GUITTRIX.TXT (c) 1990, Living Skill Media First posted Apr. 1990 Publishers' permission to upload this file to electronic bulletin board systems and public or private electronic databases is NOT required. Spread it around. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Brought to you by Steve Winter, Living Skill Media and Texfiles'R'Us. "If you can almost stand to read it, we probably wrote it." ---------------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT NOTE: This is the third and last in a collection of tip sheets for home recordists, MIDI enthusiasts, songwriters and working musicians. This was promised as a continuing series, but since initial distribution of the first two files, feedback from readers has been 100% negative. Steve Winter, author of these textfiles, has refused to continue them under these circumstances and in fact was unwilling to complete the two files he was working on. We are therefore including what exists of the last two files, incomplete as they are, for anyone who may still be interested, with no apologies. We feel appropriate warnings were included in the original GEnie file description. As with all Living Skill/Textfiles'R'Us textfiles, this file is not public domain. It may be freely exchanged and posted, complete and with no changes in text content, in magnetic or optical form only and may not be copied in printed form except in the case of single-copy printing for personal use only or in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews or educational texts where the source and author are credited. Feel free to upload this to any BBS or net that doesn't currently have it in its library. Others might benefit, and we certainly wouldn't mind the exposure! IMPORTANT NOTICE HOWEVER...because of the complaints we've received that these files are essentially of no value to anyone with more than a basic grasp of studio engineering, we must exercise our copyright option and insist that these files not be uploaded or included on any network for which the user must pay to download. If nevessary, we will track down offenders and require them to reimburse anyone who paid to download this file. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ************************************************* * GUITAR TRICKS: * * TWEAKING AND RECORDING GUITARS * * IN THE STUDIO * ************************************************* DISTORTION AND OVERDRIVE The Crunch That Refreshes There's not a hell of a lot new I can add to what's already been written about overdrive and distortion, but you might find it useful to know why certain devices will do certain things and other devices won't, and about a few of the more unusual devices out there that can sometimes be had for as little as a kind word! And whether using a $3000 Rivera stack or a $30 distortion pedal, it helps to know what gives you the distinctive tones each overdrive produces and how you can at least try to replicate them with cheaper or more readily available gear. The overdriven or distorted tone basically has three main components: overtones, compression and EQ. Each type of clipping device accomplishes these three things in different ways. The main reason for the differences in distorted tones are the type of overtones they produce. EQ and compression can largely be recreated with outboard gear, but the harmonic series produced by a cranked EL-34 power tube in a Marshall simply cannot be reproduced in a pedal, and even a digital replication of the effect is almost impossible, because the input pitch and dynamics (the dynamic in this case is the input volume, which is read by the tube as input voltage) dramatically affect the performance of a tube. People usually fall in love with their amps because of their particular harmonic responses or compression/sustain characteristics, not necessarily because of the way they EQ. And as if that wasn't enough to confuse you, preamp tubes create a different type of distortion from power amp tubes, and combining the two creates yet another type of distortion. And it goes even further than that! Even the age and quality of the tube and related components have an effect on the harmonic series and the intensity of each harmonic overtone. Tube Vs. Solid-State: An All-Too-Brief Primer Doctoral theses have been written on tube versus transistor tone. Far be it from me to try to offer a full explanation of the difference between the two. Suffice it to say that despite the cost, weight and maintenance requirements of tube circuits, it's highly unlikely that the nex ten years will see a wholesale shift in user preference from tube to solid state. This is one area where digital technology simply cannot replace the warmth and response of analog technology, and isn't likely to for some time to come. Try as they might, the world's best engineers can't duplicate the psychological response produced by the overtones of a well-maintained HiWatt or customized Marshall. If you get a chance, compare a cranked Marshall miked with a Shure SM-57 or Sennheiser 421 or run direct with a speaker- load interface through quality headphones with the tone of a Boss ROD-10, Scholz Rockman or any quality digital guitar processor. The difference, not only in the way it sounds but in the way it makes you feel emotionally, is astonishing! (This emotional response is not an illusion. It's a real, documented effect known as "psychoacoustic satisfaction" that more and more engineers are accepting as a phenomenon that must be considered in the design and recording processes.) The only successful inroads made by manufacturers in the solid state crunch market have been in the area of creating new sounds, not in emulating classic tones. Tom Scholz' Rockman series of products is probably the most successful example. Scholz has been designing guitar sound circuits for 15 years and his payoff came with the introduction of the first Rockman headphone amps, which produced a thick, rich distortion tone unlike anything ever heard before. But before you take this as a cue to mortgage the house for a professionally-hotrodded Marshall or a Groove Tubes studio preamp, let me state for the record that until you enter the realm of truly professional recording, there's no urgent need to base your studio guitar pallette on tube circuits. I've gotten pretty fine Marshall and Fender emulations from the Boss ROD-10 and a dbx 163X compressor, and I frequently get asked how to reproduce the tones of my guitar tracks. Vive la Difference The primary difference between solid-state and tube overdrive is the type of harmonic series each circuit generates. Tubes tend to create even harmonic series, which the brain finds more pleasing than the predominantly odd harmonics produced by transistors. One exception is the mosfet transistor, found in most newer power amps and used as a distortion producer in some guitar amps, which produce sweet even harmonics and smooth sustain but lack the dynamic responses and frequency response curves of tubes. In addition, newer pedal designs are incorporating engineering that produces a more faithful even-harmonic tone. The most immediate difference one hears between power amp distortion and preamp tube distortion is that preamp tubes tend to sound midrangey and lose strength in the low frequency range when driven, and can also be driven to distort to a much greater degree. Power amp tubes tend to distort more equally over the full frequency range, preserving the bottom end. Since preamp distortion is the crunch of choice for leads, most manufacturers build an automatic