The bass dual track mixing technique

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article!

Today we're going to check our more in depth one of the techniques already explained in our more general "how to mix a good rock/metal bass" article, the most popular one: the dual track mixing technique.

This technique consists basically in having 2 tracks of the same bass take, they can be either the recording of a bass d.i. duplicated in 2 independent tracks, or 2 microphoned tracks, pointing to different parts of the cabinet (one needs to capture the high end and one the low end of the bass tone).

On the individual tracks, narrow down the eq of the low-end track by using a lo-pass filter from 500hz down (you can use also a hi-pass from 40hz up if you feel like you need to clean also some low end rumble), and on the high-end track use a low pass filter from 7khz down and a high pass from 500hz up.

Now that we have our 2 tracks nice and separated in terms of eq we can use any type of distortion we want in the high end track, for example an amp simulator (some also like to use very nasty metal amp sims for guitar to add grit to this track), and in the low-end track we should add a nice broadband compression to start making the low end stable, by reducing 2/3db of gain.

Once the 2 tracks are properly processed it's time to balance them in volume (it's likely that we will have to put the high end track quite lower than the low end one, because of its capacity of be more ear-piercing.

Now that the 2 tracks are well blended together is time to route them into a group track and load in this track an eq to sculpt the sound, if we need it (for example some like to cut a bit around the 300hz area to remove a bit of low-mids mud and to boost a bit around 920hz to add some nasal tone), then we can load a multiband compressor, with 2 bands that should be matching the frequency areas of the 2 tracks, so that we can shave off some other unwanted fluctuation in dynamics without changing the general tone, because if we would use the same compression settings for both tracks there's a chance that what sound good for one of the 2 tracks would have unwanted results for the other.
Bear in mind that the low end track already has a bit of compression, so we should keep it in mind when applying this second compression to the low end track (so let's be less aggressive with the gain reduction than we would if there was just one compressor), and that in the distorted track the gain as well acts a bit as compressor.

Finally we need to make the bass tone rock solid, stable on its railway in which it needs to stay in terms of volume and dynamics, and in order to do so we nee to load a limiter (or a maximizer) and push it until we reach 3db of gain reduction (click here for an article on how to keep the Bass stable with a Limiter).
Once you find the right setting to keep the bass track tamed and stable all the time, you can basically use the output ceiling of your limiter as volume knob, and in order to dial the right level it's important to connect it with the kick drum, as explained in this article.

I hope this was helpful!

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How to keep the bass stable with a limiter

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article!

Today we are going a little more in depth in the topic of mixing with a limiter, and this article should be taken as an expansion of our "Should I put a limiter on each single track when I mix?" discussion.

My conclusion today of this whole discussion is that depends on the genre. 
There are genres in which the instruments with the biggest dynamic excursion (which are usually bass, vocals, maybe cymbals, clean or acoustic guitars and acoustic instruments in general), those in which the performer can really choose to play some part extremely quiet and extremely hard can use some track limiting, while in other genres like extreme metal, in which there is already a lot of distortion (which acts as natural compressor), drum samples etc, this is less useful and you can stick also just with the compression.

Let me elaborate more: 

If you have a song in which in the first half the singer sings with just a whisper and in the second half sings one octave higher, with very loud peaks, the first thing to do is to do some clip gain, then when the volumes are more or less consistent you can put some compression to make the track more coherent, and finally, since maybe in the highest and loudest parts there might remain some loud peak, instead of manually lowering every peak you can put a limiter with a threshold set only to check those, and bring them down.
In this case the limiter acts as final wall for the peaks that are so loud that still can't be properly tamed by a compressor, because if you would set the compressor hard enough to stop them, it would harm the rest of the vocal track, and the same concept applies to any other instrument.

The trick therefore, if you still hear some part in some track that is popping out too much, is first to try to see if you can solve in some other way, for example sometimes in palm mutings the low-end recoil can be solved simply lowering the bass on the amp or moving the microphone a couple of cm back from the speaker, but if you can't solve, the limiter with a high threshold, set just to stop those occasional peaks, can be a solution, just don't overdo it, like leaving it with a threshold that keeps it active all the time, or you will damage the sound of your instrument.

I hope this was helpful! 

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NaLex Ampex review (free VST plugin with video sample)

Hello and welcome to this week's article!

Today we're going to review a new free guitar and bass amp simulator which is produced by NaLex and which incorporates the models of their other single VST plugins in one: the Amplex!

This plugin is defined by the producer as "guitar tube multiamp", and it recreates a head composed by a preamp section, with gain and eq, and a power amp section, with "power amp" (which is the power amp level control, and even if increased mantains the output volume constant), presence and resonance.

Besides these basic controls the particularity of this plugin is the fact that it can load presets (and comes with many presets bundled), each one of which corresponds to a particular guitar amp (for example the rhythm channel of a 5150, the clean channel of a Fender Twin, or the overdrive channel of an Ampeg bass amp).

