This may be a bit heavier than the examples you list, but here's the rhythm chain for this song "Heavy D"

http://www.nowherer…

Guitar: Kramer Striker
Bridge Pickup: EMG 81
Amp: 5150-II Lead Channel Preamp 7 Post 4
Cabinet: Mesa RECTO 2x12 Vintage 30
Mics: SM57; 4033; 4050 - Mixed
Reverb: WAVES Trueverb Guitar Room
EQ: Boost 2db @ 3K Q - .5

Backing off on the Pre-Amp Gain puts this tone much closer to what you list and the Punch goes up.

Re: How to record guitar like Ill Nino, In Flames, Kiss(Reve

svebbi wrote:
Things like:
Guitar (and pickup settings)
Amps (and settings)
Pedal (and setting ... treble, middle, bass etc.)
Microphone (and position/angle)
Mixer
Pre-amps (compressor, equalizer etc.)
Plug-ins (compressor, equalizer etc.)
Editing (stereo effect etc.)

You're in luck... because I was the engineer on the last Ill Nino record.
guitars... used a lot of them. SG's, Baritones, les pauls
amps... Marshall JCM800 (not modified) and a vintage greenback cabnet for the heavy stuff, and an Orange head for the clean.
Pedals.... Used a bunch of stuff like POD and Phase 90's, but no distortion pedals
Microphones... SM57 right on the cone and a U87 at the edge of the cone.
Mixer... Half the record was done with Neve 1073 pre's and the other half was done with SSL4000G mic pre's. The neve stuff was tracked with dbx 160X compressors, and the ssl stuff was tracked with the SSL channel strip compressor. (usually smashing it)
Plugins... yuck
Hope this helps.

Re: How to record guitar like Ill Nino, In Flames, Kiss(Reve

dustbro wrote:
microphones... SM57 right on the cone and a U87 at the edge of the cone.

Could you go more into detail on how you miked the amp. I'm recording some heavy stuff right now and would appreciate some advice.

When you say you used a 57 right on the cone, does that mean you put it right in the center?

What's the reason for putting the U87 (Nueman Condenser, right?) on the edge of the cone?

I have 57's, beta 52, Sennheiser 421, rode NT-5's. How do suggest I go about miking the guitar cab?

Is it a good idea to take the grill off the cab to get the mics closer?

As of right now I've been using a 57 on the outer edge, a 421 half way in, and a beta 52 in the center. But it sounds to raunchy, I want it to sound smoother, I think it's probably because I need to use a condenser mic.

Well, the center of the cone has the most high end, and the futher to the edge of the speaker you bring the mic, the more bass you get. I like to put the 57 straight on the cone (right in the center). For any other mic, it would be pretty harsh... but the 57 picks up something unique. Then I use the 87 closer to the edge of the speaker to pick up the low end. It's going to be much more dull than the 57, but I use that to my advantage. They are tracked separately. Then on playback, I'll push up the 87 and then push up the 57 (maybe 7-8 db lower than the 87) till it sounds right. Sometimes the phase cancelation between the 2 mics is just right and it will sound huge, and sometimes you have to shift the u87 track around a few samples in your DAW to corret any phase problems.

You could also try using 2 sm57's. One right on the cone, and the other one off-axis closer to the speaker edge.

Thanks for the info. 8-)

By off axis I'm assuming you mean putting it at an angle. That always seems to sound really soft.

When lining up the phase in a DAW is it just a matter making the two seperate waveforms hit their peaks at the same time?

I was also wondering how much compression you were putting on those heavy guitars, and how many times you overdubed them.

Tons of compression... like constantly at 3-4 db of gain reduction.
As far as aligning the waves, there are two ways to do it... #1 line up the peaks, or #2 nudge the u87 track back and forth in miliseconds till it sounds right.
As far as overdubbing, we kinda treated that record like midi. We would do a ton of takes, and then find the best pieces, chop them up, and then quantize them. Each note was hand placed. That way we could stack up 4 pairs of guitars (8 separate performances with different guitars) without it getting sloppy.

