# What do you do to get a good sound for a clean guitar part?



## newbycomposer (Sep 27, 2015)

So I'm working on a song right now, pretty much just a popular music thing (metal) but Ive got this clean guitar part in it and I can't stand the sound. I'm using shreddage 2 but I know its not an issue with the virtual instrument since Ive heard some stuff people have done with it that got good clean parts. But I'm obviously missing something in regards to creating/mixing a good tone for a clean guitar part. Right now it has kinda dull muted sound to it, it doesn't have that nice crisp sound I would like. I'm using guitar rig and a viraity of free cab sims Ive found online.

I'll post a sound clip of it up in a little bit when I get a chance to upload the file to soundcloud.


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## EastWest Lurker (Sep 27, 2015)

Have you tried starting with an EQ with an analyzer so that you can see where the frequency energies lie?


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## SeattleComposer (Sep 27, 2015)

Well, that's a huge topic! So, to start -- you are plugged straight into your DAW? Are you using something like the MOTU Z Box? That will add a little life. Also -- a good guitar player, lol.


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## newbycomposer (Sep 27, 2015)

Yes and Ive tried a lot of eq stuff, but its not seeming to work. 

Ive been trying to find a song with the sound I want to who it but I'm having trouble. The closest Ive found is probable the intro to these 2 songs.





most of the guitar in this song



and then this guy, who is using the same exact VSTi I am (shreddage 2) gets pretty close to what I'm looking for.


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## newbycomposer (Sep 27, 2015)

SeattleComposer said:


> Well, that's a huge topic! So, to start -- you are plugged straight into your DAW? Are you using something like the MOTU Z Box? That will add a little life. Also -- a good guitar player, lol.




I'm using shreddage 2, so its a sampled DI.


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## newbycomposer (Sep 27, 2015)

Here is the track I'm working on , the clean guitar is around :44. 

Yes its an early mix, yes the drums suck, and yes there is probably still some midi editing that needs to be done on the clean guitar. I know, but the horrific clean tone is starting to get to me.


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## bbunker (Sep 27, 2015)

Hmm...I hear what you mean. I wouldn't touch the eq or anything else until the sound coming out of your 'amp' is what you want it to be. And I don't think that that is what you want it to be 

Just out of interest, which amp in GR are you using? And which outboard cab? This may be a stupid question but...you're sure that you bypassed or eliminated the cab in GR, right? If you're using an outboard IR and the GR IR is still engaged, then it's like two filters engaged - twice as muddy.

Why not just start with the twangiest, brightest amp, and go from there? Plug into the Twin (it's the Twang Reverb in GR), dial up a 1x12 or 2x12 Alnico, Open-back cab mic'ed with an SM-57. If that isn't giving you a snappy, twangy clean tone, then you're doing something wrong.


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## lux (Sep 27, 2015)

yeah it sounds like almost direct sound (no amp emulation). Usually in GR you get a much more crisp sound just by using one of the head simulations with its standard cab, with all the knobs at 12:00. The head emu should give an automatic scoop to remove muddyness.


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## ZeeCount (Sep 27, 2015)

Your tone is very dry, but in all the examples you have given they are absolutely drenched in effects. Try putting it through a heavy compressor, a mild chorus with a long rate, and then loads of reverb/delay. That should get you pretty close to what you want. Even a vox ac30 can sound pretty flat without these effects.
Here's an example of how much delay can change tone

.

In terms of the straight tone, does your guitar have humbuckers or single coil pickups? This will have quite a large effect on the tone you are getting. I tend to prefer split humbuckers or single coils for a tone like that, as humbuckers tend to sound a bit "thick". Most metal bands that use dual humbucker guitars tend to use a split coil middle position (both humbuckers split then run in series) for clean parts.


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## Jason_D (Sep 27, 2015)

ZeeCount said:


> I tend to prefer split humbuckers or single coils for a tone like that, as humbuckers tend to sound a bit "thick".




That is a good point. Shreddage 2 is an EBMM JP7 which has the coil split, but I don't think Shreddage 2 has that pickup position.