Here is the list of the amps simulated, and for each one of them there are usually two or more presets, each one recreating a channel (for example clean and overdrive):

2120 is Peavey 5150 style
Barbarian is Engl Savage style
Bass is Ampeg SVT style
Citrus CR120 is Orange OR120 style
Crunchman is Friedman BE-100 style
Firecube is Engl Fireball style
Four is Diezel VH4 style
Gerbert III is Diezel Herbert CH-3 style
Hell is Randall Satan style
Hot Dog is BadCat Hot Cat style
J800 is Marshall JCM800 style
J800 Lead is Marshall JCM800 Lead Series style
Ketchup is Tomato style
Magic is Crate BV style
Pectifier is Mesa Rectifier style
Revolt is Krank Revolution style
SV is Carvin Legacy style
Twin Clean is Fender Twin style
Uber is Bogner Ubershall style
ZLO is Soldano SLO style

I'm really surprised of how good this amp sim sounds, especially considering that it's free: it is versatile, sounds very realistic, honestly I don't see differences with most of the paid amp simulators on the market (obvioustly excluding the 2 or 3 cutting edge high end ones) and also stable, even if it's not the lightest on the cpu, when loaded on a stereo buss.

I suggest all of you to check it out, it might just be what you were looking for, especially for rock and metal, but there are enough models here to get good tones also for any other genre.

Thumbs up!

Specs taken from the website:


- Controls:

- Gain - input level knob

- Bass - tone knob

- Middle - tone knob

- Treble - tone knob

- Power Amp - power amp level knob (level stabilized input/output)

- Low End - tone knob (resonance)

- Presence - tone knob

- Volume - output level knob

- Stereo - mono or stereo switch

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How to adjust the action of a guitar or bass (a guide for dummies)

Hello and welcome to this week's article!

Today we are going to see how to adjust the action of a guitar or bass, and this is to be considered the "prequel" of our article about how to set the intonation of our instrument.
Small disclaimer: this is more an article to explain how things work, if you want to have a professional work go to a luthier and have him set up the guitar for you, while if you're a DIY lover, proceed at your own risk :D

First off the definition: the action is the space between the top of the 12th fret of our guitar and our strings, and it determinates the comfort and the speed of our playing: a higher action will allow us to be more precise and with a cleaner sound, but a lower action will allow us to go faster with less effort, so the right distance varies according to our taste and there isn't a height that fits perfectly for everyone (even if Gibson suggests, for its guitars, a minimum string height at the first fret of 1.22mm for the high E and 1,98mm for the low one)
.
Beware that if the action is too low we will have fret buzz or mute frets, meaning that in some part of the keyboard the string gets muted (the so called "dead note"): in this case we'll have to raise slightly the string height or adjust the truss rod.

The normal position of the neck is either absolutely straight or with a very, very slight bow ("u" shape), in an almost imperceptible way; if the neck is too bent backwards (the so called "n" shape) or forward (the so called "u" shape) we will need to adjust the truss rod (which is a metal rod that lies inside the neck and counterbalances the string tension) with a hex key:

If the neck is bent "n" shaped, the frets will buzz in the certral part of the fretboard, meaning around the 5th to 12th fret, while if the neck is bent "u" shaped, it will buzz in the lowest and highest frets.

In both cases we can solve by finding the screw of the truss rod, which is usually located in the headstock, and sometimes it is covered with a lid, and turning the screw with the hex key.

By turning the truss rod screw COUNTERCLOCKWISE you will add relief, meaning that the neck will make less resistance to the tension of the strings and it will become more "u" shaped, while by turning it CLOCKWISE you will reduce relief, meaning that the neck will make more resistance and will become more "n" shaped.
By adjusting the neck curve what we are looking for is the sweet spot in which there is no fret buzz nor dead notes when playing every string in every fret of the fretboard: when this happens, it means our instrument neck is straight.

Once the neck is straight it's time to adjust the string height of our action: we need to turn the screws at the sides of the bridge (in case of tune o'matic bridge) to raise or lower the string height until we find the perfect action that is not too uncomfortable to play and that lets every note ring perfectly.
There are also bridges (like the Fender ones) that lets us regulate the height of each single string by raising or lowering the individual saddles.

Once our guitar is straight and the string height it's perfect it's time to work on the string intonation (click here for a dedicated article)!


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How to record a song part 3/6: bass!

Once we have all of our drum recordings done it's time to track the instrument that serves as bridge between the rhythmic section of the song and the harmonic one: the bass.

The bass is an instrument that can be recorded in several ways: it can be real, or it can be Midi (click here for an article about virtual bass), it can be played with the fingers, or with a pick.
The first thing to do before recording a real bass is to dedicate some time to its mantainance: it's a good idea to clean the fretboard, and especially to mount new strings (click here for a dedicated article), in order to have all the harmonic richness we can (with time the strings tend to become more dull sounding and lose their brightness).

After we have the new strings mounted it's time to control the intonation (click here for a dedicated article) so that we are sure that the bass is in tune in all the points of the fretboard.

Once our bass is ready to rock, we need to decide how to record it.
There are several ways:

- To record straight into the audio interface, directly from the bass or through a bass preamp

- To microphone a bass cabinet

- To do both of the above at the same time with a splitter

The purpose, as we will see in the bass mixing part, is to have a clean bass track to use as the low-end part of the tone, and another one (that can be distorted before reaching the audio interface or via plugin) that will provide the upper range with all the effects/coloring we want.

If the bass player wants to use his own gear (amp, stompboxes and so on), remember to put them in the right order, click here for an article about the perfect bass effect chain.


