Electri6ity

[progtronic]

I am still confused how you folks are getting really fast picking in your songs. I am using a sequencer/keyboard, and when I paint in the notes on the sequencer, if the note is too small, I get no sound -- as if it is not even being recognized. If it paint too much, the note sounds too long and therefore not fast enough to put many notes together. I would like to just achieve a nice steady fast rhythm. For instance and E chord strummed furiously for 4 bars.

Which settings are you changing to get that effect? I read the humanizing tutorials and either it is not there or I did something wrong.

Thanks for any insight.

FWL

to get that fast, chugging, metal style rhythm guitar.. I use a combination of low velocities (to trigger mutes and half mutes) notes, power chords and forced mute (strum) articulations.

I set up the calibration section (in settings) to just barely add a bit of increasing tone length (shortest to longest) to dead mutes, mutes and half mutes.. respectively. then use those in conjunction with starting notes and power chords.

for example: I'll play a note or a 2-note power chord, about half velocity (for a starting semi-muted chord). then re-trigger it with the forced dead mutes, mutes and half mutes (strum) articulation keys.

I play harder starting chords and notes for full definition, then choke them off with the muted articulation strum keys.

you'll have to experiment to see what works best for you.. but that's my basic method for getting that chunky, metal, rhythm guitar style.

[dynamitec]

Progtronic explained it very well. That's also what really guitarists do.

Anyway, have you tested those settings:

Settings Page => Playing => Playing | Muted Tightness | Chords
Settings Page => Playing => Playing | Muted Tightness | Sinle Notes

Simply lower the standard values for less decay.

[fatwhitelump]

Thanks for everyone's suggestions. I will take a look at all that stuff when I am back at my music computer. I think part of the issue may be is that I am not using key-switches. I only have a 61 key synth (Korg x-50) so the defaulted key switches don't line up, so I have to play around with that and hopefully get it to work on with my limited keyboard. The one thing I am confused about though, since I would like to primaryly paint the notes into a sequencer as opposed to actually playing it on my synth, how does that affect key switches? That is to say, can I set it to one setting, paint the notes, then when I need the next key switch just press that and paint the notes again? Or is there a better way besides playing everything live?

Thanks.

FWL

[dynamitec]

Hi FWL,

if you want to use Electri6ity in a sequencer, that's just fine. All keyswitches and suggestions made in the last posts will also work if you use your sequencer.

You can also freely rearrange the keyswitches to fit your 61 keys keyboard. Most likely you won't need 66% of the keyswitches which are available.

[progtronic]

I have the few key switches I use, re-mapped to the lower 2 octaves, right below the lowest guitar note that can be played. I hold notes and chords with my right hand, and strum/play the key switches with my left.

usually record into the sequencer that way.. then pop open the piano roll and edit from there. I paint in some key switches as well. sorta try out what I want to do on my keyboard.. then paint in the appropriate key switches, notes and chords.

[Dreambliss]

After tweaking stuff for a few weeks off and on here's what the guitar tones sound like now:

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=9580774

Much better than before. I'll be making some final tweaking and finally putting this song to rest. Thanks to everyone for all the tips and whatnot!

[bill45]

Nice job Dreambliss,
I suggest bringing the drums down abit(especially the cymbols)and try to
increase the over all level of your mix.
I'm having good luck with benjamin's tutorials , but When I play a
sustained low E with the suggested settings , it sounds to harsh.
the same is true of long unmuted power chords.I have this problem with all the amp sims I've tried.

[progtronic]

sounds good Luke.

Bill, I think the trickiest part to any DI guitar library is learning how to tweak the amp sim. I wish I could fully explain how I design my amp sounds.. but I'm not really sure myself.

maybe my years of synth patch design, mixing/eq'g and mastering are being applied somehow.

all I can suggest is.. start small. just an amp and cab. get the basic characteristics first. for me that's a tight muted chunkyness.

I sorta ignore the overall frequencies initially. then I add in a distortion unit, with almost everything on it turned down or off.. and gently tweak it while still maintaining the overall chunky/clean characteristic. then I start tweaking the mic's (in guitar rigs control room), adding the warmer mics and generally avoiding the nasal sounding ones.

if it's sounding too harsh anywhere, I drag in a pro-filter. usually right after the distortion or amp head.. but sometimes after the cabinet.

I add eq's, almost last.. to beef up the hot spots of the tone I'm trying to feature (chunkyness/meatyness). so that's usually a shelving eq, followed by a parametric. can go right after the distortion, or the cabinet.. or both.

then finally, the effects. sometimes I add in a little eq after the fx if they change the overall tone to much.. so I can correct it a bit.

[dynamitec]

After tweaking stuff for a few weeks off and on here's what the guitar tones sound like now:

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=9580774

Much better than before. I'll be making some final tweaking and finally putting this song to rest. Thanks to everyone for all the tips and whatnot!

Hi Luke,

The guitar tone itself is getting much better now! Definitely! But I think the whole song/mix could need more 'power' and a bit better balance.

