Having a hard time getting decent tones

[weak frost]

Hi. I’m wondering if anyone could help me a little here. I’ve been using amp sims for a while now but can’t get a good tone to save my life! I’m using a focusrite scarlet 2i2 3rd gen with ASIO and with archetype gojira. Monitoring straight through the audio interface. Also running seymore duncan pickups. All my tones sound so compressed, flat, muddy and dull. Not fat and full of life as all the videos i’ve seen. I’m losing my mind over this

[red hull]

Send a clip

Also take into account that a lot of demos you see have :
A) lots of post processior
B) double tracking
C) full mixes including bass , which makes it sound fuller

So send a clip plus a pic of your settings

[weak frost]

it's horrible

[red hull]

only horrible thing is how clean your playing is

and with that I mean ... not clean at all 😉

but play something twice... the exact same thing ... pan one left, one right ... will immediately better

and dial the gain back ... feels like you have too much of that

[weak frost]

lmao i'm sorry i'll make a better one

[weak frost]

okay i'll try

[red hull]

show a pic of your amp settings

[weak frost]

lowered the gain

[red hull]

I don;t know the Gojira that well but that seems okay

[weak frost]

lowered gain, panned left and right and double tracked. tried playing less sloppy

[red hull]

see ... already sounds a lot better ... maybe try to add more mids since now it's a bit dark

which mic/IR setup did you use for this ?

which song is this by the way ?

I'll check if I can lay some drums on this and add some production elements ... just to show you how usable this tone is

[tiny harness]

Just curious here, is there a reason your EQ are all below noon? You could try setting Mid and High to noon, keep the Low the same. A high pass filter can also help, starting around 80 - 100 hz.
I'm in the digital sphere too. My favorite IRs for amp/cab sims at the moment are dual SM57s with the Fredman mic technique. There are youtube videos demonstrating that mic placement and it can sound amazing IMO.

[weak frost]

I will try this right away, thank you.

[tiny harness]

I hope it works out for you! Something to keep in mind for compression is that high gain is very compressing, as are high output pickups.
I saw a video a while ago about noise gates in metal music, you might be able to use it to your advantage if you raise the noisegate as well.

[weak frost]

Sounds a LOT tighter with a high pass filter

[tiny harness]

Hell yeah. It's a common thing with mixing guitars. Leave those lower frequencies to the bassist and kick drum.

[red hull]

because there's less mud ... high/lowpassing is usually the first thing to do with guitars

[weak frost]

any improvements i could do?

[red hull]

which song is it by the way ?

the first example

[weak frost]

that was just something i made up

it's 150bpm

[red hull]

in this i find the mids a bit too much

but in general it will work in a mix

[weak frost]

too much, increase or decrease?

[red hull]

decrease a bit

the also lowpass the stereo channel untill the fizzyness goes away

usually you will also need some cuts to get the whistling frequencies away

there's tons of videos on how to EQ metal guitars on youtube .. the one from Josh Middleton is quite nice

[weak frost]

i'll check it out right away, thanks!

[red hull]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YALTRqW3It8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5wolMCmsGs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0mRLgQRWk4

the last one is where I would start

dude is a goldmine of information

[tiny harness]

I stumbled across one of those videos just yesterday. His content is great.

[red hull]

@weak frost I do notice that your input gain is set very low

try maximizing your signal so that it's just below clipping

this wil give you optimal signal to noise ratio

[red hull]

@weak frost Some EQ ..... some drums and a mastering chain

[weak frost]

This is awesome!

[weak frost]

Okay i’ll try this once i get home

[red hull]

Thanks dude ... I really like that second riff and the drums came naturally

This is just a modern and massive 2 preset

[red hull]

@weak frost I was so stupid to not save my project so I made something entirely different

also ... what tuning are you in ? F# ? 8 string ?

[weak frost]

A# 6 string lol

[weak frost]

This is really awesome. I like this one better

[red hull]

Make it into a full song and I will do the drums

[red hull]

drop A# is kinda nice

or do you tune in standard A# ?

[red hull]

i got carried away 😉

@weak frost see how much beefier your guitar tone is with bass ?

[weak frost]

Drop

[weak frost]

Definitely. This sounds so awesome holy shit

i’ll make a full rec

[red hull]

it's fake bass though

[weak frost]

bass still bass

[red hull]

gotta wait for my real 5 string to arrive

[weak frost]

I gotta buy a bass

Feels more natural

[red hull]

and programming bass sucks

this is a bass VST as a DI into NDSP Darkglass

[weak frost]

I heard nocturnal bass should be pretty good

[red hull]

but they all have that plasticky feel

or I just suck at programming

[weak frost]

Yeah you’re right. I’m gonna try and make a full song out of it and then you can go crazy on it if u want

[red hull]

would be awesome ... did you check your levels by the way ?

[weak frost]

Yes i tuned my gain knob on the interface just to the point it’s glowing yellow at my hardest chugs

[red hull]

cause the difference is pretty substantial ... below is my recording, top is the one you did

@weak frost I swear I will stop butchering your stuff after this 😉

[weak frost]

This is so fucking cool holy shit!! I’m doing a different approach to this next recording but you should add this in there too once it’s finished

[weak frost]

imma be honest i've had a couple drinks tonight so idk if this will sound good but here u go

I’mma remove the lead guitar completely

here is a better version

[red hull]

cool ... but don't fall for the through-compose trap ... try to make it more cohesive by letting parts or motiffs come back throughout the song

that chord progression from the 'chorus' riff (the one you started out with) for instance, let that come back as a 'red' line througout the whole song

[weak frost]

I see thank you.

Do you have any recommendations for bass plugins?

[red hull]

instrument or amp ?

still can

t figure out how you play that chorus riff ... i know the progression but I am probably thinking too complicated

[weak frost]

vst

[weak frost]

I’ll try and write some tabs. It’s very easy you’ll see

[red hull]

i get that .. but a virtual bass or a virtual bass amp ?

[weak frost]

Ohh virtual bass

[red hull]

I use Singularity ,.. it's okay but doesn't go super low

but I use it as a DI into a virtual bass amp

metal ray 5 from Ample is really nice

but Nocturnal or Djinn bass is also quite good

I think Nick Broomhall uses one of those 2