CLICK HERE FOR PART 1/6: PREPARATION!

CLICK HERE FOR PART 2/6: DRUMS!

CLICK HERE FOR PART 4/6: GUITARS!

CLICK HERE FOR PART 5/6: VOCALS!

CLICK HERE FOR PART 6/6: KEYBOARDS AND EXTRA ARRANGEMENTS!


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How to mix a song with free plugins part 2/5: Bass!

Hello and welcome to this week's article!
After we have our drums track ready and with a tone that we like (anyway we will need to adjust everything when the whole mix is more or less stable obviously, but we need to follow a certain order if we don't want to start building our house from the roof), it's time to further expand our rhytmic part of the song by taking care of the bass.

The bass sound, and in general the low end of a mix, is what often makes the difference between an amateur recording and a professional one, and this is caused by two factors:

1) the monitoring system (click here for a dedicated article): if we don't have a good one, it's almost impossible to have a realistic representation of what we are doing, basically we are mixing blindly, because we don't have a clear idea of how the mix will translate in the various platforms.

2) we need to mix keeping in mind the changes that happens during mastering: we need always to keep in mind that with the mastering the overall perceived loudness (and the low end) will be much more prominent, so we need to put in our mix neither too much low end nor too little (and if the mastering makes it unbalanced we need to reopen the mix and adjust).

After this fundamental introduction we need to mix our bass track by having always clear the mix separation (click here for a dedicated article): it's important that we assign to all instruments a specific place in the mix and that we avoid frequency masking, if we don't want them to disappear one behind the other.
The various instruments must pop out together and be always easily recognizable at all times, the mix must be clear and easy to listen if we want people to enjoy it.
In order to give every instrument its part in the spectrum we must also decide which one will be dominant between the kick and the bass: if we want the bass to be dominant (or "above the kick", like for example in Iron Maiden) we need to carve room in the eq of the kick leaving it more into the low end area and leaving more mids to the bass, or the other way around: if we want the kick to really poke through the mix (like in the band Fear Factory) we need to carve a bit of the mid range frequences out of the bass tone and use a kick sound with a lot of presence.

There are several ways to mix a bass, but the two most popular ones are described here: how to mix a good rock/metal bass (free vst plugins included).

Once we have a good bass tone, we need to balance it properly with the drum sound and a good rule is to use the Low End Mix Trick: we need put in solo the kick and bass tracks, then we zero out the bass volume and take notice of where the kick peaks (for example -15db), then we slowly rise the bass track volume until the sum of the 2 in the master bus is 3db louder than the kick alone (in our example so it should peak at -12db).
This is a good rule of thumb for building the low end of our mix, and starting from the kick-bass interaction we can develop the whole project on solid fundations.


CLICK HERE FOR PART 1: DRUMS!

CLICK HERE FOR PART 3: GUITARS!

CLICK HERE FOR PART 4: VOCALS!

CLICK HERE FOR PART 5: KEYBOARDS AND EXTRA ARRANGEMENTS!


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How to clean up a distorted guitar and bass sound using eq

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article!
The article of today is a focus on guitar and bass hi gain sound, so it should be used as addition to our article How to mix a rock/metal guitar and How to mix a rock/metal bass.

This article will only talk about the distorted, hi-gain guitar and the hi-gain part of a bass track (if you are using a dual or more tracks technique), and starts from the assumption that a distorted track has by nature a good part of noise and resonances, and we need, from that noise, to minimize the bad part and emphasize the useful one.

How do we tell the good part from the bad part?
By nature a distorted track adds a big amount of gain and saturation in all frequencies, therefore along with an important increase of level for what is the original sound of our instrument we end up with a lot of "dirt", which eventually might end up by covering the other instruments, or producing unwanted peaks that prevents us from rising the overall volume.

By finding and notching out those peaks and resonances we will free a considerable amount of headroom (very hard to point out at first listen, unless you have a trained ear) that will let us raise the volume of the track, making it more present and at the same time it will sit better in the mix. Sometimes, in facts, we might feel our guitars weak, low in volume, not very present, but if we rise the volume we will have it reaching the maximum level and clipping while it still sounds weak and low; that's because some frequency that we might even not notice at first is so high in volume that hits the ceiling before all the rest, thus keeping all the rest of the curve low.

How do we find these resonances to notch out?
The nature and the modern technology comes in our aid, with our ear (here's an ear training tutorial) and with frequency analyzers (here's a dedicated article).
Obviously frequency analyzers are importants because we can see right away if there are resonances and take them down some db until they are aligned with the rest of the curve, but the thing that makes the difference between a regular mix engineer and a good one is by using the ear to clean up the track.

It's very simple to do once you know how to do it: you create with an eq a narrow notch and boost it considerably, around 6/10db, then you start sweeping left and right through your distorted guitar and bass sound.
You will hear every kind of weirdness but what we are looking here are the frequency areas that does not resonate with the note that the instrument is playing in that moment (for example in a guitar riff with a sequence of notes), leave the parts in which you can hear strongly the note played and focus on the parts in which there is a noise, a weird sound, that remains the same regardless from the note played.
Those are the frequencies we are looking for, and once we isolate them, we must take them down 2 to 4db, until they are not so prominent anymore.