Here we go.


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## ZeeCount (Sep 27, 2015)

Jason_D said:


> That is a good point. Shreddage 2 is an EBMM JP7 which has the coil split, but I don't think Shreddage 2 has that pickup position.



If they sampled the EBMM JP7, then the "middle" position on the pickup selector on the actual guitar is the one I am talking about. Doesn't mean they chose to sample it I guess, as you would only use that position for clean sounds.


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## newbycomposer (Sep 28, 2015)

bbunker said:


> Hmm...I hear what you mean. I wouldn't touch the eq or anything else until the sound coming out of your 'amp' is what you want it to be. And I don't think that that is what you want it to be
> 
> Just out of interest, which amp in GR are you using? And which outboard cab? This may be a stupid question but...you're sure that you bypassed or eliminated the cab in GR, right? If you're using an outboard IR and the GR IR is still engaged, then it's like two filters engaged - twice as muddy.
> 
> Why not just start with the twangiest, brightest amp, and go from there? Plug into the Twin (it's the Twang Reverb in GR), dial up a 1x12 or 2x12 Alnico, Open-back cab mic'ed with an SM-57. If that isn't giving you a snappy, twangy clean tone, then you're doing something wrong.



Absoultly, I'm not super happy with this sound right now, I actually really like my distorted guitars (For once), I can normally get a good chuggy sound but anything that sounds good with open chords eludes me, but I'm pretty happy with that on here. But the cleans? Ew.

I'm using the ultrasonic set to the clean channel. Cab sim is completly turned off in guitar rig, I'm using Lecab 2 with the catharsis IR's for this guitar. 1on-pres5 65% left, 2off-preshigh 65% right. Eq, low cut at 239 (cubases eq is weird, it doesn't sound like its cutting out that much, I have to set it higher than I do in other plugins *shrugs). -11.7 @1191, which when I turned off I realized helped the tone a LOT so thats staying off, or at least diminished, not at -11 (which in retrosepct was pretty aggressive).

There is no amp sim in my guitar rig at all right now. I can't find ANYTHING called "twin" in my guitar rig at all right. I tried "twan reverb" and I"ll be honest I didn't really like it, a little TO twangy, I want it to pop, I don't want it so sound like bango lol. Its still needs to keep that heavy feel (ish I mean it IS a clean guitar but I think you know what I'm talking about). 



Ive played around with some distortion/saturation/compression and haven't really liked the results. 




ZeeCount said:


> Your tone is very dry, but in all the examples you have given they are absolutely drenched in effects. Try putting it through a heavy compressor, a mild chorus with a long rate, and then loads of reverb/delay. That should get you pretty close to what you want. Even a vox ac30 can sound pretty flat without these effects.
> Here's an example of how much delay can change tone



I'll be honest I have absolutly no idea what I'm doing when it comes to delay and reverb. I pretty much play it safe and use as little as possible (Which sometimes is still to much). I mainly use QL spaces from east west, which is more orchestra oriented but they have some setups I think work fairly well for what I'm doing, but honestly I have no idea, and playing with the reverbs that came with cubase (the only other reverbs I have) have been pretty messy.

I tried chorus on it cause a friend sugested that, but honestly it sounded pretty bad to me, but it might be because I don't know what I'm doing. Same with reverb, what are we talking? Mono? Stereo? pingpong? Also how heavy of a compressor are we talking? I'm not compressing any guitars so far on this project, just hasn't seemed to help so Ive left them off.


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## ZeeCount (Sep 28, 2015)

Here's some settings you can try. As always, it pays to experiment with the settings quite a bit till you find something you like.