bass-cut/mid-boost circuit into solid-state amps and overdrive pedals to emulate the response of tubes. Distortion pedals tend to preserve the bottom and give a crisper, harsher tone in an attempt to emulate the sound of power tube distortion, but unfortunately they only give you one sound: fully-overdriven raunch. There is no pedal I know of which can even come close to the sound of a SEMI-overdriven power tube, and this sound is one of the most common on record! A semi- overdriven preamp tube tends to sound anything but smooth. Try a slight clip setting on a tube-based overdrive pedal and you'll see what I mean. Semi-overdriven power tubes tend to have body and warmth, distorting more in the way a human voice does when it goes from singing to growling. The newer "metal" pedals seem to emulate the tone of an amp with both sets of tubes overdriven. And many of them do quite a nice job, even if they do need some fancy EQing and compressing to spice up the tone. Keep in mind when considering the purchase of an overdrive pedal that the ones with real preamp tubes in them sound less smooth when semi-overdriven than the solid-state devices, and that while digital distortion may be quieter, to my ears at least it still isn't a significant improvement on better analog distortions. Recording Electric Guitars: What Every Engineer Should Know A well-stocked studio guitar pallette should include either a number of different devices or one or two devices which can generate a number of different crunch timbres. My current setup includes Scholz Rockman Sustainor and the Boss ROD-10, of which I recommend the latter as the most versatile, cost-effective crunch box on the market. The Rockman will be a must-have for any studio doing commercial recording for a year or two yet, but it's an expensive device that only really has one sound. Sure, you can do a lot with that sound, but a Rockman always sounds like a Rockman. The ROD-10 is a unique half-rack device with a fairly full-bodied bottom end I wouldn't be afraid to use on a bass (the only other units I know of which possess this feature are the brown vinyl Yamaha JX-50 amp and the Yamaha OD-100 pedal), effectively five different overdrive timbres plus a no-frills distortion and fuzz, a semi-parametric EQ and something called phase notching. Phase Notching Phase notching is a type of filtering/phasing effect that mimics the sound of a microphone in front of a multiple-speaker cabinet. It adds a presence to guitar (and bass) that EQ alone can't give, and virtually no newer guitar multiprocessor comes without it. If you record a lot of guitars, you must have this effect! I never, ever record guitars without some sort of phase notch effect, and if all I ever tracked were clean, undistorted tracks I'd still keep the ROD-10 in the rack as a phase notcher. Phase notching is also included on analog guitar processors from Rocktron, Scholz R&D, Peavey and others, but you don't need to blow several hundred on one of these processors to get this effect. It can be found in a few inexpensive direct boxes designed for guitar amps. The new Boss Headphone Trainer, the down-market version of their classic Playbus headphone amp, incorporates the ROD-10's phase notch circuit in its direct output. Nobell also makes a mic-emulating direct box for guitars. Peavey's EDI is one of the oldest, and it even allows you to use the speaker as a reactive load by stepping down the speaker output before sending it to the mixer. Reactive load is a fairly involved topic, but it plays a big part in the compression characteristics of your amp and it is important if you insist on using a tube guitar amp to record. One important feature of solid-state phase notching is that it effectively allows you to bypass miking a speaker without losing all of the interesting timbral changes a microphone offers. However, direct recording of any guitar amp poses a problem for the home studio: volume. Going Mic-less If you're truly bent on recreating the crunch of a live rig, you've got to push the power tubes, and that means cranking the volume. If you don't have a recording environment that allows you to isolate high volumes, you might have a bit of a problem. Two common fixes are replacing the speakers with high- capacity 8-ohm power resistors, which have a noticeable and unpleasant effect on the compression characteristics of the power amp circuit; and the use of Tom Scholz' Power Soak, a device that dumps current from the power amp and sends a smaller, quieter signal to the speakers while preserving the full crunch of the power tubes. Unfortunately, Power Soaks have a rather severe effect on the life of power tubes, and even at used prices of $30- $75, Power Soaks are expensive solutions if you have to replace $100 worth of power tubes twice as often. There's a cheaper, better fix. If your amp drives 8-ohm speakers, simply unplug the speaker connection and replace it with an identically-wired configuration of 8-ohm 100-watt $5 door- crasher-special no-name 6x9" car speakers. Since we're not miking, the actual quality of the speaker is not as important, and yes, you can actually drive these pigs to a full 100 watts RMS and who cares if you blow them up. They help solve the volume problem because they're small and easily insulated, and they're so cheaply made that they don't put out nearly the volume at 100 watts as your Jensens, Celestions or ElectroVoices. In fact, I've made practice cabinets for people by putting a 6x9" 3-way car speaker in a small $15 rear-deck cabinet so they could play at higher amp levels without disturbing the neighbors with monstrous bottom and upper midrange. You can use the connectors on your amp if you want, but before you do, it might be smart to mark the connectors and speaker terminals so you can match them without any extra trial- and-error or difficulties in impedance sharing. On a four-speaker cabinet, you'll want two different colored permanent marking pens. Pull the left terminal on the first speaker (it doesn't matter which speaker you disconnect first, but be sure your amp is off and unplugged from the wall) and mark both the the terminal and the connector with a single vertical line from one marker. Then pull the right terminal off and mark the connector and terminal with a single vertical line from the other marker so you can tell which connector goes to which terminal. On the next speaker, mark the terminals and connectors with a single horizontal line. On the next, use a single diagonal line, and on the last speaker, use a single dot or a diagonal line running in the opposite direction. From now on you'll be able to disconnect and reconnect your terminals in seconds and never have to worry about making a mistake. To get an impedance match and keep the volume down, wire up the same number of car speakers (be sure their impedances are the same, too!) in exactly the same way as the amp's speakers (don't worry about polarity; you're not miking the car speakers). If you're using the wiring harness that was on your amp or in your speaker cabinet, you'll have to add 10 to 25 feet of speaker cable to the harness. Because of the relatively high current levels used by speakers, heavy-gauge toaster cord, also known as zip cord, is recommended over the much lighter gauges used in guitar cables. Once you're ready to plug in the car speaker harness in place of the amp's speakers, you have to insulate the speakers, because even these low-efficiency speakers will pack too much punch to be stored in the control room. Nest one large foam pillow in a milk crate for