Try EQ-ing and compressing the guitar within a context of a mix, instead of by itself (if that is what you're doing)

Even if you do acheive a "big" sound outside of a mix, chances are that in the mix it wont fit at all. Most "big" guitar sounds a surprisingly deceptive, they dont have to have large amounts of bass etc to sound heavy - it just has to fit well in the mix.

Keep fiddlin around :)

If you're using the PODxt, mess with the room sound settings and add a medium amount of plate reverb.

I suppose its covered in the above post, but if it helps any, the sound of the bass in a mix can greatly affect the perceived guitar tone. Maybe the bass needs to be stronger. (Bass guitar, not bass boosting the guitar parts)

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the tips guys. Israel, from your comments it sounds like the only true way I am going to get my desired sound is through a lot of experimenting and trial and error. Damn. I guess I was hoping for an easy, or "quick fix" solution.

BTW, I've noticed that there seems to be different views (from what I can tell anyway) as far as the number of guitar tracks used. Some pros seem to only ever use a fixed number (ie. around 4) and really concentrate on getting the desired sound by directing much of their focus on mic placement whereas others tend to use an approach whereby they keep adding tracks until it sounds "big" or "full" enough to their ears, using 20+ tracks in order to fill gaps in the sound.

What is your view?

Major Metal releases usually use real amps and speaker cabs with multi mic set ups to achive that feeling of depth. Taking a di line from a POD ain't gonna do it. You might get close to that sound by using very short small reverb rooms to add a roominess to the recordings. As you double track change the setting for each track. When mixing add a small amount of chorus to the guitars, enough to add a little "edge" but not so much that you can actually hear a chorus effect. Best solution, get a half stack, some great mics and pres. The best sound a POD can make is when it hits the bottom of the dumpster. Kurt

A good friend of mine has been playing through a POD for a couple of years now and has been constantly struggling to achieve a full sound, both when recording and playing live. I hope you'll post back on this thread as you work through this problem, as I'll be recording his band's next project. I've told him from the start that I will not use the direct signal from his POD exclusively, and I'd like to know if using a real amp and real mics solves your problem. There is no substitute for moving air.

I would try not panning all 4 hard left or right, try the 2 bitier ones hard left/right, and the 2 others somehwere in between. Just enough to widen the sound. As already stated nothing really compensates for a real amp with a mic on it.

I have both mesa boogie rectifier and 5150, and both sound great with a 57 on them. Sometimes (depending on the tuning) I'll use a 58 on one of the bottom speakers also.

Rather than adding too much reverb later on i like to move the mic back a bit (6-10 inches) from the speaker, and mess with the distance from edge to cone. What has worked most often for me if the 57 about 1.5 inchs from edge of speaker pointing back in towards the cone. (just slightly).

Those 2 amps are also quite brutal and i find that even just 2 tracks, each done with a different amp / guitar sounds huge.

Originally posted by Kurt Foster:
The best sound a POD can make is when it hits the bottom of the dumpster. Kurt

Too funny, Kurt! And too true. Modelers offer convenience and variety, they do not offer quality and oomph. Only real tubes and real speakers do that.

The first thing is to get an amp sound that sounds good to your ears. The next step is to capture that sound. Playing around w/ different mic positions. Getting a "big" sound also involves a judicious application of effects. As Kurt noted, a touch of chorus will help set parts off from each other. Very short delays will also do this. I would also use some compression to bring the overall level up higher, creating the perception of "bigness." EQing around the 800-2K range (mid/hi-mids) can also create a perception of size in guitar sounds. Lots of track layering doesn't necessarily mean you'll get hugeness--you could end up w/ a mushy mess of indistinguishable noise. Quality usually wins out over quantity in the good tone game.

Like you guessed, a lot of it is trial and error, playing around w/ different configurations, different mixes until you get what you like.

Originally posted by godotzilla:

Originally posted by Kurt Foster:
[qb]The best sound a POD can make is when it hits the bottom of the dumpster. Kurt

Too funny, Kurt! And too true. godotzilla

I should have added ", if you mic the dumpster correctly" Kurt

Kurt, what if Line 6 made a simulator that simulated the sounds of a POD hitting the bottom of a dumpster and it was totally digital. Would you use it?

Originally posted by falkon2:
Kurt, what if Line 6 made a simulator that simulated the sounds of a POD hitting the bottom of a dumpster and it was totally digital. Would you use it?

I might ... I'd want to do a review of it at least! :D Kurt

Different POD sims for different sounds. Simulate different dimension dumpsters for varied timbres! Combine different micing techniques for limitless sounds!