For the compressor, try giving it a ratio of about 4:1, and set the threshold so it is hitting on every single note. Clean sounds in metal songs tend to be very heavily compressed such that the pick attack is the same volume as the rest of the note, as this helps give their characteristic sound. For the chorus, set it's depth so you can only just hear it, and make its rate as long as possible. You don't want to hear the individual sweeps of the chorus, you just want it to sweeten your tone up. Then put a stereo or pingpong delay with a time of around 400 ms, set the repetition so it does about 3 - 4 repeats, and give it a wet to dry ratio of 40:60 (can even go 50:50 if you want a really wet sound). For reverb, try a hall with a decay of about 3 seconds, and have a ratio of wet to dry of about 30:70.

Then if you want to be a bit more adventurous, you can route the echos of the delay to a separate channel, and put a filter and modulation on them to make them sound like an analogue delay. Then feed these delays back into the reverb.


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## KEnK (Sep 28, 2015)

I'm a guitarist but use guitar libraries now and then.
The problem w/ sampled guitars is they're always to bright and pristine.
This works ok for heavy distortion, but when you want clean it doesn't work.
So you need to back off the high end for starters.

For fun I just spent 5 minutes trying to get the tone you're after in your examples.
Got a surprisingly good result.
I don't have shreddage so I used orange tree strawberry,
but I've read good things about shreddage so I bet it will be fine.

All the guitarists in your examples are playing very softly.
So I kept the velocities between 40-60.
I overlapped the notes very far-

I turned on GR utrasonic.
(I'm confused when you say you're not using an amp sim)
Imo you definitely want the cab sim on (always)
This will make it "more real". If it's not bright enough turn up the treb/presence.
I used the ensemble chorus- w/ most of the knobs turned to the 10 o'clock position.
Then the delay man set similarly.

As Zeecount says- a little bit of each- then a wash of reverb.
That's what your example guitarisits are doing.
Playing arpeggios softly through chorus, delay and reverb into an amp w/ speakers.
You probaly don't want the bridge pick up.

I'm sure you can get the tone you're after w/ the gear you have.

k


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## bbunker (Sep 28, 2015)

As far as I know, Shreddage 2 doesn't have anything but Bridge Position samples. So using the Middle PU Switch setting isn't an option.

That also wasn't clear - if you're using Ultrasonic, then that's an amp sim, so you ARE using an amp sim...right???

Yes - Twang Reverb is a model of a Fender Twin Reverb. Not to be too condescending, but if it's too bright...well, did you turn the bright switch off?!? And then roll back the Highs or Mids. And you've turned off the Reverb and the Tremolo, right? And have you tried running it through GR's cabs instead of Catharsis? Also, you put the Chorus you're using AFTER the cab, right? Putting it before the amp is going to have the pre-amp gritting up the chorus sound, which isn't what you want. Same with your delay or reverb. Put those after the cabs - Usually a good signal chain of those would be Cab - Delay - Chorus - Reverb, since then you're not delaying all of the swoosh in the Chorus. But especially don't put Reverb before the Delay and Chorus, or you'll get a mess from all the Early Reflections getting delayed or swooshed.


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## KEnK (Sep 28, 2015)

bbunker said:


> Shreddage 2 doesn't have anything but Bridge Position samples. So using the Middle PU Switch setting isn't an option.


Well in that case some eqing before the amp sim might help.
Boost the low mids- roll off the highs.
If you're really picky you could try some kind of harmonic enricher or saturator 
to get more of a neck pick up sound.
(Also before the amp sim)

k


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## ZeeCount (Sep 28, 2015)

bbunker said:


> Also, you put the Chorus you're using AFTER the cab, right? Putting it before the amp is going to have the pre-amp gritting up the chorus sound, which isn't what you want.



Actually it is very common for guitarists to put effects like a chorus, flanger or phaser before the amp (or even before boost/drive pedals). Putting a chorus into a slight crunch gives you a very thick sound that can work really well and it also tends to smooth out the chorus, making it a bit more subtle.

If you really want to make it sound like a recorded guitar, you should have all these effects _before _the cab sim. This will simulate the way a real guitarist records this, with these effects in the effects loop of the amp (ie after preamp but before power amp and speakers). Signal chain I would use is:

Shreddage 2
EQ
Compressor
Chorus
Amp sim (with no cabsim)
Delay
Reverb
Cab Sim

Also, I wouldn't necessarily use Carthesis for this. Those impulses are designed for very heavy rhythm tones. If you try experimenting with different impulses you'll see that they have a drastic effect on the tone you get.