each car speaker being used. Put one speaker face down in each pillowed crate, or two face-to-face if you're using 5-1/2" speakers, and pack the pillows in around the speakers. Make sure you've got enough speaker cable to reach to the next room or to tuck the crates away in a closet. Connect your direct box or EDI-type speaker interface to your mixer and you've got direct guitar sound that takes almost full advantage of the amp's capabilities. All you lose are the characteristic colorations of the particular model and age of speaker and microphone. I recorded my Fender Pro Reverb this way for quite a while before switching successfully to a 100% solid- state guitar rig, and I got a lot of compliments on my guitar tone. (Strangely enough, I've gotten even more compliments since I switched to a solid-state rig!) Compressing and Gating Overdriven Tones Until very recently, tube compression was a unique animal, and engineers would (and will!) pay thousands for near-antique Pultec tube limiters. The main reason engineers preferred the sound was because tubes compress in a method known as "soft knee", meaning that the compressor responds to the player's dynamics and the envelope of the note in a manner more pleasing to the ear than the hard-knee curves created by most solid state compressors. The compression created by an overdriven tube is very smooth- sounding. Instead of the volume decaying slowly over time, it maintains full volume for quite a while before finally decaying slowly as the string's vibration dies. Here are graphic representations of what the volume envelope curves of three plucked notes might look like from the pluck to the tail end of the note's decay. These were drawn on an Atari ST and may not have the same graphic accuracy with your computer's ASCII font. _________________________________________________________________ 10 |\ | \------------____ Plucked | -----______ clean note | -------________ | ------- 1 + _________________________________________________________________ 10 |\_______________________ Tube | -----------------____<- Knee Compressed | ---__ Note | -_ (Soft Knee| - 1 + _________________________________________________________________ 10 |\ Transistor | \/---------------------_______________<- Knee Compressed | <- "Pumping"; an audible 'dip' ---___ Note | in volume you'll hear on tracks ---___ (Hard Knee| using heavy hard-knee compression; --- 1 + occurs shortly after the attack. _________________________________________________________________ You've probably seen compression curves in the owner's manual of your compressor, but I find more people understand the graphic layout of this type of curve drawing, since we're used to seeing these curves on synthesizer and noise gate envelopes. (It should be noted here that although most newer compressors and limiters use soft-knee compression, it still pays to have an older pedal-type compressor/limiter for some applications, as they'll produce characteristics unattainable from most cheaper new rack- mount units.) While the curves may not look too much different, your ears notice a distinct difference between the two compression curves. Most newer analog compressor/limiters for home studios have soft- knee compression curves that sound tube-like, but they still don't match the severe limiting or "crush" you get from real tube compression at full tilt. In addition, true compressors not only hold down the level of loud sounds, they also raise the level of quiet sounds to mimic extra sustain and add extra versatility. Tube limiters and dedicated solid state limiters don't have this extra feature. Fortunately, most solid-state crunch boxes will create sustain on their own without raising the level of quiet notes, so you can come pretty close to genuine tube sound by chaining a soft-knee compressor or limiter before an overdrive device. You can always put the compressor after the crunch box, but it probably defeats your purpose. You'll find that the volume sustains nicely, but as the note travels, you'll hear less and less crunch at the same volume. I've never found a musically valid use for this unnatural effect, but I'm not saying one doesn't exist, so you might want to add this one to your Little Black Book. Gating guitar? Piece of cake. Ignore what seems to be the normal chaining pattern indicated by your gear and ALWAYS put your noise gate AFTER your crunch box and compressor, and BEFORE your digital effects. I know, there are all kinds of multi-effectors that put gating before overdrive, but it doesn't make sense to chain that way. Analog overdrive at full tilt creates noise of its own even if the input signal is fully gated, and this noise has to be dealt with. Sure, you can always add a gate before and another after, but keep in mind that dynamics circuits used in gates and compressors, called VCA's, are not as clean and accurate as transistor preamps. As a general rule, you want to have as few VCA's in your instrument chain as possible, meaning one compressor and one gate maximum on the input track, and one gate and one compressor or range expander maximum on mixdown, and with as little compression as necessary regardless of how good your compressor may be. There are essentially three different types of noise gate: the "latching" type you've probably seen on the pedal-type gates which kill ALL signal below a certain threshold; level-dependent gating, which reduces volume based on a user-defined ratio once volume drops below a certain level; and frequency-dependent gating, which does the same as level-dependent gating except that it acts as an automatic treble cutting device instead of full-band volume cutting device. There seems to be little argument that because of the hissy nature of overdriven guitar tones, frequency-dependent gating such as that on the dbx 563x, RockTron's HUSH units and the Scholz guitar processors, is the correct type of gating to use on guitars. The "little argument" comes from me. I maintain that if you have a choice, you should try level-dependent gating first, especially if you're using single-coil pickups. Some engineers say you should use frequency-dependent gating to kill hiss on the input when laying down the track and then put a level-dependent gate on the track when mixing to kill pickup hum, but if I can get both below sub-audible levels on the input, I not only free up a noise gate for mixdown, but I eliminate one VCA-type effect from the track's chain. How important is it to keep the VCA-type effects to a minimum? Well, one manufacturer of high-end dynamics processors has made a big point of the fact that it can compress AND gate within the same VCA circuit. And quality low-noise, low-distortion VCA's can run over $100 per little 8-pin chip! And one engineer I know with money to match her brains uses NO gates on tape tracks! Instead she uses a separate noise gate for every tape track when mixing down so she only has to add one gate circuit. Cheap Tricks Virtually every imaginable distortion-producing device has been successfully used on record, from $20 belt-clip amps to overdriven ghetto blasters to the audio amps in old TV sets. There is almost no household amplification device, with the possible exception of your stereo receiver which may just decide to go to sleep on you, that cannot be overdriven to produce distortion, and if you've got the time and the inclination, you might want to try all of them. All you need is a preamplifier that will drive the amplifier to clipping. Anything from a pedal compressor or active guitar electronics to the internal