Guitar recording chain Killswitch Engage's "The End of Heartache"

[ben_allison]

I know they use Framus amps. I'm asking about the mic/pre/eq/compressor chain...any ideas? What gets me about the guitar tones on the album is how uncompressed they sound. There are a ton of dynamics and a fairly high amount of detail and clarity, but still an impressive wallop.

[unsilpauly]

Originally Posted by ben_allison

I know they use Framus amps. I'm asking about the mic/pre/eq/compressor chain...any ideas? What gets me about the guitar tones on the album is how uncompressed they sound. There are a ton of dynamics and a fairly high amount of detail and clarity, but still an impressive wallop.

hi there, how are ya? what you are speaking of really has nothing to do with the chain and everything to do with mixing. its called multiband compression. if you use a multiband compressor and bypass all but one band and use that band on the lower mids(somewhere between 200-300hz generally) and compress that it really tightens up the rythem guitars and then you dont have to super compress everything to get it to sit and sound huge in the mix. andy sneap mixed that record and he is the man for guitar tones, mixing and recording. this is one of the ways he processes guitars for metal. seriously, this will do more for double and quad tracked rythems than almost anything else imho(assume they are workable tones in the first place).

[pigpen]

Check out Sneaps forum for answers on KSE!!! Great place for metal info!

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/f...play.php?f=151

[Methlab]

to get clarity and still sound heavy, you need to have a great player, but also dial in the amp correctly. Then add the prementioned multiband comp suggestion, and you are in great shape.

I like to dial in my amp with the bass no more then 5 or 6, the mids around 4 and the treble at 6 or 7. I then put a lot of presence in there..around 7. i then put my gain at 5..not much more then that. these are just starting points. before i hit the head, i put a ts9 in front to overdrive. These are all some nice starting points to get crushing distortion that still has clarity.

[ben_allison]

Originally Posted by unsilpauly

this will do more for double and quad tracked rythems than almost anything else imho

From my experience this is true. Usually, the more you add, the smaller things sound because everything is fighting for space. If you track one or two guitars, they have more real estate to spread out into. Most of the time, from what I can hear, there are only ever two guitars playing at a time on this particular album.

I'll definitely experiment more with multiband compression. Thanks for the reminder!

People make the mistake of thinking that heavy sounds need to have as much gain as possible, but that can make things sound small really fast. Not to mention undetailed.

I think something overlooked is how critical it is for the bass to support the guitars, in this particular application. I find that when one is an extension of the other, good things happen. Deftone's self-titled album is a great example. You'll hear that the guitars aren't really all that bass heavy if you single them out. But when the bass locks to them, it's like doomsday.

Pigpen thanks for the link to the forum! Don't think I'll be getting much work done today

[unsilpauly]

Originally Posted by ben_allison

From my experience this is true. Usually, the more you add, the smaller things sound because everything is fighting for space. If you track one or two guitars, they have more real estate to spread out into. Most of the time, from what I can hear, there are only ever two guitars playing at a time on this particular album.

I'll definitely experiment more with multiband compression. Thanks for the reminder!

People make the mistake of thinking that heavy sounds need to have as much gain as possible, but that can make things sound small really fast. Not to mention undetailed.

I think something overlooked is how critical it is for the bass to support the guitars, in this particular application. I find that when one is an extension of the other, good things happen. Deftone's self-titled album is a great example. You'll hear that the guitars aren't really all that bass heavy if you single them out. But when the bass locks to them, it's like doomsday.

Pigpen thanks for the link to the forum! Don't think I'll be getting much work done today

im sure the killswitch aldum is quadtracked rythems, and if you do it right its huge. mixing the deftones is alot different than killswitch. the deftones have way less chuggin and way more wide openess. in metalcore its gonna be alot of samples but a band like deftones it would be more live drums and room mics. and yes too much gain isnt a good thing. it will make seperation harder to achieve. alot of amps the gain never has to go past 6 ocklock. its all about what sounds good and workable for the mix.

[Rednose]

Very good advice from all!
Its truely not so much the amp.
I've had Marshall, Mesa, Bognar, 5150, Krank, all top end Line 6, and vox, fender and a few others in my studio.
Dial in the tone between the guitarist and the amp first.
It should sound great in the room by itself.
If you cant get a great tone, your tweakin' too much.
Mess around with mic placement.
good pres and a touch of compression and your golden!
Matt