Think about those frequencies as junk to remove: what we are aiming here is to notch out 2 or 3 of these areas, quite surgically, in order to make room to the part of the sound that will be actually audible in the mix: the ones that comes with the note; the others are useless and eat up only headroom.
I'm not writing specific frequencies here because they vary according to an infinity of factors: guitar, pickups, string gauge, amplifier, and most importantly, the tuning.

I hope this was helpful!


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Guitar and bass cabinets: everything you need to know (Part 2/2)

CLICK HERE TO READ PART 1/2


The power amp can be connected to the cabinet through a back panel which has the input jacks, and in this is very important the impedance (click here for a dedicated article): we must make sure that the power amp impedance matches the one of the head if we want to avoid damaging it.
Many cabinets have different inputs for different impedances, or a selector.

Speaking of speakers (click here for a dedicated article), we choose among a big variety: usually guitar speakers goes from 5 inches to 15 inches, and bass speakers ranges from 10 to 15, but there are also in this case exceptions.
The classic speaker for guitar has a 12 inches radius, while for bass are also very common 10 inches or 15.
The rule of thumb is that the smaller the radius, the more boxy and trebly the sound will be, the bigger, the more bass content will produce.
Sometimes bass amps have different size speakers to reproduce singularly the high end (tweeters) and the low end (woofers), and the division of the tone between the two speakers is done by a crossover circuit built in the cab.

Cabinets can also be connected between them in a method that is called "daisy chaining": the amp goes into a cabinet, and from that cabinet into another connecting them in parallel, but this option must be present in the back panel of the cab.

A final interesting note is about recording.
When recording a guitar cabinet (click here for a dedicated article) we must choose the speaker that sounds better (through some trial and error), since usually there is some difference between speaker and speaker in the same cabinet, but it's important to point out that in this case the rule "the bigger the better" does not apply: sometimes 1x12 cabs will sound more focused and clear than a 4x12, so consider spending a bit more time in the studio experimenting before making your decision.
For bass instead is a common practice to record both the d.i. sound and the microphoned one in order to blend them, since is quite hard to obtain all the tone we need just by microphoning the cabinet.
About recording is worth to mention also the isolation cab (like the one in the picture): a cabinet that can be microphoned like a regular one and that is closed by an insulation lid so that it produces no sound on the outside: the only thing audible is the sound captured by the microphones, that is sent to a mixer for recording or live mixing purposes. Sometimes touring bands use this for the signal to be sent to the p.a., to avoid microphoning one of the stage cabs, but this method is starting to fade as speaker emulations are becoming increasingly common also among touring bands.

I hope this was helpful!

CLICK HERE TO READ PART 1/2


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Guitar and bass cabinets: everything you need to know (Part 1/2)

Hello and welcome to this week's article!
This time we talk about guitar and bass cabinets: what is the best choice for us?

A guitar or bass cab is a box shaped enclusure in which one or more speakers are placed, and they are the output device from which we can drive the sound of our amplifier.
Guitar cabinets can come standalone or as Combo, meaning that they incorporate also a preamplifier and a power amp, making them a single, portable solution for the musican on the go.

A cabinet can come in many different shapes, and during the years producers have become very creative, proposing alternative, lighter versions, but for this basic article we are going to focus on the classic type, which can be straight (a cube or parallelepiped version) or slant, meaning that becomes thinner on the upper side to save some weight and direct the sound not only on a straight line but also towards the ears of the player.

Usually a guitar cabinet has one, two or four speakers, according to the needs (not everyone wants to carry around a big, heavy 4x12, but sometimes on big stages it is really helpful!), and the speakers can be set in two horizontal rows, to be as space effective as possible, or in some 2x12 they are placed diagonally, in order to achieve the opposite result: to have as much room possible for each speaker.
Cabinets with two speakers can be engineered to give their best when put horizontally or vertically, but most of them can be placed in both positions with no difference.

Every kind of cabinet can have the back panel open, half open, closed or modular.
A closed back cabinet will have more sound waves bouncing inside, summed up to the one projected from the front of the speaker, and this will result in a darker, more bassy tone, while open back speakers will have more sound diffusion, and this will produce a more "open", highs oriented sound.
Half open back speakers tries to achieve a bit of the two effects.
Cabinets can be built in various types of wood too, and although many claims that it can affect somehow the final sound, I am not sure about this, as I have never noticed huge differences.
Another variable is the size: smaller , thinner cabs are lighter and easier to carry around, but will provide a slightly thinner, more highs oriented sound, compared to those with the same speakers but larger in terms of depth (which is measured in liters).

CLICK HERE TO READ PART 2/2



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Differences between Class A, B, AB, D power amps

Hello and welcome to this week's article,
today we're going to talk about power amps!
This article is to be intended as a follow up to our Tube vs Solid State power amps article.

Let's start off by saying I'm no engineer, I have made some research (I will put at the end of the article my sources), and the aim of the article is just to put in simple terms the differences, acting as a reference article for the simple musician that is not too expert in electronics.

