January 8th, 2012 9:34 pm
Pure heart stopping distortion.
Those were the words applied in a guitar player magazine advertising for the Art sgx 2000 that primary caught my attention. The most essential thing I learned from owning one was how to eq my sound to get outstanding guitar tone.
I know that sounds like I’m blowing my own trumpet, and everyone has their own idea of what a good guitar sound is, so let’s just say I’ve learned a few things that hopefully you may find useful.
When it comes to direct recording, I’ve always tried to emulate the sound one hears when standing a reasonable distance away from the speakers, as opposed to the gritty sound one gets when the amplifier speaker is facing you directly.
Simple EQ guidelines.
I almost always end up adding more bass to my guitar sound. Not too much, but just sufficient to round out the sound. A guitar sound may actually handle rather a reasonable amount of extra bass before it gets overbearing.
The trick here is to offset it with the right amount of upper midrange. The frequency I in general like to use is 4 khz.
For bass, 100 Hz is ordinarily fine, but it depends on the amplifier and speaker being modelled as well.
Guitar effects processors and amplifier modellers I’ve used with great success in the studio.
- The Art SGX 2000 (No longer made). This had a valve preamp section which was setup in dissimilar ways to invent respective sounds, as well as a solid state distortion. This had magnificent effects and eq options. The nearest thing available lately is the Rocktron Prophecy 2 and the Rocktron voodoo valve.
- The Sansamp classic. This in combining with the Art SGX 2000 gave me one of the most amazing rock guitar sounds. This is plainly an amplifier simulator and has no extra effects like reverb, delay etc.
- The Roland GP 100. The original guitar effects processor from Roland to feature their “Composite Object Sound Modelling”, or COSM for short. This was a completely digital unit, and even altho the effects where good, the amp models left a lot to be desired. The latest COSM guitar preamps are for the most part made by Boss, a subsiduary of Roland.
- The Behringer V-Amp. This little unit amazed me with the quality of some of it is tones, particularly for direct recording and live straight into the mixing desk. The trick was to use the right speaker cabinet model, as only a few where good. Behringer is now up to the V-Amp 3.
- The Boss GT-6. This multi-effects processor initially dissappointed me, but after actually diving in and exploring each option available, I was ultimately capable to emulate a wide assortment of guitar amps rather convincingly as well as find a guitar sound to call my own. If you’ve got one, the trick is to use the booster pedal effect to change the tone of a great deal of amps as well as not be afraid to eq the hell out of it if you have to.
- The Boss GT-Pro. This, along with the GT 10 floor unit is the latest COSM processor, and is a rackmountable guitar rig for the recording studio.
While I’ve used other guitar processors than the ones noted above, I’ve excluded those that genuinely didn’t have what it takes.
There are also a lot of guitar processors I’ve never employed before which may be excellent, but I can’t actually say anything with regards to them until I do.
Some more tips when working with guitar amp modellers.
- Never be frighted to get too radical with the EQ. Sometimes that’s what it takes to turn a good sound into a outstanding one.
- Always take a break when you think you’ve found the sound you want, and come back later to see if it’s still sounding good.
- Check the sound with and without headphones. What sounds good on headphones may now and then be a bit over the top when the studio monitors are used.
- Use a guitar that’s got medium to low output. Some processors can’t handle the exceedingly high output of high gain pickups. I’ve found that pickups with an impedance of 15K or less work fine. 20K may be too much for sure digital processors.
- Check all gain stages if you can, too see that no share of the effects chain is overloading the next one, or the output. This helps a lot with the final tone.
So what is the best guitar effects processor?
As always, this is very subjective. Everyone has a dissimilar taste in guitar sound. What I look for is a comprehensive EQ division with an option to put something in the effects loop, so I may add to the machine later.
As I cited earlier, the best rock guitar sound I ever got was using one of Tech 21′s classic Sansamp pedals in the effects loop of my Art SGX 2000. Seeing as they don’t make the Art anymore, I’ve found other options.
Your guitar and pickups may make a major divergence as well. At the moment I use the Boss GT-Pro, and I’ve got numerous actually outstanding sounds from it, but not without tweaking and experimentation.