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## bbunker (Sep 28, 2015)

I disagree on some points. 

Putting the compressor first? If you're looking for that Dyna-Comp, country kind of sound then absolutely, go full-bore. But here, I think you'd want to be very mild with any compression before the pre-amp, because it'll have a tendency to make all the transients have the same saggy attack and preamp breakup, where what you'd want at this stage to get the most 'spank' out of the clean tone would be to have as much differentiation between soft and loud notes to give them different tone colors. I would think an opto compressor after the amp would be a better way to even transients without giving everything too much preamp color.

Chorus before the amp sim? It doesn't really replicate the effects loop, does it? It replicates using a stomp box before the preamp. In this case I wouldn't use a stompbox, I'd want to use a rackmount chorus in the effects loop or after it already has been recorded. Don't you think that the point of an effects loop is to allow a guitarist to replicate effects like chorus, reverb and delay coming after the recording process, but live? Putting any of those effects before the preamp defeats this, so I don't see how that would be the best option.

In a similar vein, putting your Delay and Reverb in the effects loop is something that we've always done to replicate studio effects live. I don't see why you'd want to replicate the sound of what guitarists use in lieu of the thing which you could just as easily do in itself, since you have the studio tools available?!?

I do agree on the cab - that doesn't seem the right choice for the job.


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## ZeeCount (Sep 28, 2015)

First thing I'll say, as with all things audio, there is no right or wrong way to do anything. There are just different sounds, and always a myriad of ways to achieve said sounds. I'm approaching this from the perspective of a guitarist with a good tube amp and pedal board, and trying to replicate the same effect with a DAW.



bbunker said:


> I disagree on some points.
> 
> Putting the compressor first? If you're looking for that Dyna-Comp, country kind of sound then absolutely, go full-bore. But here, I think you'd want to be very mild with any compression before the pre-amp, because it'll have a tendency to make all the transients have the same saggy attack and preamp breakup, where what you'd want at this stage to get the most 'spank' out of the clean tone would be to have as much differentiation between soft and loud notes to give them different tone colors. I would think an opto compressor after the amp would be a better way to even transients without giving everything too much preamp color.



With respect, I disagree with this. In metal, clean sections are usually trying to be as even as possible with very little dynamics or tonal change. Have a listen to all the clips he provided; they are all the same in this regard. If you were going for something more dynamic sure, but clean metal tones usually have no dynamics at all. This isn't to say that you can't do it this way, but I wouldn't consider it to be very idiomatic of the metal sound. For the original poster, try both, and see which sound you prefer.



bbunker said:


> Chorus before the amp sim? It doesn't really replicate the effects loop, does it? It replicates using a stomp box before the preamp. In this case I wouldn't use a stompbox, I'd want to use a rackmount chorus in the effects loop or after it already has been recorded.



It entirely depends on what the purpose of the chorus is. In this situation, chorus isn't really being used as a modulation effect but more as a way of thickening and sweetening the tone. This is why you put it before the amp, as effectively the chorus is doubling your guitar sound. If you put it after the amp you will end up with a very 80s hair metal sounding clean tone, which I don't think the original poster is looking for.



bbunker said:


> Don't you think that the point of an effects loop is to allow a guitarist to replicate effects like chorus, reverb and delay coming after the recording process, but live? Putting any of those effects before the preamp defeats this, so I don't see how that would be the best option.
> 
> In a similar vein, putting your Delay and Reverb in the effects loop is something that we've always done to replicate studio effects live. I don't see why you'd want to replicate the sound of what guitarists use in lieu of the thing which you could just as easily do in itself, since you have the studio tools available?!?
> 
> I do agree on the cab - that doesn't seem the right choice for the job.