We all have read in the description of a guitar amplifier (or any power amp in general) the definition "Class A", "Class B", "Class A/B", "Class D" and so on, wondering what it means: it is a code to describe the way the power amp works (yes, there are also other classes, but these are the most relevants in sound amplification).
First let's define what is a preamp and what is a power amp: a preamp is the device that boosts microphone and instrument level signals to line level, a power amp is the one that boosts the line level signal strong enough to drive a speaker.

Class A power amps: these were the first tube power amps ever created, the least efficient in terms of power comsumption to output ratio and the simpliest to build; basically the electricity passes thorugh one or more tubes in serie, which operates continuously. It generates a lot of heat and consumes the tubes much faster than the other circuit types, but it has also some particular property, for example it has no crossover nor switchoff distortion, which are typical of Class B power amps. A famous The tonal characteristics of this kind of power amp are a "bluesy" and particularly "musical" tone.

Class B power amps: in these amps there are two or more power tubes, and this configuration conducts the power half of the time in one tube and half of the time in the other (at a very high speed), prolonging the life of the power tubes but generating a very particular distortion, which is typical of many guitar amplifiers cranked to the max. This distortion is called "crossover distortion" because it is generated by the current that, moving from one tube to another alternatively (or from one transistor to another in solid state amps), for a split second in time it is not drawn by neither of the two, thus generating that noise.
As a general rule, Class B power amps grants more headroom, higher volume, better clarity and sparkle than the Class A ones.

Class AB power amps: these kind of amplifiers are very similar to the Class B ones, but the tubes doesn't stop drawing the current before the other one is on, so there is never a moment in time in which for an instant both of them are off. This reduces the amount of crossover noise, and allows to save at the same time some tube life and power comsumption. This system is often used in high-end home sound systems.

Class D power amps: these ones operates with transistors instead of tubes, and this means that they operate on a better power efficiency (less heat is generated, less electricity is wasted) and they work through a system called "pulse width modulation", which means that the sound is divided in many single pulses (measured in hertz), and the "width" of these pulses generates louder or quieter sounds. The "space" between a pulse and another is noise, which needs to be eliminated from the system with a filter, and all this project requires a significantly more complex amount of engineering compared to the tube circuits aforementioned. Class D power amps  usually are less expensive than their tube counterparts, but they lack some of the tonal characteristics many guitar players are after (although technology is slowly catching up, and it is very likely that in the near future this differences will be completely nullified), on the other hand they are much more reliable, solid and power efficient.

I hope this was helpful!


Sources:


Cambridge audio Class B and Class AB Amplification

Quora.com

RealhomeRecording.com

Paul Mc Gowan

Electronic Design.com

Electronic Tutorials.ws - Class A Amplifiers

Electronic Tutorials.ws - Amplifier Classes


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5 tips on how to set the correct pickup height

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article!

Today we are going to talk about the last step of our guide on how to make the perfect setup for our guitar, which has other 2 steps before: how to set the guitar action and how to set the string intonation. 

Bear in mind that this is not a technical article but more of a pragmatic guide on how to avoid it to be in the absolutely wrong position, rather than to give a fixed, perfect height, because it varies according to the taste of the player.

Let's start with a short recap: a pickup is a magnet that takes the vibration of the strings (or better the movement happening within the magnetic field around it) and turns it into a signal that, once sent to an amplifier, turns into sound.

The more the magnet is near to the strings the louder the signal will be, and therefore it will be more rich, saturated and with more bass frequencies content.

The farther it is from the strings, the more the guitar will sound acoustic, clean, trebly: these are the characteristics of a lower output.

How do we rise or lower the pickup? 

By turning the screws  on its sides: they touch the wood beneath and allow us to pull the pickup higher or lower. Keep in mind that if you know what you are doing, it can happen that the sound you are looking for is also with the pickup not 100% horizontal (if you want to add some output on a side or lower it on the other), and that some pickups offer also the possibility to adjust the single polepieces one by one. 

My suggestion is to do this only when strictly necessary or you will risk to lose the output balance among the strings.

What we are looking after is, when strumming the guitar with a clean sound, a tone that has on its tail a ring, like a slight tremolo/vibrato effect. If we are too close to the string the vibrato will disappear because it will be so fast that it will be inaudible, if we are too far it will be inaudible the same for the opposite reason, so we are aiming to the position in which the ringing is most audible, and this will mean that the sustain is optimal.  

Let's see the 5 basic tips on how to set the correct pickup height:

1) Avoid putting the pickup too close to the strings, first off because the strings can end up touching it (it happens especially with the neck pickup: try to play on the higher frets and see if you need to lower it a bit).

2) Another signal that our pickup is too high is when it is so bassy that it sounds muddy. We must lower it in order to increase the definition.  

3) Avoid keeping the pickup too low, because the guitar will sound just weak, and the sound will lose  its body.

4) The sweet spot lies somewhere in the middle between "too low" and too high, and it is usually found if you strum the guitar with a clean sound: the tail of the sound must ring, like a slight tremolo/vibrato effect. This means the pickup is on the optimal position.

5) This "sweet spot" of point 4 is actually not a spot but a range, and within this range you can move slightly up or down in order to increase or decrease the output until you find the tone you prefer (more clean or more aggressive).

I hope this helps!