Can you write me an email? If you want you can send me the stems (the different tracks) and I'll give the mastering a try (and I'm also going to explain what exactly I did). Only if you want, of course.

Cheers,
Benjamin

[Dreambliss]

@bill45 - Thanks Bill! I use Superior Drummer 2.0 so I'll tweak the virtual overhead mics to take the cymbals down a little bit. I think the snare might also be hitting a tad hard at times and may tweak that as well. As for the overall volume, I haven't finished mastering yet. I'm being very conservative with compression as to not kill the dynamics and whatnot, but I'm too conservative.

@progtronic - Thanks Rick! I'm definitely getting the hang of it. I strictly used the preamp in Electri6ity with Guitar Rig 4 Pro. I did try adding another preamp VST in front of Guitar Rig, but it made it too distorted. Although, I probably could have tweaked it to get it right but I opted to use strictly Guitar Rig for everything. I am really digging the Rammfire components too.

@dynametic - Thank you Benjamin for the offer to master this song. I really appreciate it since mastering is not a strong point for me. I will send you an e-mail after work and I will zip up each individual track and place it in my Dropbox for you to download. One of my biggest issues is the low end. I am being too conservative in trying to avoid distortion and mudding up the lows.

[Dreambliss]

Hey Benjamin, I was tied up with my second job all night, so I'm just now getting around to uploading the tracks to my Dropbox. I'll send you an e-mail tomorrow with the link to it. Do you want to know about any EQ settings, volume adjustments, effects, etc. that I have configured in my project file? The tracks I'm sending are raw with none of those applied. Although for the drums I've done a majority of the effects and volume adjustments within Superior Drummer 2.0, but I do have a bus EQ applied to kill low end below 80hz.

Thanks again for the offer. I really appreciate it. Take your time, no rush.

[bill45]

Rick,
I really appriciate your help and patiance.Your last post was even more
in depth than the one you wrote for Luke.Since you've gotten good sounds
out of every component in guitar rig; I was wondering ,if you've tried
Ramfire or ultrasonic.The new ramfire control room has some real cool mics,
M49 and M149.Some of the mics are eq'd with Neve 1073's.Since you look
for the warmest mics first the uneq'd ones might be good choices for you.
Speaking of mixing and mastering;Are You increasing Guitar levels with a
bus compressor , or mastering limiter?I was taught to be very careful when
compressing the entire mix.Javi's guitars ,on darkness, are at 0dbfs.
Luke,
What program do you use to zip your files?
thanks again, Bill

[progtronic]

don't think I've used ultrasonic yet..

I just got my komplete 7 upgrade a few days ago, and am working on a remix using all rammfire amps. I'm going for that classic metal, slightly squawky tone.. that I usually shy away from. works really well with this particular tune I'm remixing.

between rammfire and the new reflektor reverb.. I'm getting really huge sounding guitar setups. reflektor, dialed in with a small, concrete room and rammfire set to a modern tone.. sounds a lot like softube's metal amp room. pretty cool.

I rarely use any compression in the guitar's signal chain. only useful for clean guitars. high gain setups don't really need to have anything compressed.

[Dreambliss]

I am currently working on an older tune of mine that I originally wrote in 2001 and reworked in 2007. It still needs a lot of work... I need to tweak velocities on a lot of tracks yet. The drums need a major overhaul because all of the fills were rushed and don't sound good, not to mention that there's absolutely no velocity variance (i.e. snare drum always hits with a velocity of 120). I originally wrote the tune using an old 16-bit MIDI program with SoundFonts and each track was programmed into an event list. I got lazy because of the challenges of working with an event list. I didn't use a PRV or staff view. In 2007, right before my hiatus, I reworked this song using Sonar and supplemented it with some softsynths, added guitars, replaced drums, etc. The guitars in the 2007 version were from Dimension Pro.

I am loving Rammfire. I had reworked the guitar tracks first and I'm getting some killer tones. I'm hoping to have the rest of the song reworked by the end of tonight. If anyone is interested, I'll post my custom Rammfire presets for download.

Rick, with the Komplete 7 upgrade, did you have to do any uninstalling first? I am going to buy that eventually and am just curious. How are the new synths included with it? Any good stuff? I suppose it's too early to ask since you just got it recently .

Bill, I use an older version of WinRAR to zip my files but I'm going to dump it and use 7-Zip instead. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. 7-Zip is free and works great.

[progtronic]

...with the Komplete 7 upgrade, did you have to do any uninstalling first? I am going to buy that eventually and am just curious. How are the new synths included with it? Any good stuff? I suppose it's too early to ask since you just got it recently

nope. no un-installing. I customized the install and just added the stuff I didn't have already. I re-installed battery's samples as well, because my komplete 6 discs were messed up and gave me errors during battery's install. so, that's all fixed now.

the new synths are pretty much just new reaktor synths.. which I don't really use due to it still being 32-bit (the only thing left in komplete that's not 64). they are upgrading it soon though.. that'll be nice, because there's a lot of cool stuff you can do with it.

the new sample libraries are nice.. there are a ton of 'em. prolly gonna use my voucher and get scarbee's jay-bass as well.