Lessons

Lesson Info

Tracking Guitar Demo Part 1

That's showing our output on the compressor we're going through our chain of the two mikes into the pre ems into the line in and blending them with the fighters on the mackey, assigning them to bus one sea pen over to the left which is odd and even left and right one too, so we're signing in the bus one and here's our output of the blend of the two mikes right here that's feeding our eleven seventy six compressor play second I'm going to show you a little bit like compressing what's compressing into teo I'm not really compressing too much will show you after the president let me that's real quick let's let me just show that let me record that so we can then play it back to the speakers and I'm gonna be I'm going to be adjusting the input, which is actually going to be raising, lowering the threshold of where the compression hickson and I'm going to be adjusting the output trying keep the output kind of the same level just so you can hear the difference of how the compression is affecti...

ng the sound oh uh, thea, the tracks are going I forgot about that like what do I hear two things playing at once sorry about that guys let's now let's, try that again so if I said it with a a really fast attack were really cutting off a lot of the attack it's too much it's really grabbing too much of the guitar so I'm gonna back off on the attack and I'm also not gonna also play with the release generally for fast generally for fast for down picking kind of stuff like that I will set it for the fastest possible release because I don't want to really I don't want the compression that if I wanted to pump a little bit that's fine, but I wanted to be more transparent than not I'm using more for a sound then for like, oh, I need to control the game because I mean a lot of natural compression is happening already, especially to bam's the two men actually compress the speaker's air, compressing the microphones, compressing there's a lot of natural compression especially and to preempt they compress a lot. They compress the sound a lot it's not as evident what I'm doing here on the especially with the to preempt because I'm driving the tubes heart so there's a lot of compression already going on, but you hear you hear more with solid state preempt but then when I if I make the release slower, you'll definitely hear what's going on and usually sucks out way too much of the south but I'll show you what's going on with that go ahead release too because they jumped out it doesn't jump out at you is nearly as much now what happens when you go faster release yeah, I mean and I'm generally not and you could hear and I played back again you can hear the difference we're not you know generally especially for like that kind of the style of music with down picking your not you could even see it it's it's just sucking so much of the life out of the guitar you know the guitar and it's more of almost like what I was talking about with am seems like that's almost what the amps him sound like the sound is back further in the speaker it doesn't do this it doesn't jump out and I always go for the thing too watch when I release it it comes forward and that's you know you know I mean obviously on different applications sometimes back is great sometimes backs what you want and especially not for for not super heavy like change in type of guitars sometimes that a lot of compression could be really cool is it's an effect and it's a sound it's another pallet teo use you know um like I said, I go for like a really heavily compressed thing and like like I said, like a beagley kind of like like I don't like those that kind of like arpeggio hated clean cores and those kind of like really strumming kind of things sometimes a lot of compression is really cool and it's it's again I'm not using it necessarily to go although I need to really control the game you know like that's the lazy way of thinking about compressions like oh just set it and forget it so I don't have to ever deal with the guitar like going over especially in digital like peeking hitting zero and going over but I'm using it as a sound I'm using it to shape the sound not not in a silly to control the game so much so yeah this is about right for there and again you know we would normally sometimes after the compression let's do this I'm going to show a little bit and this will kind of stem into uh what I'll talk about about summing mikes inside the box rather than if you don't have a summing mixer um I could even I could show that uh how would I do that? Teo get that too we might need a secondary input maybe I have to show that next segment we can hook that up we don't have a second input, right? No we don't ok all right, we'll figure that out uh we'll get to that in the next segment but I'll show you what to do if you say you wanted like now that's all good and you wanted that like last stage cue right after the compressor made the oppressors dulling out our sound or it's doing and changing in a different way that we're not we're stoked on what that the compressions doing but then it actually affected the cue a little bit okay, so we need another q normally I would patch in I don't have another q but a way to do it within pro tools or whatever your dea w's so normally if you see on the screen here, normally