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Mixing 2 or more Guitar Impulses

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article!
Today we are going to talk about the subtle art of mixing two or more impulse responses, recreating in the digital age a technique, the multi-miking, that is a world professional studio standard.
As we know impulse responses are snapshots of an ambient response captured by a microphone/preamp chain, which mantains the eq curve of the captured moment and allows us to apply it to our sound, and this method has proven to be particularly effective with guitars and bass amp simulators, making it the best replacement for a real speaker.
Another interesting characteristic of impulses is that they can be also captured from a song, and applied to our chain to "steal" part of their sound (here is a tutorial on how to do it).

What we are talking about today is blending together the sound of two or more impulses recreating what producers are doing by decades: if one microphone only takes part of the total sound let's mix and match more than one in order to capture the full spectrum.

The first thing is to check out if there is any phasing issue: the best paid impulse packs are usually phase coherent, but if we are mixing impulses found in different sources or the free ones it's better to make sure that one impulse is not putting the other out of phase.

Once we are sure that our impulses are phase coherent we need to load an impulse loader that allows to use multiple impulses, for example the free Ignite Amps NadIR, which allows to load two impulses, or the paid Redwirez MixIR 2, which allows to load many more.

My suggestion is to start with one impulse that we really like; the first one is really important because it will be the fundament of our tone, then find out what is lacking (if anything), for example "in the mix the guitar sounds too dark", or "the mid frequences are not focused" and so on, and then try to apply some of the classic microphone techniques used by the famous studios (the three most common are listed here) or to experiment with some new one: the idea is to compensate and enhance the first tone with a second impulse that captures it from a different angle, then you blend this second impulse in, rising or lowering its volume, and then adjust the whole guitar track (or buss) volume in order to fit it perfectly in the mix.

The two microphones technique is very popular in studios everywhere because it widens enormously the scope of sounds we can achieve, and it's interesting to see how some producer likes to add more and more microphones (even 8 or 10!), but beware, because the more microphones (or impulses) you add, the more you need to be good, otherwise the sound will rapidly become cloudy and unmanageable.

Let us know your favourite multi-Ir techniques!


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How not to be a Stompbox Addict Part 3/3

CLICK HERE FOR PART 1/3

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HOW TO BUY THE RIGHT PEDAL

At this point of the article you are almost out of the pedal addiction, you know in the bottom of your heart that all those pedalboards are quite useless and just a way to show how big the ego of that guitaris is. You know your hands make the real difference and that is better to put money into a solid instrument and a good amp and not into boutique pedals. But you still need a freakin pedal. Well, this is the guide.

• Take the best from what you have and improve your imagination. As said before maybe you don’t need a Reverb if your amp head has one, maybe you don’t need a distortion pedal too if the amp head sounds nice to your ears or at least try to have decent tone working on the knobs regulation before saying it’s crap.

• Go to one or more of your local shop instrument and try different kind of pedals / If you have a lazy ass try a multieffect of one of your friend to understand well how the various kind of pedals work alone and together.

• Project your pedalboard from the beginning in order to know how many and what kind of pedals you need.
  
  
  
• When you know what kind of pedal you need just start searching online all the features of the various brands. Maybe find some comparison video on youtube to understand better the differences and what they do.
  
  
  
• Try the pedal between your amp and your instrument, pedals don’t have ANY sound, they just modify the signal between the instrument and the amplification, so don’t trust just Youtube videos.
  
  
  
• Don’t buy the cheapest/don’t buy the most expensive. Saving money doesn’t mean you have to waste them into awful pedals.
  
  
  
• Buy with your ears, not with your eyes! No one cares if you have digital or analog pedals, or if they are built in Japan or Indonesia, no ones give a fuck! They must sound good to you.

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How not to be a Stompbox Addict Part 2/3

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You are almost out of the “pedal addiction” and you are maybe considering that you don’t need twenty pedals… but just ten. Well, if you are a hard one, here is a list about why all those pedals are going to be a big problem for you!

WHY USING LESS PEDALS IS BEST FOR YOU

• The problems – More pedals = more jacks = more things that can randomly stop working and takes time to find the problem if the sound disappears = more sound degradation between the guitar and the amp (yes, even if they are true bypass and if you are using 150€ jacks) = MORE NOISE.

• Improve your imagination – You must have crystal clear in mind what type of sounds you are after and then you must try to achieve it using as fewer steps as possible. Example: I need a really good clean for arpeggios. I can use the reverb on the amp head, its clean channel and a echo/delay pedal. Just buying one pedal you can craft your clean tone modulating it with the pedal and forging the core with your amp, which is almost always the best solution both for clean and high gain sounds. Use your imagination to build the shortest pedal chain as possibile and then look at the faces of the people asking you how it’s possibile that you have this awesome tone with that few pedals!

• Tip Tap - Using pedals must be easy and you can’t dance tapping sixteen stompboxes during your live shows, or you’ll go crazy. Of course you can use a Midi pedalboard to simplify the selection of pedals but do you really need all those pedals? Less tap = more fun!

• Save space for touring - Less is more, everytime, think about touring with a huge case full of pedals and then think about to travel with just a little bag with the essential you need.

• Save money for Amp head and instruments – I know boutique pedals look gorgeus and they can do stuff you can barely imagine but to spend 600$ in pedals when your guitar costs 300$ is really stupid. They will never give you the tone you are searching for if your amp sucks and your instrument sounds dead.