The reason for putting an effects loop in an amp is so that you don't end up with the distortion of the preamp stage affecting the delays and reverb. If you put delay first, the very first notes will have the most distortion, and the following notes will have less, which leads to an unusual (but still very useable sound). For a clean amp it doesn't matter as much, as long as you don't have too much power amp distortion. However, the clarity of the echos and reverb are affected by where you put them in the chain. If you put stuff through the effects loop, you end up getting the coloration of the power section acting on the effects, which gives a more homogeneous sound. Is the original poster going for a crystal clean studio effects sound, or the sound of a pedal board through the amp?

I have a full pedal board as well as a range of effects in my DAW, and I would almost always chose to use my pedal board over in DAW effects. But this entirely depends on what your aim is. Do you want each repeat of the delay to be a perfect replica of the recorded guitar signal, or part of the signal itself? Do you want the reverb to be an amp sitting in an acoustic space, or an effect on the tone of the guitar? Even the idea of delay always going before reverb can be reversed, and it can give some very interesting effects.

As I said before, none of these are the "wrong" way to do something. They are just different sounds, which is why it is so important to experiment and find the ones that work best for you.


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## bbunker (Sep 28, 2015)

Yeah, I'll buy it - as long as there's enough headroom on the power amp. And definitely not going into the preamp, right? I think a lot of how good it'll sound also depends on what comes after - I prefer squeezing a clean metal sound after the preamp with a compressor in the DAW, but a lot of my preference probably comes from having done most of my session work in LA back during one of the 'how big is your rack' phases. I don't think the chorus after the power-amp is ONLY a hair-metal thing, though...although I've been known to play a few too many Ratt tunes, too 

Of course there are 'wrong' ways to do it - any way that sounds bad!


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## ZeeCount (Sep 28, 2015)

bbunker said:


> Yeah, I'll buy it - as long as there's enough headroom on the power amp. And definitely not going into the preamp, right? I think a lot of how good it'll sound also depends on what comes after - I prefer squeezing a clean metal sound after the preamp with a compressor in the DAW, but a lot of my preference probably comes from having done most of my session work in LA back during one of the 'how big is your rack' phases. I don't think the chorus after the power-amp is ONLY a hair-metal thing, though...although I've been known to play a few too many Ratt tunes, too
> 
> Of course there are 'wrong' ways to do it - any way that sounds bad!



Even bad sounds are sometimes considered good, look at any fuzz tone  I kid, I kid. (I even own a fuzz pedal).

If you're talking about the chorus, then yes, I would put it before the preamp. But this is an argument that's been going on for ages. I've seen plenty of threads on the gear page arguing either way over this, which is why in the end it comes down to the player's preferences. Putting it before the preamp definitely makes the chorus effect a lot more subtle, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on what you're aiming for.

But yeah in terms of the modern ultra-comped-to-death clean sound that djent bands like to break out solely for intros that's how I would do it which is very similar to what Rabea Massaad's setup is in this video:



That is entirely in amp sounds, with nothing added in post at all.

I always like to work primarily with my amp and pedal board, because I'm trying to capture the sound of my rig if that makes sense. Also means I can (somewhat) justify the amount of money I've spent on it by now.


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## newbycomposer (Sep 30, 2015)

ZeeCount said:


> Here's some settings you can try. As always, it pays to experiment with the settings quite a bit till you find something you like............





KEnK said:


> I'm a guitarist but use guitar libraries now and then.
> The problem w/ sampled guitars is they're always to bright and pristine.
> This works ok for heavy distortion, but when you want clean it doesn't work.
> So you need to back off the high end for starters...............................





bbunker said:


> yeah it sounds like almost direct sound (no amp emulation). Usually in GR you get a much more crisp sound just......................



Ok so guys, Ive been messing around, and I'm going to be brutually honest, I think what I have now sounds even worse, however I'm willing to bet that I'm just not really "getting" it, so please bear with me as I figure it out. Ive experimented with everything you guys have talked about and I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. I seriously don't. This is what it sounds like at this point. 