we have our our input and that's coming from our whole signal chain and that's going right into the inter probe into input one and that's our assignment for our track that's where we're getting it from so okay we wantto pro tools doesn't I don't know if any does any data that you allowed you to track through their plug ins and actually record this the tone the accused, the new universal audio steph you can track to plug it interesting because up until I guess then no, you couldn't no well, if I put on input that's only affecting what we're hearing the monitor that's not we're not actually that that when I'm going through and that's what I'm about to show you in pro tools and most uw's if I instance a plug in say like the m v w five then it's playback on lee in cuba it's not really now interesting ok well I'm we're not with the basing that well I'm basing it on what I what I do with pro tools and people have you they have this and don't have the ability to track through your plug ins to actually affect your recorded sound a quick way to do it is so now we have normally our track with our input coming off the apogee so let's create an ox input right here and we'll call this source and input one and that's going to be our guitar chain but you can hear it buzzing right now but instead of now this is just a knox it's not going to anywhere so now let's bust this let's pick a bus to say bus thirteen and now that's sending it out if knowing how mick surrounding does and now the output of our ox is going to be just a buses and merely for people who don't know it's just a place to send something it's like can't go here so you take it and say go here go to bus thirteen where does busse thirteen go so now the input instead of it being input one the mike he input is bus thirteen so this is going to hear so now what you can do then then you can actually take a cue and cue the sound and it'll act you like should be able to record it so play second on wait get a little extra time to get so you want to give a little extra top maybe find that final sweet spot on the top and a little extra guitar wait ok, so for this I just instead of shelving que which would do this which would boost all the frequencies going up on a slope above the point that I selected which is a killer it's I did a peek so I'm just doing it centered around it so the really extreme high stuff is not really getting sometimes the really super high stuff you get too much sizzle and I don't really like that sometimes you might like that but that's just what I chose but I'm not going toe use this for the tracking I just wanted to show it as an example that if you didn't have if you if you wanted to get another q and you wanted to really commit to a sound this is a way to with using software using plug ins this is a way to actually use that in your tracking further and commit to your tone because they're very easily I could have just put it on the regular track and oh yeah I can put it on for monitoring but I don't want track with that it's like, well why let's commit again? We'll take our sound let's do that so we're going to take it off again though but um and bring back our input to input one and now we're back to our regular source also, I should state when you're tracking obviously goes without saying it's very comfortable if you know if you hear it a certain way if you need the guitar, if you need if you're if you have your the artist in the control with you sometimes what they need to hear is not what you need to hear even not do in terms of volume like they need to hear the kick from really loud and tow lock into it like I need can you bring the kick up it's like if you don't want to hear that and it's it's affecting your focus, then ah, if you have the ability to make a separate independent headphone mix, you can either give them the headphone mix or you khun you can pull up your own headphone mix like I said, I have to hide things where um I have had instances where the guitar player is insistent hearing the click at least with the drums I don't ever want to hear the click once it's going, you know? But if the guitar player needs to hear it along with the drums, I mean I will fight and say, don't don't use the click listen to the drums, but if he's really, really assistant again it's their record I'm there to serve what they're doing so if I don't want to hear that click which I don't, I'm going to make a separate headphone mix and I'm going to hit and I'm gonna monitor this way so it's very important obviously for the for the artist toe make them comfortable and make that let them hear what they want so you might want to just play a little bit of something to hear what's going on do we have click and then right so I have the click just his accountant and that's it and then he's off on his own uh so on this version of pro tools there's no input monitoring um an hd there's a way to just you know, without having actually track can you play so you can't just hear it on input on the on the nine hd version of pro tools? Normally I'll put it on input and I'll just play along for second and you know, do you need to hear anything? So I'm just going to pop it into record and let him play along and then I'll be like, what do you you know everything is everything good? You need to hear anything um so go ahead a lot of