Try out our new 2ft zinc allow trash can, or go for the vintage 3x8 top-lidders. Also included are three models of garbage trucks with varying degrees of fullness.

Simulate close-spaced reverb and add in room sound!

Wait a minute... I OWN a POD and I like it. Why am I typing this? :(

I'd like to have a modeling-amp-hitting-the-dumpster digital simulator, too, but I want it to have all the classic modeling amps hitting the dumptser sounds, not just the POD, cause that would limit my creativity.
With just a twist of a knob, you could instantly have ANY of the greatest modeling amp sounds!! And all for a fraction of the price of any ONE of the real amps. No messy tubes burning out on the night of your major gig!!
I do have a serious question though. My friend has an amp modeler on his boss gt-6 guitar effects processor. It has a lot of the classic amps such as twin 'verb, mesa, marshall, 5150 etc.. but he plays it through a real 5150, so how can it supposedly sound like another amp? What happens if he puts it on 5150? Super 5150?

Well, you're actually instructed by the manual to plug it into the return of the FX loop so you only make use of the speaker, rather than the circuitry of the amp. It makes for less coloration (depending on the type of amp and cabinet, of course).

I'm not too big a fan of Boss' modelling. It sounds pathetically thin. And it pains me to say this, because I have a GT3 AND I refused a GT6 after messing around with it some.

There's no set way but it sounds like a mixing problem to me. As I stated in another post, a lot of pro's are using them these days. Check out the user list on the POD, quite impressive.
http://

Also take a look at the SanAmp by Tech 21. It is also the choice for many pro's. And yes some still use the micing a guitar cabinet approach as well. Just my .02 cents.

Cheers All, :c:

TG

Ok! Ok! Ok! I have to say this... I own a Line 6 Flextone and I have to say it is pretty cool. This uses the same front end as a POD but has a power amp and speakers. I love this thing for live gigging and at times I have used it for recording. It can sound very good for certain applications. For a gig amp it is hard to beat. For a guitar player that doesn't have access to a room full of amps it can be a Godsend. These types of products offer a wide sonic palette for a musician to use. I started something here in an attempt at humor but really, these things can sound pretty good. Now I still think that moving air with a speaker and micing that is a killer way to get guitar tones, especially metal, but the truth is that many people can't afford a half stack and a plexi head or they live in apartments or neighborhoods where they cannot make a lot of noise. PODs and other similar devices are wonderful for these kinds of situations. They offer the gigging musician and aspiring recordist a path to varied textures of guitar tones. In the end, as I often point out, it has more to do with what you are playing, rather than what you are playing it through. In the hands of a skilled musician a POD can be a beautiful thing. Kurt

Supposedly ZZ Top (Billy G has been known to tell a few stories, but...) went to a wrecking yard to sample various sounds, like a door slamming on a 64 Chrysley, or the hood closing on a Lincon Continental, and some of the samples were used on one of the albums,.
Hey Kurt, Standin in the Shadows is out on video, cause I know you never made it down town! Things gettin warmer up there yet?

Two more points I'd like to bring up:

One of the reasons direct to the console sounds a little "cheap" compared to having it come out to the box is the phenomena I like to term as feedback coloration. Many people think that feedback refers solely to the piercing whine when you crank up the volume high enough. That's not entirely true. That only comes about when the gain provided by the amp setup EXCEEDS the attenuation of the air waves travelling back to the guitar and vibrating the strings (Thus making it get louder and louder to the point of distortion saturation).

However, just because there's no piercing whine doesn't mean feedback isn't in effect. In many cases, feedback still affects the tone some, but the attenuation is greater than the gain provided by the amp. This causes a tiny bit of coloration to the tone by boosting certain frequency ranges, or more accurately, causing those ranges to decay slower than others. (Because extra power in that frequency spectra is provided by the vibrating air)

Running the PODxt direct to the console and having the PA guys set up a colorless monitor for you to use as an amp cabinet (for feedback coloration, etc) works wonders. The cabinet modelling algorithms in the xt are far superior than that of the 2.0 or Flextone.

Of course, I'm not going to say its a real match for the original, but I'll reiterate again -Nothing sounds like the original, but nothing comes much closer than this. :) (Well, so far, at least - I personally believe somewhere down the line we're going to be looking back at the current POD, SansAmp, etc products and remember how silly they were in comparison to todays stuff, much like the first wave of synthesizers. Then again, people LIKE the sounds of some vintage synths)

Being able to "switch amps" at the tap of a button in the middle of the gig is also something I've gotten more than used to.

