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Hey everyone this is a band from my area that I tracked a couple months ago, getting down the nitty gritty with it right now. When I listen to the guitar tone I cant help but think its too gainy. Or possibly its that solid state sound coming from their amps, but regardless I could really use some fresh ears on the mix. The guitars are a mix of sm57 close Micing the cab alongside an sm7b, blended with the d.i. signal powering Guitar Rig 5. One thing we're striving for on this mix is that big "deftones-esque" drum sound, and I feel the snare verb is pretty decent but curious to hear all your opinions. thanks!

Be My Girl(Original) by Mr. Sunlight(Robert Biehn) - YouTube

going to set the vocals in once we have the foundation nice and polished m/

**My subs are not hooked up right now so I took an educated guess towards the level of the bass ;)

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sharkfistsound Sat, 09/15/2012 - 19:55

Right on dude thank ya! I was noticing the tuning issues also, either sounds out of tune or someone wasnt playing as tight as we thought the day of tracking smoke No guitar processor on that though, I cant remember what kind of amps they had but I miked them up with a 57 and 7b and I'm using Guitar Rig 5 on the d.i. track, I can get you more info on the chains for that if you'd like? Can't remember off the top of my head right now lol

RemyRAD Mon, 09/17/2012 - 13:45

Your noise problem is a ground loop. Computer switching power supplies offer no electrical isolation like old-fashioned transformer-based linear power supplies. So try sticking a ground lift electrical plug on the computer power supply. Then try to feed the output of your computer audio interface of the guitar track, to the new guitar amplifier. If the noise is still an issue, you will probably need an in-line pad on the output of your computer audio interface, before it goes into the guitar amplifier. The computer audio interface is feeding a hot line level track, where the level should be much lower like that of a guitar. And you can't just turn the output level down. It doesn't work that way. It requires a physical in-line pad to the guitar amplifier. You are simply extremely amplifying all of the noise that is overblowing the guitar amplifier input. It's a simple beginner mistake. An in-line pad can be something as simple as a volume control from Radio Shaft. They can also be a purpose made XLR to XLR device. But this really isn't applicable in this situation. Since in all likelihood, the output from your computer audio interface is not XLR and the input on your guitar amplifier is not XLR. Just because it has 1/4 inch outputs to a 1/4 inch input does not mean that the gain structure is correct. In fact, it's not correct. One is a much higher level, higher voltage source than what a guitar produces from its pickups. So the output from your computer audio interface has to be knocked down by an external device to bring it down to the same level that a passive guitar pickup would be sending to a guitar amplifier. And that's your only problem. It's nice to have a re-amp box, but it's not something that is absolutely necessary to have. It's only necessary for folks that do not know what they are doing and have no knowledge of the different levels that come from different pieces of equipment. You cannot plug a line output into a microphone input without knowing some basic fundamentals first. And you cannot plug a line output into a guitar input without understanding gain structure. And that's why God created recording engineers. God also created musicians who are not recording engineers, and likely never will be. So it's not a simple cut and dry process.

You only hum, when you don't know the words.
Mx. Remy Ann David

RemyRAD Mon, 10/01/2012 - 15:49

Of course you also understand that re-amplification requires that you cut your guitar both direct, through a high impedance, active DI and with a microphone to another track that is on the guitar amplifier during tracking. So ya have two channels of guitar to begin with. It's important to have the microphone on the live amplifier because so much guitar playing relies upon the acoustic feedback effect from the amplifier to the guitar pickups. And you won't get that feedback effect during re-amplification. Though it should still be a component within the direct feed that will translate to the re-amplification system/amplifier.

That and lifting the ground on your switching power supply or running the laptop on batteries with the power supply unplugged, along with that pad, should solve all of your re-amplification problems. There is no problem with feeding a low impedance line level output, knocked down in gain, to an unbalanced guitar amplifier input. Please be aware that this method can also present electrical shock issues. So also having a handy AC voltmeter is a good thing to have around, all the time. Check before you grab. For instance, the ground pin on my 110 V, 30 amp RV, AC line, went bad. I could say I got the shock of my life the other night. It was raining and I briefly touched the aluminum retractable awning arm and took 110 V AC. Couldn't even stick my key in the lock! Had to go unplug and get the toolkit out. Had to run to Wal-Mart at 2 AM to pick up a new 110 V AC plug. This wouldn't have happened on a ground fault outlet but you can't run ground fault outlets to RV's. The same thing happens on stages with guitars. There is always going to be a small amount of AC ground fault. They should be low current and low voltage values. Every once in a while, you hopefully won't be shocked to find 110 V, sometimes, between pieces of equipment on stage or even in the studio. It's a risk in our business we as engineers are willing to take. There's been plenty of radio and TV station Chief Engineers who have died, been killed, even though the power mains were removed from the transmitters. They have rather large capacitors in commercial broadcaster transmitters. There even is a special grounded magic wand that is supposed to be used to discharge each and every capacitor before you touch anything inside a transmitter. Because it only takes that one single pulse to kill a person. It's like death by strobe light electrocution. One moment you're working, the next moment you're dead.

It's OK, plenty of people are dead and don't know it. Like me.
Mx. Remy Ann David

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