An important mixing question

[abel]

Hi Gary,

I mean 2 things:

- Thicken the guitar sound for the E and B strings
- Get that nice Reverb ambiance with the guitar loud but clean upfront like in this Jazzy tune that Charles Campbell sent me:

Shotgun in a Jazzy style but Norman Teeling:

https://app.box.com/s/1ssgwf0n5xfcw8ftcgbzl3v2gotebvmx/file/450346176955

I know I might be asking for too much, but I dream of achieving this sound in my Live video (Swing / Boogie) recordings.

Thank you much,
Abel

[Garystrat]

Hi Abel,

There are often many elements that go into these tones, but you may like to try one or two thing to see if they can get you closer to what you are looking for?

Listening to the recording I wouldn’t have said the guitar is overly loud, to my ear it sits perfectly in the mix whilst cutting through well, which I would say has more to do with experienced EQ’ing.

With guitar its common studio practice to use an initial preset cutting the highs and lows to keep within the desired working frequencies to eliminate any muddiness on the lows, whilst taming the high ends and to some extent reducing unwanted noise. Whilst this might seem counter productive, I would try a low cut of between 110 - 130 Hz and between 5 - 8 kHz on the highs (Note: this is an EQ “cut”, not roll off).

With standard tuning the E and the B string are 82 Hz and 247 Hz on the low end respectively, so this should address to some extent what you describe.

I would also be inclined to work with a slightly lower guitar volume and keep the drive down, if you have an amp with switchable drive I think I would either try it off or fairly low and use track/master volumes to achieve acceptable levels with the BT, soloing this on the mixer I would aim for between -12 and -18 dB.

I’m not so sure about the reverb, but it seems to me there may be some finely balanced “early reflections” going on, which tend to be more subtle. If you are not aware “early reflections” are those naturally occurring before the sound bounces off surfaces and I feel adds more of a subtle dynamics and presence.

Adding a little compression may bring something to the table, but it’s one of those cases where less is probably more! LOL

Regards

Gary

[abel]

Hi Gary,

Thank you much for all this impressive info. I am afraid it is above my head.
I have these 2 EQs, and I don't know how to use them except that Dave sent
me a diagram on how to boost the mid on the 10 band EQ, and my E/B strings still sound thin.

https://ibb.co/wd915rp
https://ibb.co/album/WGY1d1

I don't want to take much of your time, you have been very helpful to me, my last
wish would be if you could recommend something better and probably a nicer Reverb pedal
than the Strymon BlueSky that I use.

Thank you much,
Abel

[abel]

Hi Folks,

After applying all the helpful tips from Stuart, Gary and Dave, here is a my first test on "Panhandle Rag"
At least the BT is in stereo now. It's not a professional BT, but my own combination of the Brass riffs I picked
from the 1959 Lawrence Welch show, and a midi backing track of the same song.
Hope you like it.
Please let me know what you think. Is the guitar loud enough?



Blessings,
Abel

[Garystrat]

Hi Abel,

I’m not comfortable giving recommendations for replacing the Strymon BlueSky reverb, I haven’t used one, but they are generally considered to be a pretty decent pedal.

Being perfectly honest, you already have some nice kit and I think you would benefit greatly spending time finding your way around it properly and understanding the settings. I also think that it would be advisable at the moment to take one of the EQ’s out the system as it’s probably confusing things for you, for your purposes I think I would stick to the MRX 10 Band for now, you have further EQ’ing on the mixer channel and I would zero the setting on these for the moment.

To try the cut I suggested. using the MXR 10 Band, put all settings at zero dB which is the in the middle of the slider, then take the 31.25 and 62.5 setting down to minus 12 dB (that’s the low cut). If this works in taking you in the right direction do the same with 125 setting, but you may find better results adjusting it some where in between. At the other end take the 8K and 16K down to -12 dB ( this is the high cut) (Gain is fine in the centre).