preamp in a digital multi-effector can be used as a high-gain preamp, although it may take more than one box can give you to overdrive some stubborn or especially well-engineered circuits. Cheap solid-state guitar amps can often produce surprisingly good results. The best known, the $120 Gorilla GG-25, has been used on countless rock LP's, possesses a very distinctive thick, nasal tone, and is standard equipment in a lot of pro studios. A lot of studios keep a little "wall of sound" for tracking guitars and getting special effects. Instead of always miking the best available speaker, they'll keep everything from old Walkman amplifier speakers to car speakers in small cabinets to several blown or damaged speakers. Cheap speakers especially will provide a wide range of unusual timbres, and blown speakers can have their uses as well. One of the classic tricks was slicing the basket of a Celestion with a razor blade to add a unique coloration to overdriven tones, and I've seen these homemade sliced-up Celestions at garage sales for as little as $20. The point is that you've probably got a few of these white elephants hiding in a closet somewhere anyway, so why not try to find a use for them? Blown tubes can also be used to add a gritty character to guitar tracks. I used to go out of my way to track down heavily- worn preamp tubes. I'd do a "hard burn" on them by leaving them in a powered-up amp set for full crank for a day or two, and the resulting "clean" tone produced an interesting, gritty timbre especially suited for small-combo blues. I also had good luck routing a signal distorted by a blown tube through a solid-state overdrive. It added real snap to the trebles on Fender guitars, but of course they never lasted very long in this weakened state before a filament dissolved and rendered the tube useless. This particular crunch-chaining technique can be applied much more widely. If you have more than one crunch box, try chaining them in various configurations, both in series and parallel. You'll find that putting any device before a distortion or metal pedal seems to have virtually no effect, so you might want to reserve an overdrive for the end of the chain. If you have two overdrives that both sound thin, you can run the output of one into the input of the other, or try splitting the signal, running two devices (similar or different, it doesn't matter) in parallel and mixing them down to one track, experimenting with different EQ's on each box's output. Types of Crunch Boxes People become as attached to their crunch boxes as their amps. There are literally dozens of different crunch boxes available, many with very distinctive sounds. Here's a look at the types of effects offered by a few of the more popular ones. You might want to have several for your recording rig, and at used prices ranging from free (you'd be surprised!) to $50 for analog units purchased second-hand, you can easily own several. Stomp boxes made by any reputable manufacturer, e.g. Korg, MXR, Yamaha, Boss, Ibanez, DOD, etc. should be considered lifetime purchases. They're virtually indestructible and age should be considered a bargaining chip on your part, not a point of reliability. MXR DISTORTION PLUS: This ancient stomp box comes as close to the tone Tony Iommi gets on the early Black Sabbath LP's as any solid- state device I've heard. Check carefully when purchasing; some of these units can act as clean preamps if you kick the level up and turn the distortion down to zero, making it a cheap double-duty device. One of very few "distortion" devices that can be set to distort over a wide range. Gives a good emulation of Jeff Baxter's tone on Steely Dan's "The Royal Scam" as well. BOSS OVERDRIVE/SUPER OVERDRIVE/TURBO OVERDRIVE: I can't hear the difference, but keyboard players swear by the tone of the original 2-knob OD-1. The Super Overdrive was the standard by which overdrive pedals were measured for nearly eight years. Pretty much the same as the Overdrive with the addition of treble boost and cut. The Turbo is simply a Super with the option of stacking a second overdrive circuit for thicker leads. IBANEZ TUBE SCREAMER: I can't hear any difference in tone between this and the Super OD, but I've looked inside and noticed that the 'clip chip' has one different digit! Blues-oriented players prefer it over the Boss, and it seems to have more controllable light overdrive than the Super OD. It has been through four or five different case designs, but the internal circuitry is pretty much the same on today's Tube Screamer Classic as on the original ultra-heavy, square-button Tube Screamer. It should be noted that virtually every low-priced overdrive pedal made today uses the same principles and produces a very similar tone to the Boss/Ibanez OD's. YAMAHA OD-100: A most unusual pedal design. This has two stacked overdrive circuits similar to the Turbo Overdrive, but it doesn't sound quite as thick, which is better or worse depending on your point of view. It also incorporates a built-in compressor before the overdrive circuit, and although the manual says nothing about it, it seems to cycle the overdriven tone back through the VCA to gate it. It is beyond doubt the best-sustaining, quietest three- knob overdrive I have ever heard, but it has one major drawback. One of the big advantages of overdrives over distortions is that you can reduce the amount of drive and get a semi-clean tone on softly-picked notes. Because the OD-100 has a compressor before the clip circuits, you can't adjust the drive level to get partial crunch. The drive knob is virtually useless. On the other hand, it is also the only OD pedal I've ever heard that doesn't deliberately hack off your bass undertones, so it has a unique, full-bodied tone. It is a terrific lead guitar processor that essentially incorporates compression, full-range overdrive and noise gating (a happy accident of engineering), but it's not the one to own if you own just one. BOSS DISTORTION: An archaic-sounding hard overdrive. Designed to emulate the tone of a Marshall with everything on 10. Useful for leads only, and pretty much identical in tone to most other manufacturers' 3-knob distortion pedals. BOSS HEAVY METAL: One of the first third-generation distortion boxes. You can hear it on Steve Stevens' guitar tracks in Billy Idol's "Whiplash Smile" among others. Closer to a real Marshall than any 'stock' distortion box, and the two tone controls have a dramatic effect on the timbre. The distortion is uncontrollable. IBANEZ SONIC DISTORTION, DOD LA METAL, ETC.: One of several third- generation crunch boxes to hit the market since the release of the Boss Heavy Metal. Tend to have variations on the Heavy Metal's basic distorted tone and include sophsticated 2- or 3-band shelving or semi-parametric EQ's. Ibanez recently released a whole series of new "armadillo" boxes that each use a different type of distortion, and virtually every manufacturer has a variation on the Rockman/Heavy Metal studio crunch tone. They're all worth checking closely for differences in tone and price; each seems to have a slightly different character. PROCO RAT/RAT II: The hottest solid-state distortion on the market today next to the Rockman. Rich harmonics, more musically- pleasing than older distortion boxes. Also more expensive. IBANEZ METAL SCREAMER (MATTE BLACK CASE): A rare bird with a unique tone somewhere between distortion and overdrive. Note that this one has three knobs, not five, and it's not nearly as thick- sounding as the newer metal pedals. In the same matte-black