little afraid to tell my guitar player that we may have to record all over again and need to find fitting sounds in Gearbox first.
I've tried the Gearbox presets myself, my favorite is "Two hands, big hair" on my bass. Rarrr!

[pooterpatty]

There is no one patch or preset in Gearbox or any other software that'll give ya huge tone all on it's own. And the recordings on CDs you're listening to - it might sound like just one guitar track, but it's not. What I like to do is record several different takes of the same riff, each time using a different amp model in Gearbox. For instance, I may want the low-end chunk of a rectifier and the midrange honk of a Marshall with some Fender clean thrown in. That's the good thing about Gearbox, you're not tied down to just one guitar sound.

Regarding effects, you may want to change your thinking if you're just getting into Riffworks. You'll want to record guitars as dry as possible, meaning the only effects active in Gearbox are compression and maybe distortion. You can add delay/reverb and modulation effects (like flanger and phaser) directly from Riffworks after a layer is recorded.

The main reason for doing this is so your guitar parts will flow well from one riff to the next. Remember you're working in a loop-based app now, which means mod effects that rely on a certain amount of decay time (like delay and reverb) will get cut off at the end of the riff unless you add them, in Riffworks, AFTER the layer is recorded. When you do it that way, decay on one riff will flow into the next, and your songs won't sound "choppy". Plus, if you record a layer with effects added in Gearbox, you can't change them unless you re-record the layer. If you add them after recording, you can tweak to your heart's content without modifying the recording.

Regarding a basic good guitar tone, try starting with the Gearbox default tones and tweak them to your liking. After you mess with the amp settings enough, you'll get to a point where you know each amp's individual character, and you'll know just what amp model(s) to go with to achieve a certain sound.

[atalwar]

Many a Times Thickness is achieved by doubling the track and minute variations in timing can give great or disastrous results.

Also a Dry track can sound way off as compared to sounding in the mix. that's due to how frequencies interact with each other from different instruments etc.

You recording maybe could benefit from a bit of Harmonic Excitation, if you have izotope ozone, it provides multiband exciter or you can use x-cita vst which does a decent job of excitation. located here : http://www.uv.es/%7Eruizcan/p_vst.htm

also there is a little bit of mudd (or too much compression and not much dynamics) goin on there in your track so you might need to eq that maybe unless that was intended.

I don't use gearbox but podxt live and i think they are mostly similar,
the inbuilt presets are just a guide for me as a starting point.
They were designed with a particular guitar, particular monitors, and particular set of ears and not to mention playing style so you have to tweak them to your style and liking .

I always have to turn down gain (as compared to live playing) on amps a bit as in the mix lesser gain cuts a bit more and adds definition.

I dont think you needed to use gearbox at all as your signal is already coming from a processor. You can use gearbox, but instead of standard guitar tone, first turn eveything off(bypass) , then turn on eq and play with them and turn on cabinets if need be (without an amp) to shape up your tone.

A lot depends on your primary incoming signal and everything in your signal chain affects the tone from cables to pedals etc and A-D:D-A conversions in processors.

[rhynoclemmis]

Thanks for your answers. I'll have a look into this (and maybe can persuade the guitar man to do it all over again) - it's trial and error, then error, error and then maybe success.

[ShredRex]

It is all about layers....and placement in the mix. It takes time and practice to get it right, believe me! Gator has an awesome mixing tutorial for RW users, check it out here:

https://gatorjj.wordpress.com/riffworks-mixing-overview/ - it's 5 pages

[blue4u]

Well said guys....one thing I can suggest about re-recording the same part with different tones is that I have had the best results making only VERY small adjustments. I found that if the tones are too very different I get mixed results trying to make them all blend. That said, Pooter gets some wicked-good tones so his advice would be worth adhering to!

I like to find one great amp sound and stick to that amp for all the duplicate parts. Then, I'll use any combination of changing pickups, guitar volume or tone, and/or changing ONLY the cabinet or microphone options in GearBox (or whatever effects processor/plug-in I'm using). Also, I might dial in/out the mids, bass and treble from the amp but, just a little bit each time. Again, I like to keep the changes pretty small. If I can't get what I want from that then, I'll call up another amp to use. Typically I'll record the same riff or chord progression three different times with 3 different tone settings. One will be panned to the far right speaker, the other to the center and the last one to the far left speaker. I've been pretty satisfied with that result The overall mix of these 3 different tones playing the same part achieves that BIG, THICK guitar sound!!

For high gain or "thick" guitar sounds I like the "Metal Pack" amp models which is a Line 6 add on or upgrade pack to whatever device you are using via GearBox. YOu are using the TonePort UX2 so you can buy this upgrade if you like it. Check out more here, including some sound clips: http://line6.com/modelPacks/metal.html

All the best!
Rich

[hardattack]

Using line 6 edition without the plug in like me getting fat sounding guitars is easy try duplicating your riff panning one allmost all the way right and the other left and then use the shaper effect on one of the riffs to change the tone a bit.
Try adding some highs and lows on one riff and maybe even boosting the mids on the other it can make your guitar sound huge.

Also this does work better recording into riffworks in mono not sterio its much easier to mix.