• The touch - I’ll be really frank now: what makes the differences in order to have an awesome tone is, first of all, your hands. How you play and what you play makes the real big difference in tone and sound, your way to pick the strings, to pull them down, the speed of your vibratos, the pressure of your fingers and how clean you’re moving them from a chord to another is what makes you sound better. No pedal can give you this skills. Stop craving for that damn ultra warm delay with seven knobs if you are not able to play a good arpeggio without it.

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How not to be a Stompbox Addict Part 1/3

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's article! 

Today we are publishing a new article done by our collaborator Edoardo del Principe, and it is a humoristic take on the issue of the "stompbox addiction".

I hope you like it!

Most of guitarists suffer a serious illness called “stompbox addiction” which causes tons of dollars wasted in boutique pedals with nice finishes and 40 knobs. Even the poorest guitarist with this addiction has at least 10 Behringer pedals just to have a big pedalboard. I have mercy for them and I don’t want new guitarists to fall into this sick world, therefore this is the guide to not fall into “pedals addiction”!

The first and more important step is “prevention”. To do that you need to understand who you are.

A young teenage guitarist which is studying guitar: your eyes are full of hope and you are already dreaming to play as Steve Vai but your tone sucks and your 15watt combo can’t help you. Your solution is a basic multi effect as the Boss ME25. It has a preamp section which is useful to play without any amp, just using the output “phones” and connecting your multieffect to your headphones you can practice for hours without being stricken by your mom’s slipper. The Boss ME25 has everything you need and connecting it to your pc and downloading specific softwares you can find literally hundres of patches to sounds like AC/DC, Metallica, Deep Purple etc with FEW CLICKS. Boss Tone Central is the software to control your presets and patches and it can give you a really good tone with no effort.

If you are not into all these stuff and you just want to practice maybe with your acustic guitar my best advice is the Boss RC 3. It’s a looper and is really useful to learn to play over a drum track, creating loops, learning solos etc. The Boss RC 3 is a really good machine for every beginner guitaist and you’ll improve just using it. I promise.

Someone called me to play in a band, I’ve got just the Boss Metal Zone: Stay calm and don’t panic. I know you don’t want to fight against feedbacks so before doing everything and going into pedal addiction you must know what you really need. Are you being called to play in Thrash Metal band or in a Folk Rock band? After this you maybe don’t know if you need a Flanger or a Fuzz, so, my advice is to buy a sort of “live pedalboard” as the Boss ME70, Line6 Pod Hd 500or other similar stuff. You have full control about the pedal chain and full control about every pedal in the chain: you’ll be able to craft your own sound in detail. You can use it with an amp head just putting off the preamp section and you’re ready to play every music genre.

If you are in one of these two categories following my advices you can being immune to the “pedals addiction” because in you early years of activity you tried every freakin’ type of pedal in the world so you thirst of pedals is satifistied (for now).

I’m practicing with my band but I want a better tone: Pedals are not the solution to your problem. On Youtube you can find thousands of video about how to improve your sound without spending a dime Pedals are the last part of a long process of sound crafting which starts at the beginning with the choice of your instrument and your amplification. If you have saved money in your instruments and amplification to put them into peadals you are following the wrong path. In order to have the perfect tone in your mind you need first of all a good instrument and give it voice with an amplification, this is the core of your sound. Pedals are the icing on top of the a cake. You need the right pedals, but if your cake is made almost entirely of icing, your cake will sucks. 

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The difference between tube and solid state amps

Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today we are going to take a look at the difference between tube watts and solid state, why does everyone say that there is a big difference?
Why does a 100w tube amp overshadows a 100w solid state one in a live environment?
I am no engineer, but we will try today to make a little clarity and to separate the facts from the myth.

Note: this article is an addition to our articles about, speakers and tubes.

Fact: 100w tube = 100w solid state.
The main difference is that a tube amp uses one or more vacuum tubes to amplify the signal while a solid state one relies only on diodes, transistors etc (for the sake of simplicity we won't talk about the many hybrids that uses a solid state power amp adding a tube just to add some harmonic warmth or those who uses digital emulation of tube response).
Then why in a live environment the tube amp usually sounds much more powerful than a solid state amp? For a serie of reasons, which involves the fact that tubes can increase certain harmonics (therefore push a little more the sound on frequences that appear to cut throught the mix better) and the break up limit.

What is the break up threshold?
When playing at a low volume with both a solid state and a tube amp we will notice that the difference between the two amps is not that noticeable, both amps have a certain amount of headroom (the space in which the volume can be increased without causing distortion), but then when we will turn up the volume we will notice that we will reach a level in which the headroom will finish and the amp will start distorting.
It's at this point that a solid state amp will start sounding really bad, therefore the volume excursion ends at the break up limit or a little over, while a tube amp can easily surpass it, since after the breakup the tubes really starts warming up adding a sligh compression and harmonic warmth that actually makes the sound even more pleasant.

What is a workaround that amp manufacturers usually choose to make solid state amps to sound comparable to tube amps? Easy: they add more watts, to let the preamp do his job with no interference.
Examples: the Marshall Mode Four head, which has 350 watt, which is used for example by the Testament guitarist Alex Skolnick, or the Fender Metalhead, which produces 400w, starting from the assumption that usually in order to match a tube amp at full volume a solid state one should usually have the triple of the wattage.