case series, Ibanez made a 4-knob Tube Screamer with a semi-parametric treble control. Another rare bird, and my personal choice of all the Tube Screamers...if you can find one! TOKAI METAL: Different from Tokai's distortion in that it has a semi-parametric sweep treble control, which is especially handy for live playing. Otherwise a pretty average distortion box. FUZZ BOXES: Tend to produce a buzzy, irritating tone. These were first-generation crunch pedals and can frequently be had for the asking. The Fuzz-Face, used by Jimi Hendrix and other sixties guitar heroes, uses a germanium transistor to produce clip and has been re-released. Cheaper fuzzes use harsher silicon transistors. One unique effect produced by fuzzes is called "ring modulation". Fuzzes were designed for cleanly-picked single-note leads, but when two notes are played a third, non-musical fundamental is produced that can be quite useful in many applications. Due to increased demand, the original germanium transistor has been reissued and many silicon-based fuzzes can now be upgraded. One of the most popular makes was the Electro-Harmonix. They made two hard fuzzes, one called the Big Muff Pi and the other the battery- operated Little Muff. They can both be had for about $30 used and are reliable, worthwhile utility toys for any studio. YAMAHA REX-50: These older 12-bit digital multi-effectors were among the first to have digital distortion and can be had for as little as $200 today. Cheap for such a versatile utility effect! The digital distortion is more than an experiment; it's a usable, unique-sounding distortion that seems to my ears quite similar to the newer tube-based overdrive pedals from Dean Markley, Chandler and Tubeworks. Like all digital distortion devices available as of September, 1989, it seems to have a different character from analog distortion, especially in the way it responds to the pitch of the input note, but since it relies on software rather than hardware, it is easily able to concentrate more overtones in the even harmonic range and produces what most people say is a more pleasing sound than transistor distortions. Recommended both as a cheap distortion-plus-digital-effect device or as a cheap alternative to the SPX-90. BOSS ROD-10: I suppose I'd better include it, seein' as how I've used it as an example so many times. This is a half-rack-sized module like the Sustainor, and I think it's the most underrated guitar processor on the market. It includes three overdrive modes, the Boss Distortion pedal tone as a distortion mode, and a silicon-based fuzz tone. In addition to the standard drive levels and output level controls, it has a semi-parametric or "sweep" midrange EQ, a terrific idea that was way ahead of its time on this box, and a bass boost/cut. The three overdrive modes include the standard Super Overdrive tone, the stacked Turbo tone and a third, light overdrive tone which I use as often as any other single overdrive tone. It also incorporates a special line output with phase notching at a fixed frequency (most units have a variable notch frequency). These can be found in just about any major city for about $100 second-hand. There are dozens of other boxes available, some so sophisticated and expensive that they're only found in pro studios or the rigs of top-flight live players, but for most home studios the expense of these high-end amplifier emulators isn't warranted. I get killer tones out of my $100 ROD-10 that I wouldn't hesitate to put on CD, and aside from my Rockman, the only other crunch boxes I'd really like to have are an MXR Distortion Plus and a Big Muff Pi. I stopped using tube amps months ago, and while the true character of a blown Marshall or HiWatt hasn't yet been recreated to my liking in an analog effect, I only opt for the real thing when the client specifically requests them. Additional Hints on Recording Guitars There are two distinct schools of thought on how to process electric guitar once it gets to the mixer. One school says that you should try to create as good a tone as you can with the gear you've got and as far as possible leave the EQ alone. The other school of thought says that there is no such thing as too much EQ when it comes to guitars. One general rule of thumb says that if you're recording a power trio or a sparse hard rock track, you can keep as much of the guitar's bottom end as you like, but I tend to radically cut the bass below 75Hz on all my guitar tracks. I like to have a bass with lots of presence, meaning that I boost the bass a few dB at about 100Hz, and chopping bass off guitars seems to keep the mud from piling up. You might not have to worry about bass if you're miking the guitar, but if you're recording direct, it can be a real problem. A common complaint about guitar tracks on semi-pro recordings is that they sound too big, and hacking out the bass will have a big impact on fitting the guitar into its proper place in the mix. Phase notching is primarily thought of as an effect produced by multi-speaker cabinets, but a lot of home studios use a single- speaker cabinet for guitars. If you don't have an external phase notcher and insist on miking, you can create phase notch resonance at a wide variety of frequencies by altering the direction and location of the mic. Experiment by placing the mic in front of various parts of the speaker cone, at various angles and at various distances. And whether using a mic or an external notcher, remember that most vocal mics designed for stage use have a "presence" peak, or a frequency boost, at between 1.2 and 5.0kHz. The resonant peak of the guitar's phase notch should not occur too closely to that of the microphone if you're using this type of mic in the studio unless you can harness the amount of phase notch resonance. Expensive mics need not be used on guitars. Believe it or not, most top hard rock producers still prefer the sound of the relatively cheap Shure SM-57 or Sennheiser 421 to much costlier condenser mics and high-end dynamics. ...And In Closing... This is admittedly not a complete rundown on the subject of recording electric guitar. If there are any points which seem confusing or questions raised by this material, drop a line to R.SHRIER on GEnie by March 25 and we'll try as far as possible to include this info. in our next bag-o-TRX. Rob wasn't even going to post this file, but I am getting soooo tired of hearing god- awful guitar tracks on independent MIDI tracks, and I just figured someone had to say something. ----------------------------------------------------------------- (The following is a scrap from what was intended to be a future textfile covering "dinosaur" effects.) Phase Shifting: Like, Far Out, Man! Say what you like about your favorite multi-effector. Phase shifting is one effect that has yet to be conquered to my liking in the digital domain. It was originally developed as a low-cost analog alternative to flanging and was once considered as essential to the guitar player's arsenal as the Crybaby and the Fuzz Face, names that might be foreign to you if you're under 25, but you'll still get the point. It all but disappeared from popular use in the 70's until Eddie Van Halen used what I am told was a slightly modified (read "so old it no longer sounded like the original") MXR Phase 90 on his first two albums. Yes, you read correctly. That slow, eerie sweep was NOT a flanger, but a Phase 90 placed before his Marshall. More recently, it's been used by New Age artists on traditional instruments and brought back to rock prominence by Billy Duffy of The