Me vs. A Wall of Marshall Stacks

[Matt C.]

i could use some mixing advice on this latest project i'm working on. I recorded a big loud punk band with two guitar players, both playing out of big loud marshall amps. i have the two main tracks done live, plus a third rhythm track that i may or may not use. the issue i'm having is that the guitars are lacking some definition. they certainly sound huge, but the more i listen to it, it just starts to blend together into this wall of distortion. listening to each track individually, i think they sound decent (or at least not bad), but in context they just don't sound quite clear enough. does anyone have any good tips for dealing with this sort of issue? thanks.

[wren]

Really, the thing to do is track with less distortion. Always record guitars with as little dirt as the guitarist will tolerate (and I say this as a guitarist who loves distorted guitar).

Other than that, try creative EQing; maybe find a place in the mids where you can boost a little to try to add some articulation. How does the bass sound, and what kind of role does it play in the band? Often in punk, the bass is really playing the role of rhythm guitar too, with the guitar(s') sound(s) just sort of filling in around the edges; maybe try approaching the mix that way?
And this might seem counter-intuitive, but it might be worth looking at a "tube" plugin that overdrives a little too; if you drive that to the point of just becoming nasty (and it'll sound like too much solo'd), that'll sometimes bring some nuances forward a little and make everything a bit more in-your-face, but (as you'd expect) it can also sometimes turn a smear-y wall of guitars into even more of a smear-y wall of guitars, so beware.

[LazarusLong]

to me, Marshalls get washy when you push them too hard. Less can be more - have them turn their guitars down a bit, but leave the amp alone.

[Gentleman Jim]

What kind of punk band is it? There are some strains of punk where this wouldn't be such a big deal, and others where it's going to mean the band is considered crap by their potential audience. Are you trying to mix this band into something they don't want to be?

Assuming the answer to that last question is no, you might want to try some radical eq-ing around the 100-400 Hz area. What a lot of guitarists don't realize is that while their guitar sound is awesome and huge when played all alone, once it has to share some sonic space with bass guitar and drums, (not to mention keys, horns, etc.), it just turns into a wall of buzzy mush. The lack of dynamic transients that occurs with high gain amps really works against a good mix. Many recordings that loud bands are trying to emulate either don't have as much distortion on the guitars as the listener perceives, or they're eq-ed really aggressively.

Then there's the very strong probability - particularly if this is a young band - that the guitarists simply aren't locking up when they should be. High distortion covers some mistakes, but it doesn't cover everything. There's no mixing fix for that; what some bands/producers do is have one guitarist play all of the rhythm parts so the feel is consistent. One way to check for this is to listen to the two guitar tracks panned hard left and right with no drums or bass. If the parts are supposed to be tight and instead they're a bit sloppy, you know it's not a sonic issue. At that point you have about three choices: spend the next few weeks/months/years editing the hell out of one or both performances; convince the band to re-record the guitar tracks; or mix what you have.

Frankly, if you're unhappy with the end product, chances are the band eventually will be too.

[Matt C.]

cool, i will keep all this in mind. maybe i'll try to post a quick clip when i get home so you can hear what i'm working with. it's weird, sometimes i listen to it and think it sounds totally great, other times the guitars get annoying really fast. i know that the sound i currently have is not way off base from what they are looking for, but it's not quite perfect either. i think you're right that i need to just spend some serious time EQing these things. the playing might not have mechanical precision, but i don't think that's the main issue. i think the bass is also causing problems - the bass tone is kind of farty and the playing is pretty inconsistent and scratchy, so we're planning on retracking the bass. maybe having a more crisp bass tone will help guide the guitars in the right direction.

[Corey Y]

Assuming you're not tracking any of the guitars over I agree with a lot of what wren and Jim are saying. Find the right mid frequency to boost, maybe cut some low end/low mids to get the mud out. Just be careful not to go too far in the opposite direction with it. Most of the times I've recorded bands like that I have to convince them to forget everything they know about their tone and start from scratch, hearing what it sounds like recorded. Which usually means gain and bass down, mids up. I make it pretty standard practice now for gainy guitarists to either use two very different sounding mics or split their signal and use two amps and cabs. One with a lot less gain, though I still try to keep it at a reasonable level even on the more gainy amp. That way you can get a very full sound without going into mush and you can mix the two tracks at different levels to different effect as the song calls for it. Since a lot of punk bands tend to have one tone for every song, which doesn't necessarily work in a mix.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

+1 to all that. and if you don't already have the two guitars panned hard L and R, try that.

[vvv]

A real old-style trick is to mic a distorted-amp guitar, itself.

I mean, I suspect this was from before re-amping became kinda standard.

The concept is to get the acoustic attack of the pick hitting the strings so you put a mic right up on the player's hand.

Prob'ly not practical here?

It occurs to me, however, that if you can manage a re-amp into a cleaner amp and bring it up underneath to add definition ...

[ashcat_lt]

This might sound completely insane, but you should at least consider an LPF or a shelved treble cut somewhere in the 4-5K area. Mess with the Q and the actual cutoff. Sometimes a little resonance here with a steep curve above can remove some of the high frequency hash and tighten/warm up a washy guitar track.

[Chris_Meck]

I don't know if re-amping an already distorted signal is going to bring any clarity...

I find that cutting and boosting in different areas help give two similar crunch guitars a little bit of their own sonic signature sometimes. Try cutting at around 200-250 on one guitar and boost at like 500. On the other maybe cut a little at 500 and boost a little at like 800. Experiment with the frequencies, the idea is to have one be a little 'brighter' and one a little 'darker' but have both contain plenty of 'meat', if you will.Sometimes that helps them sound a little more distinct.

Just my .02

Chris

[Matt C.]

after working on it more, i think i got the guitars to a good place, although the nasty bass tone still isn't helping. both the guitars have a high pass filter starting around 150hz, a treble shelf cut of a few db starting at i think around 6 or 7k, a cut around 3k or so to remove some harsh buzz-sawing, more stuff scooped out around 300-400hz, and very slight boosts around 1k. i also stuck the psp vintage warmer on one of them, which helped to bring out some mid range growl.

i did try reamping it, although it sounded absolutely horrible. not sure if it's because of the way i am feeding the signal to the amp or what, but yeah really not usable.

i'm getting there, thanks for the advice everyone

[suppositron]

Sounds like you're doing the right things with eq. Reamping probably wont work unless you have a clean di signal. Live and learn. Take the advice of the above posters and really dial back on the distortion next time (if you can talk the guitarists into it). Take time to audition the tracks and play around with mic placement next time.

[lionaudio]

Joel Hamilton gave me some really good advice on tracking guitars. It's alot easier to make small amps sound big through monitors than it is to try and shrink a huge amp and make it sound good through monitors. Ive tracked big walls of amps and it only seems to work when it is slow or mid tempo and I can use ambient mics. Punk music is so fast I would definitely re-track the guitars with smaller amps or the whole thing again and chalk it up to lesson learned

[decocco]

Could you post a clip of the music?

[Matt C.]

i'd be happy to post a clip, but i don't really know of a convenient way to do it. anyone?