changes, okay? God, when he, uh, nice here here, just the mix I don't care about my track, ok? But you can leave a little in if you want but yeah yeah generally and I get going toe my kind of philosophy that generally we usually do base last and uh uh I don't really know why I started doing that honestly I could tell you well I know why mccartney that's why I originally started to do that because uh I remember reading about like you're talking about the beatles again like mccartney used to pretty much always do is base last I love paul mccartney and those like works for him and I actually find a lot of times in terms of tuning teo and intonation we'll be times where the bass player will be like pulling things out of tune if there's no reference on the guitar you know you wind up like chasing the chasing a ghost you know you start playing you're talking like a man so I had to and then the guitars into your life what do we do typically recording way where guitar tracks and you are gonna record bass track so if you have to make adjustments it's buried probably just the base to the guitars and just the basic guitars and plus I liked being a bass player myself I love to you work with the bass player and get him to kind of like adjust certain parts to bridge the gap between rhythm and melody that's the other thing we make decisions on the way that effect how you guide the bass player absolute like no choice there's lots of things that make even the vocals we'll do it from a zombie like, oh yeah hit that note that's like harmonizing with the vocal or stuff like interesting things like that so normally we don't, you know, I could said we're he's adjusted we normally don't even have base we're tracking at this point uh, you anything else, sir? Uh start with that thousand maybe I'd like a ladder ladder. Uh, cano that's going to affect you in there? I'm gonna bring it up, guys, just so you know, okay. All right again. Okay, so this is a perfect example also we're talking about muting guitar strings that was here back what's going on here actually, you can actually hear the click you hear that that perfect example, this is what I'm talking about that that sound that you hear in between those those things is this that's exactly and we get rid of that very simple wait their own we used to call I used to call a rambo all the time because that's an older I'm not holders that's an older reference and then used to the to pocket used to call it two pox way could have their own right and this is very simple some people call it willie nelson on your style, music, whatever works for you, you make it, you take it and making it really hip up so you take you, take it and make it your own whatever that isthe it's just a simple of some gaff tape and usually just a little things exactly a company. Now that that makes this it's just got it's basically, like a little, almost like a risk man with velcro on it. And, uh, steve is really pissed because he thought he was like, that was my ralph kramden million dollar idea it's a hair brain scheme? That was it. Um and then also, you sometimes can get sound also from the sea that now go ahead way better way better. Right? Sometimes this guitar doesn't really affect it. Some other guitars, les paul usually is a little more allowed, but sometimes this one will also do it. So we'll just put a piece of tape over that as well too, but I designed it so that it would yeah. So meeting the strings that's a big thing right there and again, also, I said it yesterday, but make sure you clip your strings simple like that because that rattle will happen and all that kind of stuff is gonna affected yeah, sometimes you have to meet up if you have a guitar with a floating bridge you have to shove foam in there and mute that is that they will also it's the same thing is it was like a national river sometime that's cool though you know that's also when you're building a binary players, if you can nip it in the bud now so when you hear this and you hear all that extra noise now let's do with strings meeting let's hear what it sounds like again go back to the beginning so you know it's funny because you know deconstructing what that is I mean he's literally hitting all the open strings there's not even the core there he's hitting the open strings on the guitar but it's but you see how he's playing and you see the force that he's hitting the strings with it's all about the intention it's all about digging in and really just yeah for this part like this part is always so important to me it was picturing myself on stage being shipped are honestly like that's what the point of this part was and so right and then again what's the net and it when you if you break it down into its smallest components I go what's the okay this part of what is that and it's just like it's just a thing like that and so how do we capture that right across it? It's it's progressive so and so you wanted to really make it as percussive and his kind of abrasive as possible so let's really quick let's just we're just going section but like I said, normally I go for a full performance but we're going toe just section by section here and let's double that with the same sound pan to the opposite side and so everybody can hear what that does do you want the do you really need toe here? Someone doesn't matter which