What Effects make a guitar sound more transparent?

[ganymedes81]

I'm working on a song. I recorded the guitars myself. I just record a clean signal and then apply amp modeling to it.

After mixing everything down, the mix sounds too dense. It's like a wall that you can't break through.
Without the guitar, the mix sounds fine. I think it's the guitar.

Does anyone know what effects you can use to make a guitar more transparent? When I hear guitars on the radio, they sound much more translucent.

Keep in mind, I don't want a ton of reverb, and I don't think reverb will solve the problem.

I'm thinking maybe too much compression is the issue? Not enough compression? The attack time? The EQing? I'm not sure what to do.

For the record, I didn't apply much compression and I used a pretty quick attack time. (.5 milliseconds?).

Regarding EQing, I've been told it's better to cut frequencies. How do I know what to cut? I don't have a great ear for knowing what part of this guitar sounds good and what sounds bad in terms of the EQ. Is there any way I can analyze this (using something to analyze the sound frequency and then cut?)?

PLEASE HELP ME! I have a ton of effects and if I need more, I can buy them. Thanks for your help!

[bitcrusher]

I'd suggest to try hipassing at 90 hz or so, and a very broad midrange EQ boost, maybe 1 dB (with a very wide bandwidth), and then turn the output down some.

for specific notch-eq'ing, make the EQ boost instead temporarily, and sweep the frequency to isolate the obnoxious frequency that is annoying in the mix, and then cut it.

-Steve

[tkmattson]

Is the guitar the featured instrument, or in more of a supporting role? Sounds like you might need some carefully planned delays, or modulation (chorus, flanger, phaser) to me. That, and to take down the volume ALL THE WAY, and then slowly raise the fader to the spot where it actually can just barely be heard. You'd be amazed at how that simple trick can make a mix sound less cluttered. Perhaps you may want to try it with all your instruments (short of say, drums & bass).

[Left Headphone]

I use GlissEQ...
Start Here: Eq -4 dB @ 100 Hz
Don't make the peak band to wide or to narrow. Sweep between 100hz and 300hz until you hear what you like. When you get to 200hz, the guitar will start to sound thin.

This will allow you're bass to breath a little.

[Funkybot]

Yeah filter out the bass frequencies of the guitar, you don't want that to share too many of the same frequencies as the bass. Then of course pan them away from center (where bass, vocals, snare and kick will presumably reside).

[Armadillo]

I like to have a 4-5 dB cut around 1200-1500 Hz. I suppose it depends on the sound you want but it works for me. I've had great result both on acoustic and heavy distorted nu-metal power chords.

[scuzzphut]

scoop that mid!!!!
I would also recommend tuning a parametric to around 1kHz and playing with cutting that frequency and it's neighbours

[tcadillac]

Do you have a stereo Amp Mod on it? It sounds like your effect is taking 2 much of the stereo spectrum. Try using a mono amp effect and panning discretly. Maybe even double the guitar and try different eq settings on the doubled.

[donkey tugger]

It's like a wall that you can't break through.

Cool, any tips?

[Coolredguitar]

HarmoniEQ works great for my projects to scoop out the unwanted frequencies..I also have good luck at doing this using Pristine Space Light or SIR using LA2 limiter and/or Neve impulse files.

[greendoor]

Without the guitar, the mix sounds fine. I think it's the guitar.

Sometimes it's in the arrangement - if the mix sounds fine without the guitar, maybe you should leave it. Or - maybe something has to be removed from the mix to make room. Do you have some big pads or pianos or something taking up the midrange? Decide what instruments you want to dominate in each frequency range, and then arrange and/or eq them so they don't clash. There is no 'correct' technical answer - you have to decide which instruments you want in front, and which will be behind. You can't make every instrument big and full - sometimes you have to make the lesser instruments smaller, duller, more distant etc

[Vervil]

It's like a wall that you can't break through.

Cool, any tips?

Actually, something like that crossed my mind too. People usually complain about not being able to make guitars big and dense enough, and they are spending time recording layers of distorted guitars, just to make them big enough. But I guess Ganymedes is more on a non-distorted side...

It would be a lot easier to say what a problem is if you could give as a link to your mix, so we can hear it, maybe guitar is not a problem at all. What makes guitar track sound good is its role in whole of the mix, it can't be really wrong or right on it's own. Well, at least most of the times

[IainF]

can you post a link to a short piece of your mix. Every mix is differnt and it's be easier to give advice after hearing it.

[feyshay]

I like the suggestion to cut at 100Hz. Use a broad enough band (even up to 200). You can totally cut out the frequency below 20Hz. For some brightness try increasing 2dB in the 2000kHz area. Then add a little air (10000kHz).
Think about adding some delay to give it depth.
Reverb won't fix your problem; it will only make your guitar murkier.

[xoxos]

apart from eq, another way of dealing with masking freqs is to give the sound a different binaural definition, eg. if you have mono sounds panned hard center, a flanged signal can sit nicely around them (in my perception channel phase ~sets the 'width') since it doesn't separate frequencies uniformly over time, but can provide enough signal information for the listener to visualise each part.

try doing a whole mix with only flangers/mod delays sometime :p