Cult. In some circles, this effect has attained near-mystical status. I paid $75 not for a pedal, but for a raw circuit board that allegedly duplicated the imperfections of the box Eddie used. I've read schematics and even tried to assemble a kit. And I STILL don't understand how it works. But analog phasers, especially the older Phase 90's, Phase 45's and DOD phasers (the older ones in the MXR-sized boxes) have a unique and psychoacoustically pleasing effect that no other stomp box or digital effector I've heard can duplicate. You might even have an old phaser that doesn't phase any more. Don't trash it yet...it might be hiding a wealth of hip sounds available at the twist of a screwdriver. Wires might come loose, but the MXR's were indestructible, and can be had for $5 to $50 on the second-hand market. This "twist" I'm talking about is the twist of a trimpot, the metal disk-like thingy propped up on three legs on the circuit board. You'll see it on the Phase 45 and 90 (avoid the Phase 100) and the DODs if you pull it out of the case and unwrap the foam. If you possibly can, drill a hole in the case so you can get to this trimpot with a screwdriver from the top or bottom of the case. The reason you want to get to this control is because these phasers only have one knob: speed. This second control allows you to adjust the depth of the phasing effect, as well as the frequencies affected. It was never included on the front panel because, as you'll notice, it doesn't seem to do much. If it were marked 1 to 10, the dial would only do something between, say, 3 and 5 or between 7 and 9. Experiment to find the working range of your phaser. MIDIFEX/MIDIVERB UPGRADES??? With some stores and individuals selling used Midifex' for as little as $75, 12-bit digital reverb for everyone is now a reality. But you'll also see Midiverb's side-by-side with these units at twice the price and more. Why? The wider range of reverbs in the Midiverb. (The Midifex has only four truly usable reverbs.) What most Midifex sellers don't know is that the two units are identical except for the chips that contain the program info, and you CAN get upgrades for them for as little as $30. But unless you're connected, expect to pay closer to $50. There are two upgrades available, and I'd recommend them for owners of either unit. One is the Alesis factory chip set, which allows you to put either half or all of one unit's presets in the other. (Imagine...having all the small, usable Midiverb reverbs in the same box with the blooms, longer EQ'ed echoes and special effects of the Midifex at half the price of a Midiverb II!) The other is really a blind purchase unless you know someone who has already tried it...it's a custom ROM set that gives you a whole new set of presets. One other tip for Midifex/Midiverb II owners: to get multiple echoes of those silly single repeats, what the manual didn't tell you is that you put the right channel output into the left channel INput and once you've set your input and mix levels correctly, the left channel output should give you a nice, EQ'ed multiple-repeat delay. ------------------------------------------------------------------ ************************************************* * STUDIO TRICKS #2: * * GETTING THE MOST OUT OF ANALOG EFFECTS: * * BRINGING THE DINOSAUR INTO THE 21ST CENTURY * ************************************************* A BRIEF INTRODUCTION FOR THE REALLY, REALLY STUPID Theoretically, digital sound is perfect sound. No pops, ticks, hisses or static. Complete, perfect audio spectra that never wear thin and always offer the highest degree of faith to the musician's art. In practice, it doesn't seem to offer the same kind of psychoacoustic satisfaction (read that "same kind of buzz") as ultra-high-quality analog sound. Seems the theoreticians failed to take a few details into account, such as the fact that a digital "stairstep" waveform sounds...unh...well, digital...even though the human ear isn't supposed to hear it. Or the fact that although 12kHz is just about the limit of most people's hearing (I hear 13kHz motion sensor tones painfully clearly, and that's supposed to be supernormal), we tend to feel funny about music that's missing overtones in the 12-24kHz range regardless of the health of our hearing. No worries. Perfect digital sound is coming. 16 bits is fine for cassette and CD playback, but without 128x oversampling filters (forget the 4x on the latest CD players; 128x oversampling is the limit of correctibility) and either 24kHz frequency response or synthesized high-frequency harmonic content, a well- trained ear will still prefer the "warmth" of analog. All of which has absolutely nothing to do with this textfile. But you should know that studio digital can't yet create music that stretches 1990 audiophile home gear to its limit. The point is that analog signal processing is still viable in a pro recording environment and will continue to be so for several years to come. And I'm not just talking about $2000 Drawmer dynamics processors and antique Pultec EQ's. Every day there are top-flight producers on megabuck projects using 15-year-old phaser pedals, 20-year-old tape echoes and 30-year-old amplifiers. It may be the weakest link in the audio chain on that particular track, but for these artists, it's an essential link. Analog is not a dirty word in recording. Not at ANY level. More importantly for our purposes, there are things analog processors will do that digital gear currently cannot duplicate; and analog processors can be 'forced' to do things they aren't supposed to do, which is something you can't say for digital gear. And despite our love for DSP's, SGE's and SPX's, a lot of us still maintain good-sized arsenals of analog 'junk' we've long since abandoned as obsolete. These pieces should be considered tools for our arsenals, as valid as any others, and can be used more often than you might think. You just have to know how...and where. Those already well-versed in studio technique involving essential analog effects such as dynamics and EQ may wish to skip the first half of this file. The second half contains tips on modifying and patching older analog effects and pedals and using older-style effects in modern recording. Parametric EQ Only five years ago, you probably wouldn't have known about this animal until you found yourself in a real recording studio. Today they're standard equipment on most digital multi-effects, built into more and more mixers, and frequently added to home 8- track studios as a complement to graphic EQ. Personally I find parametrics and semi-parametrics (also known as 'sweep' EQ's, distinguishable from true parametrics because they lack a control for 'Q', which is also known as 'bandwidth') much more versatile than graphic EQ's. They're also harder to use, especially if you have a digital effect box with no "soft" knob, but there's one very simple trick that should quickly allow you to get satisfactory results from any parametric EQ. Parametrics are usually used by hobbyists either to boost weak frequencies (often the 1.2kHz 'presence' frequency on guitar tracks) or cut nasty peaks (for example, the high-frequency hiss on a quiet, midrangey synth pad), but once you get the hang of them, you'll be using them just as often to sweeten and separate tracks, which is probably a job you've reserved for your graphic EQ. The key is to find the frequencies that need tweaking and tweak just enough, which is a much quicker, more accurate task with graphic EQ's than parametrics for most amateur recordists. On any given