side it sounds ok normally will be like you know if will be in my control room and I'll be sitting there and the speakers air here in front of us and he's usually in front of like say the left speaker so I will then flipped the pan and I'll be like ok so now new guitars the one closer to you so he hears closer what he's hearing so new returns on the left all guitars on the right and I'll tell him ok new guitar laughed all guitar right? Ready okay so on the same thing way awesome right? We may have some band aids fourth wall did you cut yourself going oh yeah yeah this is how but this is you know, you know I it's like kind of the thing it's like uh you know it's a a phrase but you know leaving your blood on the strings but it's like you know kind of that's kind of what if especially it is his case that's what it is I mean he's he injures himself even playing in the studio it's just kind of like it's true but it's just like you got a it's almost like you have to say exaggerate but like I said, what we do in the studio it's such a sterile and primarily in its essence is almost like a sterile environment especially when you're overdubbing guitars so it's like as much as we can like just go over that because I feel like it's almost like head room it's like if you go too hard and go over it at least what's gets captured feels right you know, if you just go like kind of you know what I mean, but playing it safe is just playing it safe is just terrible you can't do that so it's like it's really perfect example of like the right balance of control over the environment and also bring that re alive scenario. So for instance, things like the hum of these strings and stuff like that we muted but we won't necessarily go in and clean out every in between there's some feedback and see your eyes this is a different thing because we're in a what we're tracking is I mean, you can actually even hear the speakers ah a little bit which is almost like a live performance right away is kind of cool, you know, to me it's like and you know, I look at the screen don't look at the screen but I'm looking to show you and like a hearing in a spot and it's like ok, well this one particular that one and knowing what the focus is in talking about how you're locking in that little hit that's but that it's like he's hitting it supposed to be hitting kicks there and you feel so go get it and when with the kicks in their cells on that one like one of them feels a little off that one's a little behind little behind so here let's let's really quick drop in and get that but you know and there's no quick lunch where is gaga? Strange hello hold on just about punching in and not punching it there we go we have quick so ok so just to show everybody self in pro tools and I'm sure there's a different verdict word for another dea w's but what's known as quick punch so punching in were it's enabling us to play back what's already there with quick punch hit one button on drop in a section of recording now want to make sure that there's across faith okay in your preferences and pro tools and editing if you see right here quick punch cross fade length uh generally anywhere from you know, like it could be anywhere from one millisecond to five by three for me for some reason feels right to me it sounds right. So that's what I use use three milliseconds usually when it was on tape tape was anywhere tape was even slower was like eight, two ten milliseconds sometimes a cz much as and that's a whole different piece of technology but so it puts it basically what's happening in in in quick punch is wherever I start playing back from that's actually where it's recording its recording the whole time even though it's not it doesn't show the morning but actually, if you trim back the layer it starts recording starts from right where I had my cursor so it's recording the whole time in the background and then when you actually hit record press record it's basically uncovering that section um so let's uh ok let's punch back in on that ben just to show I was just showing people giving them a quick overview broke stream but keep going is it all right and that's almost exactly how I did it on the record that actually and then let's let's fix it on the other track as well and again, I'm not looking and seeing that it was on, I listened and they felt right to me. So that's, how we're keeping it one more time is a little late. Yeah, yeah, but just trying to push really hard. And there is and he wasn't looking at the screen. He was sitting there and you saw him he's looking away and he's feeling it and that's exactly why I got it and that's when you stopped looking the screen exactly because he was looking before a little bit and now he wasn't and that's where he got and all those old beef, a little extra weird harmonics and everything like that and you'll see, you know, I could show you in the original recording. That's going, we did now here's the original recording. Ironically, I just want to point out something the other recording completely fernand different set of circumstances different might pre empt then what we used on the record, different cabinet, different compressor, different from everything, and they sound pretty similar. They sound pretty damn similar because it comes from his hands that's the reason why it sounds similar.