I'll say two things:
One is that i agree that you don't get the sound of the real thing with the modelling boxes orplug-ins And that goes for mics, preamps, guitars, amps, reverbs, compressors, EQ's.. whatever.
If you LIKE the sound of the digital box that's great. Go crazy. Have fun.
but if you ask why it doesn't sound LIKE what other people get with great mics into great preamps recording great guitars into great amps in great rooms and so on.. well you get it.

second, lots of popele endorse products or on on their user lists or even say they use them in interviews. What they SAY and what they actually use on their records are two different things.
I've been on the inside of that one too many times to believe ANYTHING i read anymore.
I've read the most amazing things written about records i made; often in the most authoritative and detailed voice, and they're completely from outer space.

It always reminds me of John McEnroe playing with a Dunlop racquet spray painted balck so no one could see it wasn't a Wilson (which he endorsed).

Listen to Vertical Horizion's first record mixed by Tom Lord-Alge. Very big in your face guitar sound. Mono the mix and listen to the guitars. They all but disappear. Since this discovery I have played with multing guitar tracks and using the mult to mess up the phase on the guitar tracks. Panning, levals, delay times, EQ, compression, all that stuff can be tweaked and cause phase "problems" that sound cool. This can also (maybe more correctly) be done in the engineering stage of the recording by using two or more mics on a guitar amp.

I used to worry alot about phase when using several mics on one thing until someone on this site, maybe Fletcher, told me
"just throw up some mics and use your ears"

Hack,
I personally would find that to be a problem. The recordist has no control over the playback of their work and IMO, phase compatibility is an issue. You never know if your work might be played over a system that is out of phase, is mono (such as a PA system at a live gig) or streamed in lo-fi mono mp3. I always check to insure that everything is in phase. I think that achieving spread by using phase difference is a flawed approach. I would venture a guess that that example you cite is something Tom Lord-Alge would like to revisit and fix. Kurt

Phase is a real beeyatch. One time I was puzzling over why an .mp3 I downloaded had great guitar sounds when I played it on my computer but sounded whacked when I burnt it to CD.

Turns out that the guitar track was duplicated, panned hard L/R and spruced with a touch of delay. Normally this wouldn't really be significant, but this delay must have been at least 10ms or so because after a little diagnosis I found out that the whacked guitar sound was the product of some serious comb filtering.

What happened was my burner burned everything which was not already 16/44.1 as a mono track after converting on-the-fly.

Now whenever I double-track and pan, I make sure I do something like add different reverbs and EQ to each track before delaying. :D

wwittman,
i have to respectfully disagree with you. if you really
know what you are doing with sound, you can
absolutely get a huge real awesome guitar sound
while only using plugins and guitar amp simulators.
ive had guitar and amp collectors trying to figure out
which amps were used to acheive such sick guitar
tones - and all along there wasn't a guitar amp
in the building to be found. i kept that secret to myself.

Try getting away from the eq. It is important to "make room" in the mix for every sound. Bass guitar plays a huge roll in the perception of guitar depth, and hard left right pans create issues with mono compatability. Multiple mike setups are a headache when it comes to heavy guitars.
Start with all 4 track hard LR and then slowly pan the darker tracks inward until you have a nice layer of grunge covering your audio canvas.(Less, of course in the center.) If you still aren't happy, some verbs with a hpf at about 800hz and a lpf at about 3-4000hz will improve things along with a light chorus if you are really hung up on it.

BE CAREFUL. Have you ever made fun of a girl for using too much make-up?

Effects of this type are there to enhance the beauty of a good track. Being subtle is key.

If noone has any sin, please start throwing stones at ACB-lol

I Love Amp Farm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Girl with too much makeup... Whatta great analogy. Doc

Im havin the very same problum with gettin a big guitar sound.Im doing a kinda rockabilly song and I want the guitar to be pretty clean with just a bit of overdrive.Im playin a TELE into a Super Reverb using a danelectro Daddy-O for the overdrive sometimes.Ive played the amp loud,soft with reverb without just bout everyway I can think of.Ive spent hours playin with differnt mics (baby bottle,sm57,akg190,adk51,spC3)and all kinds of differnt mic positions.Im starting to think its my preamps all I have is a 1604vlz and a DBX286a that Ive messed with extensively as well butt still my sound is small undefined and brittle.What do ya think am I fucked and just give up or should I buy a new pre.I aint got much moneys to spend bout $500 clams.Any help would be appreciated THANK RODNEY

Hey Rodney I have a couple of ideas you can try.
First of all crank the amp and lose the daddy-o. Secondly get rid of the verb. If it isn't dirty enough you can go into the pre section of the amp and trade a 12au7 or 12at7 for a 12ax7.
Next you could try adding a track. If you are leaning to closely to the clean tone you may end up with a chorus effect, but there is only one way to find out.
Lastly if you have the track availability or the real estate available, multiple amps or mic's or a combo of the two might speed the process up for you. Beware of the phase monster.