Regards

Gary

[abel]

Hi Gary,

I will try your settings today. Thank you much.
I play the Roland JC120, not sure if you are familiar with it, but should I keep the Treble the Mid and the Bass to 12 O'clock or lower?
I don't use any of the effects or EQ on the Mixer. All the settings are at 0.
Is the balance between the guitar OK to you in Panhandle Rag?

I much appreciate your expert recommendations.
Blessings,
Abel

[Garystrat]

Hi Abel,

Your question about the balance of guitar is not entirely straight forward, it’s not overly prominent in the mix, but I feel that it may well benefit more from EQ’ing rather than simply increasing volume!

If you have tried the EQ cut don’t be too concerned if you don’t hear an immediate difference when soloing the guitar, it’s a step process where in this case the high cut should clean up the guitar in the mix and help it cut through. Don’t worry about individual strings at this stage either.

The next step is to get as close as you can with optimising the tone controls on your amp, what I find a good way of finding the sweet on an amp is to turn down all the tone controls, then turn each one up in turn until you start to notice a definite change and note where that setting is, turn it back down and then do the same with the next one, when you have finished set them collectively to those settings. Use channel 1 for this to keep it all as simple as possible, the same settings should apply to channel 2 for those particular controls as well as well, at the moment idea is to get a good start tone from the amps characteristics.

I’m familiar with Roland amps, but not that particular model, I had a look at some reviews and in this one it does indicate that it takes some experience to get the tones (see “What Do Other Musicians Think of the Roland JC-120 “ section):

https://vintageguitarmasters.com/roland-jc-120/

I also found this video on Youtube which may be helpful for you, apparently it already has a parametric EQ and reverb:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bLx30P8wuE

Please let me know how you get on.

Regards

Gary

[abel]

Hi Gary,

I can't stress enough how all these tips you giving are helpful to me.
I always worried only about playing and improving my guitar skills and never got in depth into the settings etc... Let alone the amp.
Even the guitar, I have no clue on how to do the intonation, the only thing I always cared about is the action so that I can play comfortably
and for that, I use the truss rod or lower the bridge.
So as you can see I am not a connoisseur at all.
I love the idea of handling each EQ control separately as you suggested.
By the way, the book says it's just a regular EQ and not a parametric one.
I will do it today as I want to record "Sing Sing Sing" and I really need a good sound as I purchased a superb BT
from LondonArrangements (you guys are not chip, it costed me close to 13 British pounds ($17 USD).
As long as it helps UK's economy, I am happy.

Thank you much and Blessings,
Abel

[Stu's Dad]

Hi Abel,

Intonation's not difficult at all, there are plenty of videos for it on You Tube. I'm no EQ expert but I saw a video recently about it, and one thing I learned was that when you cut any frequencies you also cut volume, so there may be a need to balance that.

I've never heard of a BT costing so much, £3 is normally the top price over here. Yours may have been made to order with real musicians, making it more expensive.

Loved your Panhadle Rag by the way, very best wishes to you,

Len

[Garystrat]

Hi Abel,

Tone matching and learning about studio techniques influenced an early decision to go through a combination of pedals with a computer/DAW approach, with time this has now progressed to my using an all DAW/software based system. I’m very comfortable with the technology and for me it opens up opportunities for experimentation and trying techniques that would otherwise be impractical for the average enthusiast.

I use Helix Native software for amp modelling, low and behold I was surprised to find that I have Roland JC 120 modelling and although I have the actual pedal it also has MRX 10 Band EQ modelling as well, I mainly focus on the Vox models and to be honest had completely over looked it.

There is nothing too difficult about intonation, it just takes time, patience and an accurate tuner to do it properly, it needs to be right or the guitar is likely to be out of tune. I use a Peterson StroboStomp Classic tuner (as in the picture), which is extremely accurate, this also gives me what is know as “sweet tuning”, which is very fine adjustments from standard tuning.

Here s a link that that describes how to do it:

https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/how-t ... ntonation/

I would always encourage a properly setup instrument, it’s things like this the make a difference.

Look forward to hearing how you get on.

Regards

Gary