hi all
in the few years that ive begun taking in projects as a mix engineer, ive come to realize that a lot of people base their guitar tone on what they hear on their favorite records. there is nothing wrong with this practice however
this is where bad (subjective) tone comes from.
why? because recorded tones represent only ONE dimension of an overall tone. in addition to that, the recording engineer finds the best mic position to capture the tone, the mix engineer CUTS A HELL OF A LOT OF FREQUENCIES for it to sit in the mix properly and the mastering engineer makes everything loud shimmery and CD ready.
when you listen to your favorite artists using cheap earphones, you take away even more from the accuracy of the tone youre going for. this is why you hear a lot of bands (especially bands with tons of distortion) sound like angry cats during their chug-a-thon soundchecks. its because their ears have become attuned to whatever listening device they have! for example, a guitarist listens to music with bass-heavy dr. dre beats headphones. he will then tweak his tone to be overly bassy during their live set. bassy meaning muddy and interfering with the bass guitar. or when you use your altec lansing speakers with the subwoofer's bass set to full to enjoy that maximum skrillex vibe.
im not saying you have to be an audiophile to have good tone.
when you really think about it, todays generation spends most of their time listening to music on these portable devices. or on really tonally biased speakers. a decade or two ago, what was the primary gadget used to listen to music? thats right. your old jvc 3 disc changer home entertainment system! its no hi fi home theater BUT it has SPEAKERS that move AIR, not two satellite tweeters and a sub. not a 35mm neodymium whatever driver on some overpriced headphones. a lot of bands raised during the jvc karaoke generation surprisingly have GREAT ears for tone even though theyre listening to already processed guitar tones. looking at youtube videos of younger versions of legendary bands today, they sound amazing. while the bands today suffer from either tinny, or muddy tones.
great! so how do i fix this?
if you REALLY want to know what good tone is, is to just try a tube amp at a store with all the knobs on 12 o clock. many will be tempted to scoop out the mids to compensate for the tone (bad idea). or bring up the bass for the br00tz. avoid it at all costs. memorize this tone. the character. more often then not, the stock unity eq'ed tone of a relatively good tube amp is enough to sit well in a mix.
a trick i use a lot is to tweak the amp to taste (whether you like it scooped or not), then raise the volume enough so you could still hear the kickdrum. do your soundcheck. if you cant hear yourself, RAISE THE MIDS, NOT THE VOLUME while doing your soundcheck. i guarantee you will eventually hear yourself. plus sound good overall.
<at this point, there was a sudden brownout in pampanga and whatever i typed after this got erased. fml. ill continue this when ive heard everyone's thoughts on this>