Once again all the info is greatly appreciated. It's not everyday I get to pic someones brain who has a great deal of knowledge in recording heavy stuff.

So here goes, I got a couple more questions (about recording guitar anyways)

I notice when I record heavy guitars I always have to roll off some low end using a high pass filter usually any where around 250k-400k. I was just wondering if this was a common practice. I would assume so, becuase you have to make space for the bass, and Kick.

I was also wondering how much you had the pre-amps turned up, and how hot you had the guitars coming in at.

Johnjm22 wrote:
I was just wondering if this was a common practice. I would assume so, becuase you have to make space for the bass, and Kick.

Absolutely. When mixing, you want to get rid of anything you are not using. I'll usually use a high pass filter on everything. It really gets rid of a ton of "room rumble" and makes things a bit cleaner overall.

Johnjm22 wrote:
I was also wondering how much you had the pre-amps turned up, and how hot you had the guitars coming in at.

Well... I used to crank up the guitars and run the pre's low, but even the best sm57 capsule will collapse under the pressure and sound like shit after a few takes. I actually like the run the cabnet at a "moderate" level and let the proximity effect of close miking make up for the lack of low end coming from the cabnet. Then you crank up your mic pre's to add all of that beautiful 3rd harmonic distortion. (that's what it's all about.. 3rd harmonic distortion.)

dustbro wrote: As far as overdubbing, we kinda treated that record like midi. We would do a ton of takes, and then find the best pieces, chop them up, and then quantize them. Each note was hand placed. That way we could stack up 4 pairs of guitars (8 separate performances with different guitars) without it getting sloppy.

Wow this must have been time consuming. Do you use scripts or Macros to help out, or is it all manual??

after reading several threads like this on heavy guitars/drums/etc.. it's a little disturbing to find how little is actually played and not heavily edited.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm a huge fan of industrial, etc, so I don't mind listening to completely synthetic music... It's just that when I'm listening to something that is supposed to be a BAND, actually PLAYING.. I'd like it to be just that.

Drums are sample-replaced and edited.. guitars are chopped up and edited.. I know a lot of these bands are really tight, and can put on a great live show - so why go the extra 100 miles to make it marginally better.

It's rock n' roll man, it doesn't have to be perfect.
"-)

or maybe I'm just cranky because I haven't had my coffee yet

dustbro wrote:
As far as overdubbing, we kinda treated that record like midi. We would do a ton of takes, and then find the best pieces, chop them up, and then quantize them. Each note was hand placed. That way we could stack up 4 pairs of guitars (8 separate performances with different guitars) without it getting sloppy.

How exactly do you quantize audio tracks? I thought you could only quantize MIDI tracks?

You don't actually quantize it like you would in DP....

You cut it to pieces and place each note yourself.....very time consuming but can be a payoff if that's what your looking for.

Thanks for sharing dustbro....that's cool of you.

Try this:

I've recorded some nu-metal, death, thrash, black...etc. bands that required a very powerfull guitar sound:

Best amps I've recorded: Hughes & Kettner Triamp (sounds awesome, from crunch like AC/DC to distort like Machine Head), Mesa Boogie triple rectifier (good, but so noisy), ENGL Savage 120 (useful for recording metal guitars like Dimmu Borgir), Marshall JCM800, JCM900 & JCM2000 (pure marshall sound, works great), Peavey 5150 & 5150-2 (very good distortion, but bad clean channel...)

The cabinets I used (all 4x12"): ENGL 412VS (very good low end), Trace Elliot 230TE (bright) & Marshall 1960 Lead (punchy).

I miked the cabinet with 2 mics: an sm57 on the center (I agree with Dustbro, this mic is unique) and a AKG Solidtube at the edge (this mic has a very good bass response). Each one recorded on a different track. Sometimes is good to add an ambient mic about 2,5 meters away if you have a good sounding room.