Ok, pretty horrific, not at all what I'm going for and not remotly like the examples I showed, so what am I not getting? Ive got it compressed, Ive got dealy, chorus , reverb, all in various moderations. I tried it with lots, I tried it with a little, and for whatever reason I can't stand the sound of chorus, it serious makes me cringe, Thats a pretty miniscule amount I couldn't cut much more out if I still wanted to be able to hear it at all though. And its missing that kinda, "metalic" sound I want, sorry don't know how else to describe it, its like in that 3rd video except not quite THAT much "metalic" sound.


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## bbunker (Sep 30, 2015)

First, on the chorus - the two most basic variables on there are rate and depth. Your rate is fast enough that it's very easy to hear where the swirl of the chorus begins and ends. The reason you might not be able to stand the sound of it is that that isn't a miniscule amount - it's quite a bit! The point isn't to hear it, it's to give the sound depth and 'movement.' Listen to ZeeCount's video at 21:08ish - it doesn't sound like a swirling mess, it sounds like as if the player were pushing and pulling the neck just a shade out and back in again. That's the sound of chorus you want on this.

You've got the capacity to do two parallel processing routes in Guitar Rig - why not do a normal amped route like you've done, and then add another path with just a compressed DI? The DI will sound pingy, rattly and artificial, which could add some zing to the tone. Then just blend to taste.


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## newbycomposer (Oct 2, 2015)

I honestly have no clue what the hell I'm doing at this point. I mean, I'm just not getting it. I don't know what it is about it I'm not getting but I'm just not. Honestly, the best freaking sound I'm getting is just the DI with some reverb, which is not what I want at all but its better than any of the other stuff.

Even when I turn the chorus rate down as low as it can go it STILL has that easy to hear swirl. I'm so pissed trying to get this I'm about to give up and just chunk all the clean parts in the song despite them being my favorite part cause for whatever reason I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong.


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## newbycomposer (Oct 4, 2015)

bbunker said:


> First, on the chorus - the two most basic variables on there are rate and depth. Your rate is fast enough that it's very easy to hear where the swirl of the chorus begins and ends. The reason you might not be able to stand the sound of it is that that isn't a miniscule amount - it's quite a bit! The point isn't to hear it, it's to give the sound depth and 'movement.' Listen to ZeeCount's video at 21:08ish - it doesn't sound like a swirling mess, it sounds like as if the player were pushing and pulling the neck just a shade out and back in again. That's the sound of chorus you want on this.
> 
> You've got the capacity to do two parallel processing routes in Guitar Rig - why not do a normal amped route like you've done, and then add another path with just a compressed DI? The DI will sound pingy, rattly and artificial, which could add some zing to the tone. Then just blend to taste.



Ok, Ive tried that, this is what I have so far, and its a combination of 2 tracks, one more "dry" and one soaking wet. Its still pretty horrific, but I guess its a step in the right direction.


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## ZeeCount (Oct 4, 2015)

newbycomposer said:


> Ok, Ive tried that, this is what I have so far, and its a combination of 2 tracks, one more "dry" and one soaking wet. Its still pretty horrific, but I guess its a step in the right direction.




There is quite a bit of clipping in that example, is that intentional? I'd say listening to that clip you should try setting decay on both the reverb and delay to longer. You can also bring the level of the delay up, as when I use delay with clean sounds I often have the delays only slightly quieter than the dry signal.


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## newbycomposer (Oct 4, 2015)

ZeeCount said:


> There is quite a bit of clipping in that example, is that intentional? I'd say listening to that clip you should try setting decay on both the reverb and delay to longer. You can also bring the level of the delay up, as when I use delay with clean sounds I often have the delays only slightly quieter than the dry signal.



I'm not hearing clipping, but I'll probably hear it after giving my ears a break.

I tried putting the reverb and delay longer but it just becomes a blury mess, no matter what I do with eq (seemingly).


When you say make the delay longer, do you mean more feedback, or a lower rate? like its set to 16th notes cause otherwise it takes to long to come in and I don't like the sound.