Hey thanks fer the help.I will try and replace the preamp tube Im just not sure which tube to change please let me know.Have you ever used those tube converters?I dont know the name but I think they make the amp hotter and break up sooner its hard fer me to play too loud in my apartment butt I do sometimes anyway.My main issue is not a bad sounding amp I like the way it sounds butt I cant seem to get that sound recorded THANKS

I came across this old message while reading through Will Whitmans past posts. I respect his knowledge, experience and past work so I was very curious as to what he had to say.

But his boy Eric Bazilian claims to have used a VG-8 has the basis for his guitar, bass and keyboard sounds for his last album. That's modeling isn't it?

Originally posted by falkon2:
Now whenever I double-track and pan, I make sure I do something like add different reverbs and EQ to each track before delaying. :D

falkon, "with all do respect" this practice that you practice (i.e. duplicating the original and processing it to sound doubled) is not double-tracking. If I've mistaken you I apologize. But I believe you've stated this more than once.

Originally posted by stealthbalance:
ive had guitar and amp collectors trying to figure out
which amps were used to acheive such sick guitar
tones - and all along there wasn't a guitar amp
in the building to be found. i kept that secret to myself. [/QB]

Well that's not really saying anything. I know a famous studio manager who comes in the room and states how great everything sounds all of the time, no matter what or who's happening.

Originally posted by Catoogie:
But his boy Eric Bazilian claims to have used a VG-8 has the basis for his guitar, bass and keyboard sounds for his last album. That's modeling isn't it?

People use pods, sansamps, ect. to make records. Not alwyas for the guitar. And more than most, especially if it's guitar oreinted or the important guitars on the tracks it's the old fashion way. You can soup up a pinto anyway you want, but i'd choose the formula one if were going to race (a lazy analogy...)

Recorderman: I've come to learn over time that, yeah... recording twice is many times better than duplicating tracks. Yeah, I was wrong way back then - I'd found this "bathroom reverb" type of sound that I particularly liked for a spell that came through doubling and adding short delay on one track, then panning them both away from each other. Slight comb-filtering added to the effect in that case, but I suppose in hindsight it's not a sound that would suit everything.

I'm quite a big fan of recording twice now... I believe I mentioned that in a thread somewhere in the Plugins forum.

Rcorderman,

Yeah I'm aware of all that but Eric Bazilian said he used ONLY a VG8 for ALL of the guitar, bass and keyboard sounds on that record and he tracked them all with a vintage strat. Oh yeah he used a loop CD for the drums.

Originally posted by Catoogie:
Rcorderman,

Yeah I'm aware of all that but Eric Bazilian said he used ONLY a VG8 for ALL of the guitar, bass and keyboard sounds on that record and he tracked them all with a vintage strat. Oh yeah he used a loop CD for the drums.

Well of course. I didn't "never". Compare the tones on whatever record that is though to others that use real amps and you should hear a nice comparison. I use amp farm for expediancies sake at times but not in ten thousand years can I make it sound as big as the real thing.
That doesn't make it better (well it does for me) just another way (in this politically correct world we now live in).

One thing that I've learned is that if you're looking for a "large" or "wall of" guitar sound and you want to do it by using lots of tracks, then you'll want to NOT use lots of killer, heavy distortion. The effect is that the more distortion you use, the leaner and thinner the tone. Your best bet in this situation is to use less distortion. Many times, a guitarist will set his rig to Maximum overdrive and this tends to thin the sound, rather than give a "massive" type sound. This is the problem that I have with distortion pedals and the like.. they tend to thin the sound instead of actually giving the intended sound that you might be looking for. On the other hand, if you want a thinner guitar sound, then by all means.. crank the distortion.

One example is to listen to a Mutt Lange CD of say AC/DC or Def Leppard. Both of these bands, I think, are great examples of "large" guitar sound, and if you listen to the actual distortion, it isn't that heavy, but it does become percieved as "powerful", "full" and large!

Just my 2 pennies.
Brad

Good post and points B_Moon.

Yes, it's odd how the counter-intuitive stuff works, just like how sometimes making the bass sound big has nothing to do with the bass, or bringing out the highs actually means cutting the lows. David

ac/dc is a heavy distorded marshall doubled....def leppard is a bradshaw rig ( which i can't stand) because everyone in the eighties had the same sound.

I've found that mixing some bottom end of the dry track can beef up heavy distortion. Though this means either recording dry and amping later, or using a software-side amp sim. (ugh for some of you ;P)