track, chances are you've got a vague idea which frequency needs work but you can't tune in on it. Making this task easier is simply a matter of exaggerating everything. Simply place the Q control at center if your EQ has this knob, push the boost all the way up or down and then fiddle with the frequency control. The sound will suck, sure, but it makes it much easier to train your ears to seek out the frequency ranges needing work. There are two ways to attack the problem, and it depends on your mindset. If you're better at picking out bad frequencies than homing in on good ones, try to see which frequency boost or cut makes the track sound worse. Chances are you think you're better at picking out good sounds, so your natural inclination will be to try to see which setting improves a track. But be honest with yourself and work from whichever perspective is TRULY your strongest. Mine, for example, is working on bad sound, even though I prefer to think it's the opposite, so I always start by trying to make something sound worse before I make it better. Once your ears tune in on the right frequency, you can narrow the bandwidth. Don't touch the boost/cut knob yet; keep it full on or full off. Turn the Q knob down to one-quarter (or "2-1/2" on the 1-10 dial scale; any less might be a band too narrow to hear; any more might steer your ears away from the true center frequency you're seeking) and fine-tune the frequency. With the boost STILL set all the way up or down, you can now mess with the Q knob until you find the right frequency range to be boosted or cut. Once you've set the bandwidth to where it sounds right, you're finally ready to set the boost or cut to the proper level. Now you'll have to go back and repeat the whole process. Re- tune the Q, since trimming the boost/cut has probably affected the bandwidth. Fiddle with the frequency control again to make dead sure you've got the right center frequency. Do one final tuning on the boost/cut and you should be as close as you're going to get to the EQ you're after. **NOTE**:It's important to follow ALL of these steps until your ears become attuned to seeking out the frequencies and ranges to be fixed. Correct Q is the least important of the three controls to tune perfectly. This "exaggeration" technique also works on graphic EQ's, and you might have seen soundmen use it to filter feedback on house systems. In this case it's much easier. You simply slide every fader on the EQ in turn full to the top, then full to the bottom, and if one sounds a bit better than the flat setting, try to find the happiest medium. Notch Filtering With Graphic EQ Notch filtering is not the same as phase notching. It's sort of like parametric EQing with the Q knob set nearly 100% left, creating a fairly harsh boost or cut in a very narrow frequency range, and it's a technique every engineer should learn. It seems like every song has its own unique EQ problems that only notch filtering will solve. In live sound reinforcement, you've probably noticed that the mains almost always need cutting at 2.6kHz because of vocal feedback through the monitors. Studio notch filtering is much more of a grope-and-hope affair, and it's best done with a dedicated notcher or parametric EQ, but it can be done with as primitive an instrument as a cheap 10-band EQ designed for a home stereo. Keep in mind that these EQ's are designed to handle the fairly narrow dynamic ranges produced by home stereos and will not be well-behaved when dealing with the wide dynamic ranges produced by uncompressed guitars, basses and digital synths. Attacks especially will be prone to clipping, so use them carefully. They rarely have a lot of headroom in the under-$200 range. As an example, let's say you need to cut as much as possible at about 4kHz with a 10-band graphic. The obvious solution is to slam the 4k fader down as far as it will go and leave it at that. But do you remember the "spirograph" response curves the manufacturer showed you in the manual? They demonstrate how whenever you boost a fader, the frequencies are not strictly boosted in a 'block' surrounding the center frequencies. They rise and fall AS curves, so with a mid-priced graphic with average band separation, you're also cutting about 2 dB at the 2k and 8k frequencies, and as much as 5 or 6 dB at 3.3k and 5k. If you want to make the frequency band or 'notch' as narrow as possible so that only those frequencies lying very close to the fader's frequency are being treated, you have to take into account the shortcomings of the hardware and compensate for them. In this case, where we're dropping our 4k fader by the maximum of 12 dB, it means we have to boost the 2k and 8k faders by up to 1-1/2 dB each in order to compensate for the bite taken out of them by the 4k fader. This will create a small ripple effect, giving slight boosts near 1k and 16k, the next nearest frequencies, but it shouldn't be as undesirable as the wide EQ slopes you had before. When using a boost notch, you get the same narrowing effect by slightly CUTTING the two neighboring faders. Here are ASCII graphic representations of EQ curves. The first shows full boost at 4kHz; the second shows a corrected notch effect achieved by reducing the neighboring faders slightly. You can see that the slight ripple effect is compensated by a much sharper notch right at 4kHz. FIGURE 1: 32 64 128 250 500 1k 2k 4k 8k 16k - - - - - - + __-- --__ 0db-------------------------------------- -------- - FIGURE 2: 32 64 128 250 500 1k 2k 4k 8k 16k - - - - - + - - 0db-------------------------------------____-- --____------- - On cheap EQ's, you might need to compensate by as much as 1 dB on the neighboring faders for every 6 dB of boost or cut on the main notch fader. On the best EQ's, the bands are so tightly controlled with quality parts and engineering that this compensation isn't necessary at all. Would that we could all afford Rane's or Klark-Teknik's.... Preamps Until the advent of digital encoding, psychoacoustic enhancers such as the Aural Exciter and hardware devices such as Barcus-Berry's Maxie, the preamp and the tape read-write hardware were the main limiting factors in the fidelity of recording. Preamps haven't changed much since the advent of the transistor radio. They still do the same jobs in the same ways (except, of course, for the newer digital amplifiers), and produce largely the same results. The average instrument-to-tape-deck signal path in today's recording can use up to 15 different preamp stages. There's the initial amplification to get the sound up to a usable level. Then a separate preamp to bring it up to the mixer's line level. This preamp might have EQ in it, and each band of EQ might require its own preamp. Then perhaps another preamp stage before it exits the mixer's effect send for processing. Each signal processor in the effect loop will have a bare minimum of one preamp to add to the chain, and probably at least two. Then back to the mixer again for more processing and routing, and more preamp stages. Preamp after preamp after preamp. Considering that a single audiophile preamp chip can cost you upwards of $75, it's no wonder our little home studios don't match the quality of the better local studios. Technically, virtually every preamp we use in home studio applications is equivalent to a basic transistor preamp. Every one adds its own unique colorations to the sound, takes a little bit of the natural sound out as payment, and hisses at us for thinking we were going to get something for nothing. When direct-to-disk recording was