I'll try turning the delay up but once again, it kinda gets blury and it loses its clarity. But once again it just may be the way I'm doing it and I'm open to pretty much anything to get it to sound better.


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## ZeeCount (Oct 4, 2015)

What you are aiming for is an ambient wash of sound sitting underneath your guitar tone. If you listen to the video I linked, you'll notice that when he hits a higher note you can hear the reverb lingering for about 5 seconds before it starts to drop out. If it's sounding muddy, either you need to pull down the level of the reverb, or eq some of the lows out of it. Similarly for the delay (it's also a good idea to pull some of the high end off the delay as this will help it blend better).

Also, if you have your delay set to 16th notes, and you are playing 16th notes you wont really hear it at all. It's why I suggested setting the delay to a ms value, rather than syncing it with your tempo. If you want to keep it locked to the tempo you can try dotted 8th notes.


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## Bulb (Oct 5, 2015)

If you are after that Vildjharta style clean (which is basically going for a Tesseract style clean sound) I would recommend some fairly grabby compression, and actually opting for no cab sim, whilst using a very pristine clean amp sim. They go for a brighter clean sound, which is a touch scooped. I would stay away from modulation effects, but maybe something like Valhalla verb. Additionally it might help to do a layer an octave higher, though I don't know if that goes against the vibe of what you are after.

Try it out and see if that works for you.


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## newbycomposer (Oct 6, 2015)

ZeeCount said:


> What you are aiming for is an ambient wash of sound sitting underneath your guitar tone. If you listen to the video I linked, you'll notice that when he hits a higher note you can hear the reverb lingering for about 5 seconds before it starts to drop out. If it's sounding muddy, either you need to pull down the level of the reverb, or eq some of the lows out of it. Similarly for the delay (it's also a good idea to pull some of the high end off the delay as this will help it blend better).
> 
> Also, if you have your delay set to 16th notes, and you are playing 16th notes you wont really hear it at all. It's why I suggested setting the delay to a ms value, rather than syncing it with your tempo. If you want to keep it locked to the tempo you can try dotted 8th notes.






Bulb said:


> If you are after that Vildjharta style clean (which is basically going for a Tesseract style clean sound) I would recommend some fairly grabby compression, and actually opting for no cab sim, whilst using a very pristine clean amp sim. They go for a brighter clean sound, which is a touch scooped. I would stay away from modulation effects, but maybe something like Valhalla verb. Additionally it might help to do a layer an octave higher, though I don't know if that goes against the vibe of what you are after.
> 
> Try it out and see if that works for you.




This is what Ive got so far, its getting better, slowly, but its getting there.



Ive got 2 layers going. A "dry" track and a "wet" track. Obviously the dry track isn't completely dry, it has amp/cab sim and some minor effects on it (including a exciter, which the other track doesn't have on it because I ran out of plugin slots in cubase)

As for valhalla verb I think Ive heard of it, its specifically for more ambiant stuff right? Well I'm kinda broke (and the little money I have is going towards something else) so right now I'm sticking with ql_spaces which is pretty freaking good as it is. 

So, what do you think now? What pops out at you.


Side note: I just want to really thank you guys for helping me with this and other post. Its been a GREAT help in learning to write, and especially to mix, music.


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## KEnK (Oct 6, 2015)

It sounding like a guitar now.
Maybe de-quantize a little.
Guitarists are very sloppy. Look at how they dress. 

I'd make the 3rd note a little early, the 2nd & 4th a little late.
Also it might be good to both lower the velocities a bit more
as well as make the difference between velocities a little more exaggerated.
Also use velocities to make the larger phrase arc breathe a little.

You actually want to put some degree of imperfection into it.
I'd even go so far as to detune "a string" a little.
(This is just what I'd do to make it "real")

Sounds crazy, but it works

k
btw- I don't have Shreddage, so I might be wrong-
but it sounds like there's some kind of "legato" control deadening some of your notes. If so, I think you want this off. 
It sounds like an arpeggio where each note is played on a seperate string- 
no legato in this case


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