Then I use dbx 376 pre's and add a little boost around 4,5 - 5,5 KHz (this is to match the "colour" of the distortion sound).

My favourite guitar pickups that worked nicely for metal style sound
are EMG's 81 and 85. The pickups are the critical factor to get a good sound.

When mixing I never pan guitars at the center. I've 2 guitars for the basic mix (4 tracks - 2 mics x guitar) so I used to open them to the left and right of the mix image (when there's only one guitar player on the band, I don't like to double a single recorded guitar, I prefer to record another guitar indeed). Try setting them with a volume that not reach the sound of the drum mix and vocals. The guitars would not sound "present" yet, but when you add a mastering compression to the whole mix and then a maximizer, the guitars will sound awesome! (I use wave plugins for this: the C4 and the L2)

Hope this helps.

Johnjm22 wrote:
How exactly do you quantize audio tracks? I thought you could only quantize MIDI tracks?

Like it was said above... you have to cut each note, and then quantize from there. Probably takes about 14 hours to complete a double track of guitars. Sometimes we'll even break up a riff into a few notes at a time (playing to a click) and then assmebling them like a puzzle. One tip I can give you is that it's almost impossible to see the transient of a distorted guitar, so track an UNPROCESSED guitar DI when you are tracking. it gives a much better representaion of the notes transient.

thanks for the insight dustbro.

Aside from guitars, the vocals sound really good as well. I was
wondering if you did anything special for the mellow parts on
"How Can I Live"?

thanks

casey wrote: I was
wondering if you did anything special for the mellow parts on
"How Can I Live"?

Sorry for the late reply... I've been busy in the trenches putting the final touches on the "Future Leaders of the World" record...

Vocals were very simple. It was a combination of a hand held 421 and a 414. He would sing into the 414, and when it came to a heavy part, he would pull away and scream into the 421. Both were running thru Neve 1073's pushing around 3.2K and 220. then to blackface 1176"s at 4:1 knocking off around 8-10db.
I'm not too sure about what was used on it when it was mixed because I didn't attend the sessions.

Micing cab for heavy dynamic guitar sound

Ive read most of the above and im surprised no one has mentioned
the use of AKG c 414 with the addition of funneling.
By funneling I mean enclosing the space around the mic and cab with sound boards so that they create a tunnel for the pressure created by the speaker. What this does in layman's terms is concentrate the acoustics of the actual speaker sound which increases low end with out introducing a 2nd mic thus removing the factor of phasing problems. Too much low end ?! all you do is make the tunnel wider. I tried this with the older version of the 414 about 3 inches from the cone and it made this 80 watt combo valve state sound unique as far as to say that most other messa or 5150 recordings sound too "mushy" and unpronounced.
Next I will try it with SM57 I will let you now how I get on!

phasing

My biggest gripe is when you have to try and make two mic's work together maybe phasing is the wrong word but sometimes all you want is a dynamic signal that can be controlled by easily adjustable acoustics.

AKG'S

Oh by the way look after those AKG'S they dont like to be dropped or over loaded!

svebbi, i found this to be a very educational link. guys, check it out:

http://www.kset.org/music/pub/ChatWithHarvey.pdf

microphones, micing, guitars, cabinets etc. the document flows with a conversation along side.

Re: phasing

imperial_black wrote: My biggest gripe is when you have to try and make two mic's work together maybe phasing is the wrong word but sometimes all you want is a dynamic signal that can be controlled by easily adjustable acoustics.

Yeah... pain in the butt. But at that point you have to "pick a lane". Is it going to be the 414 or the 421? You can't have both (because of phase issues)

AKG'S

Thats a good question but to be honest I ive never tried both only the 414 and im not even sure which model of the 414 I was using as I was at my friends college studio .Its a good way to experiment without having to spend out hundreds of pounds on these very expensive mic's. Im at this stage in my life where after a decade of working as a session musician im finally learning what those engineers have been getting up to all these years .