So far we have only talked about guitar amps, but with bass amps the wattages are even more extreme, because it takes even more power to deliver bass frequences with the right clarity, so the same rule applies to bass amplifiers too, and the wattages are even higher.

Myth: tube power amps sounds better than solid state power amps.
This assumption is true as long as you want/need the sound effect of tubes, which is, as we have said, a harmonic enhancement especially in the mid and high frequences and a sligh compression that influences the dynamic range. This is an effect that is often desired in rock, blues and other genres, while many jazz or funk players prefer solid state amps because they sounds usually more "clean", like the Roland Jazz Chorus, which is in production by 40 years and it is still considered an industry standard for the genre. The final word is that you should really try both solutions and find the right one for your music genre, keeping in mind that it's not mandatory to use the power amp type that everyone uses in a certain genre: heavy metal is a genre typically dominated by tube amps, but some of the most influential icons actually have shaped their tone with solid state amps (for example Dimebag Darrell of Pantera or Chuck Schuldiner of Death).

Difference between Peak and Rms wattage: some amps have the wattage calculated in rms (root mean square, which put in simple words is the average volume actually perceived by our ears), and often tube amps have their wattage reported in rms, which means that if they are 100w rms, they can play at 100w for hours, while other amps (often solid state ones) have their wattage expresses in peak: this means that if an amp is 100w peak, it can sound 100w for one fraction of a second, for example, while for most of the time it will play at around 50w rms. This is more of a marketing gimmick, and we should really be careful when reading the specifics of two amps when comparing them, or when choosing which one to buy.
This is another of the most common reasons why tube amps usually seems to sound much louder than solid state ones: the wattage is reported in a different way.

Click here for a Follow-up article about the differences between class A, B, AB and D power amps!


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The Focus of our Mix (a 5 points list)

Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today we are going to talk about "the big picture", in facts often sound engineers are detail oriented nerds which focuses their attention on one detail at the time and refine it to perfection, and sometimes they can get to a point in which they lose a holistic view of the mix, for example after hours spent working on a synth sound.
The result is that when the producer hears a mix he focuses on certain things that the final listener won't even notice, and he could lose the general view of how is the song perceived.

This small list is useful to "keep the eyes on the ball", since the listener hears the complete song, not the single parts, so we will try to break down the elements that usually are more noticed in a mix, so that we will know where to put most of our efforts.
Notice that this list applies for rock, metal, punk, funk and most of pop music, but there are other genres completely different in which these rules don't apply, because they would make the song excessively rhythm based (es. jazz), so use it at your own risk.


1) Snare sound: the snare sound is the business card of the song.
It's the first thing that gets to the ear of the listener, because it is made, along with vocals, to resonate exactly in the most audible frequences for the human ear.
The snare sound alone can decide the genre of a song, imagine the typical reggae snare of the Bob Marley albums, the dry and snappy sound of the electronic dance music one, the shotgun sound of 80s rock or the acoustic vibe of '60s and '70s rock snare.
If the snare sound is botched, the WHOLE song will sound amateur, or unpleasant, even if the listener can't recognize why, so make sure to nail it.
Click here for an article about mixing drums.

2) Low end (kick and bass): this is the punch of the song, and one the core elements that makes the difference between a very amateur recording and a professional one, because to be nailed it requires expensive monitors and use of metering tools that usually amateur mix engineers doesn't consider important.
If we get right the balance both in levels and in frequences of the rhythm section, which is the whole drumset (especially the balance between snare and kick) and the bass we have done most of the mix, because the whole song will sound balanced and the listener will focus on the content, the music, which is our main objective.
Bass and kick should go as in sinergy as possible, and this assumes we have good tracks, played in time and well arranged, and the frequences should be complementary each other when mixing, so that the "house" we are building has strong foundations.

3) Vocals: Once we have a solid rhythmic section we must focus on vocals, because (unless we are mixing some swedish nineties death metal song) it will be the thing that will make the listener press play on our track.
If the vocals are bad, either because the singer is bad or because we have recorded or mixed him poorly, the song will be a failure, so we must treat it very carefully, considering that 70% of a vocal track happens during tracking; after that we can embellish it with reverb, delay, autotune, but if a vocal take sucks it cannot un-suck, so grab your best microphone, your best preamp, your best patience and record the track again if it doesn't sound perfect, because even if the song will be perfectly produced, if the vocal sucks, noone will ever want to listen to it.

4) Accompainment (guitars, piano...): now we must take care of everything is around the voice, such as guitars, or synths, or anything else, and we do it after drums and vocals, otherwise we would not be willing to sacrifice frequences or modify the perfect sound we have found to make room to drums and vocals. Keep your eyes on the ball guys!

5) Additional arrangement: This last element (such as adding small details like handclaps on snare here and there, some extra effect to underline a certain word, some lo-fi stop and go, automations etc), should be done once we have our general mix finished, and these details will be the candies we will throw to the listener to rise the attention when we are afraid he would get distracted, or to draw it towards a particular element of the song.
Use them with parsimony though, because otherwise if the song is too full of these tricks the listener will stop paying attention to them!

Click here to see the Part 2 of the focus of our mix!

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