popular, it was the elimination of preamp stages used in mixing and re-processing as much as it was the elimination of an intermediate tape stage that made the sound so clear. There are three ways to attack this monster. The first is to do what engineers have tried to do since day one: eliminate preamp stages from the chain by making the best use of a minimum of links in the processing chain. The second is the one used most by hobby recordists: pump the maximum allowable gain out of each stage so that hiss is kept to a minimum and dynamic range, in theory at least, is at a maximum. The third way is the least-used: make the best use of whatever stages you do need, and use the right preamps for the job. Let's focus on this "third way". We all know that the maximum loss of dynamic range and fidelity occurs on signals needing the most amplification to be usable. In most cases this means microphone signals. While most mixers and rack-mount preamps have XLR inputs for microphone-level signals, the range in quality from one preamp to the other is astonishingly wide. A real top-end mic preamp circuit designed for a world-class mixer might cost more than your entire 16-channel mixer, which should give you some idea of where your gear is at. In fact, if you do a lot of solo multitrack recording or make commercial recordings on your rig, a single high-end mic preamp might be well worth the investment. Consider the fact that your mixer might have anywhere from four to eight mic inputs (if you have switches for "mic" level below your input trimmers, you can be reasonably sure you have high-gain preamps for microphone-level signals on each of those channels) and it doesn't take a Ph.D. to figure out how good they are. When it comes to preamp circuits, you almost always get what you pay for. Since almost all of my recording is single-input multitrack recording, I only really need one mic input. The key is making that input the best it can be. If you recall previous files, you'll remember that my main mixer is a Fostex 350, which doesn't even HAVE a mic input! Even if it did, I'd bypass it altogether, because by my standards it is not a pro-level recording mixer. This poses a minor problem. I can't monitor the tape deck input unless it's in record mode, and I can't monitor anything I'm doing while I wait for my punch-in point. At some point before the mixer, I'll try to split the signal so I can feed the mixer AND the tape deck at the same time. This gives me maximum control over the fidelity of the tape deck input signal and still allows me to hear what I'm doing, and I'd advise anyone else using a cheap mixer to do the same thing. Why make a simple task so difficult? Because the preamp on a high-quality signal processor is quite likely going to be better than the input preamp on a cheap mixer. Mind you, routing the signal directly into the deck requires VERY careful attention to matching the impedances and levels between the last processor in in the chain and those on the tape deck input. Since there is a real risk of damaging input components on a quality tape deck, I ALWAYS set the final processor's output level at zero, bringing it up gradually to the correct level, to avoid any possible chance of blowing anything. Putting the Snap Back into Guitars and Keyboards I use the same technique of bypassing the mixer on input for my instrument tracks as well. The results aren't quite as dramatic, but they are there...I can hear them clearly in my mixes. And whenever I can, I take this principle of eliminating preamp stages one step further by eliminating processors. Every stomp box or piece of rack mount gear I can remove from the chain eliminates at least one and usually two preamp stages...one for input, one for output. As you can guess, I'm a big fan of the digital multi- processors such as the MultiVerb, SGE, Digitech DSP and GSP series, Korg's A-3 and Alesis' QuadraVerb and MidiVerb III. I still don't think any of the current devices provide high-quality compression/limiting or truly versatile AND musical distortion, but for everything else, the right device can serve you very effectively as a main input processor that allows you to eliminate up to five other links in the processing chain. It's up to your ears to decide whether the "digital" feel of these units make up for the reduced noise, enhanced dynamic range and more accurate coloration they provide. Be warned that when reverbs are used on input for almost every one of these devices, the richness of the reverb will be compromised by the complexity of the effect algorithm, (I never recommend printing reverb on a tape track anyway), and it may even compromise the fidelity of the other effects. Be also warned that these devices are no substitute for high-quality, dedicated processors that perform any of the single effects these devices perform simultaneously. But I'd stack my QuadraVerb set on what I call "input process mode" (5-band parametric, pitch effect and delay) against any three single, dedicated effects that total twice the cost, and most SGE/DSP/SPX/FX owners will say the same thing. Headroom and Distortion These are probably the two biggest buzzwords in discussions surrounding preamps and mixers. Virtually everyone knows that the more headroom you can get the more flexibility you have with input levels because you can handle sharper peaks without going into distortion. This is especially true on digital effects, some of which have wide dynamic ranges but very little headroom and produce a most annoying type of distortion. But there's much to be said for having LESS headroom...if you know how to handle it. It's especially true if you record a lot of high-energy music. One trick used by a lot of top producers which many of us have picked up is driving mixers and tape deck inputs to their limits and beyond to tweak the maximum out of the preamps' capabilities. This technique is far too often overused and misunderstood. Whenever you drive a preamp to its limit, two things can happen. Firstly, near the top of its dynamic range you can often get an unwanted limiting effect. Secondly, when you go over the top of its dynamic range, it clips or distorts. And there's a third possible effect you get when you push the deck to its limits. When tape tracks near or reach the saturation point, in other words a signal level so high that the tape's particles simply can't handle any more, an effect known as "track compression" occurs. The effect is quite similar to that achieved with external compressors and limiters. All three are musically valid effects. Note that I said 'effects'. None of them are desirable as a standard practice on all tracks. All three detract from the subtlety of subtle music. All three will add urgency and snap to high-energy music. But you've got to learn where an when to use them. These effects can all sound downright nasty in many places, and the cheaper your gear, the harsher the distortion and the harder the compression. And there's another very unpleasant side effect of overloading preamps and tape tracks: crosstalk. The more signal you squeeze from a tape or mixer track, the more signal will bleed over onto neighboring channels. You can live with this on hard rock tracks, but for most other applications it's not something you should want to deal with. Most gear is engineered to offer maximum fidelity at levels below where most of us like to work. It's a lesson well worth taking to heart. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Please address any POSITIVE correspondence c/o R.SHRIER on GEnie.