Electri6ity

[lol4ever]

Yeah, I played quite a lot. And it seems, that today i finally found the sound i like (for one song, at least). Revalver + impulses + some more thinking did the job. I will mix down the instrumental without vocals and post it.
Btw, in Electri6ity i mostly use Strat now. I tried Les Paul P_ninety (antispam bot blocks the number for some reason o_O) for higher tuned guitar, but it did not fit well in the mix (plus, at certain notes it did sound like a bell), so now both guitars are now Strat. Les Paul P_ninety is not a metal guitar anyway.

And for clean i use 335, it is so fine. But it also needs lots of fine tuning now, as i completely remix all the songs.
About V-metal mutes: yeah, i noticed, that mutes are somehow very fat, but in the same time less realistic, than ones you can get from Electri6ity. You can have almost same mutes from it, though, if you punch mutes velocity to 100%, tightness to 1 and set up your amp/ampsim to accentize them. But even then they do not have such strange... well, endings as the ones from V-metal. Maybe V-metal mutes also can be adjusted to remove that. And them being so FAT by default is due to being played like that, i think.
BUT 300$ for a cat in a sack?

[progtronic]

...BUT 300$ for a cat in a sack?

lol. yeah...

I'm actually getting some of the best metal guitar sounds from the twangiest guitars available in Electri6ity.

When I first started out using and tweaking all this stuff, I avoided the Lipstick, Rickenbacker and Telecaster like the plague.

Now.. they are some of the best to use for that tight muted tone, due to their very bright, clicky, pick attacks. I just filter out the twang and scoop the mids before it even hits the amp head.

I also drop tune everything to C in Electri6ity.. and.. as suggested by someone earlier in this thread.. detune it down even more with the 'Tune' knob on the main Kontakt panel, -4.0 to an A-flat. The sample quality is so high.. you won't hear any funky, low tuned, sample artifacts.

Really good for that ridiculously low, Death Metal guitar stuff I need.

So, yeah... keep experimenting. You'll get there.

[lol4ever]

...BUT 300$ for a cat in a sack?

When I first started out using and tweaking all this stuff, I avoided the Lipstick, Rickenbacker and Telecaster like the plague.

Now.. they are some of the best to use for that tight muted tone, due to their very bright, clicky, pick attacks. I just filter out the twang and scoop the mids before it even hits the amp head.

I also drop tune everything to C in Electri6ity.. and.. as suggested by someone earlier in this thread.. detune it down even more with the 'Tune' knob on the main Kontakt panel, -4.0 to an A-flat. The sample quality is so high.. you won't hear any funky, low tuned, sample artifacts.

Really good for that ridiculously low, Death Metal guitar stuff I need.

So, yeah... keep experimenting. You'll get there.

lol. And the first thing i did was to try these ones. They do really sound good for low tight mutes, but as the each guitar part has some high notes, for me they sound strange on them with distortion. So now i'm at a period of avoiding them =) Maybe that changes.

Also, one guitar in our songs is A, so C tune and -3 knob (-4 is Ab, actually ) do the trick. However, attack gets sloppy a bit. Though, when we worked with live guitars that were not supposed to be tuned that low, but they was, the effect was pretty much the same. So thumbs up for realism in that too for Electri6ity

I wish the Electri6ity also had "default metal guitar" - Ibanez RG series. But

Almost made my mix. Just need an aproval of two other band members now and i will post the tries =)

[dynamitec]

Hey guys,

I'm glad you still discussing about Electri6ity here. It's a good thread to find a lot of help and information

Some exciting news will come in the future! In the meantime I would like to point you to another project I did recently. Check this out:
http://www.bigfishaudio.com/detail.html?514785

It's a nice drum library for K5 aimed at rock and metal! With up to 7 mics per kitpiece to create your own sound!

[bill45]

Benjaim, that kit sounds great. Don't have K5 yet.

[lol4ever]

Hey guys,

I'm glad you still discussing about Electri6ity here. It's a good thread to find a lot of help and information

Some exciting news will come in the future! In the meantime I would like to point you to another project I did recently. Check this out:
http://www.bigfishaudio.com/detail.html?514785

It's a nice drum library for K5 aimed at rock and metal! With up to 7 mics per kitpiece to create your own sound!

IMHO, the drumkit on the tests sounds a bit "flat". I, personally, use SSD for drums. It's not a plug-and-play thing, but damn close to that. Each instrument needs VERY little of tweaking.

For hardcore mixing fans there is a BFD =)

For plug-and-play - Easy Drummer.

And this one is... somewhere in the middle, but closer to ED.

Again, just IMHO.

What i wonder now is if Electri6ity will get more guitars some time later. Again, like Ibanez RG, the one that Vai is using. For me it the only thing, that is missing in Electri6ity.

[warfighter67]

I think Electri6ity should just make a whole separate product aimed purely at users who delve into heavy metal, with guitars such as a Gibson (The one Shreddage uses), Ibanez, and a few guitars for good sounding metal clean guitars.

[bill45]

lol4ever,VSL over drive guitar is an Ibinez 7 string, sampled through a marshal.
Sounds good and can be useful, although not as realistic as electri6ity.
I wonder, what is the news on electi6ity? and, When will we hear it?
To V- Metal or not to V-Metal?????

[lol4ever]

lol4ever,VSL over drive guitar is an Ibinez 7 string, sampled through a marshal.
Sounds good and can be useful, although not as realistic as electri6ity.
I wonder, what is the news on electi6ity? and, When will we hear it?
To V- Metal or not to V-Metal?????

Realism is what i am looking for, as my bandmates kick me for "not realistic enough" thing. So, probably, this wont help.

V-metal experiment VS 300$. Dunno. And especially "dunno" because i didn't like SC for their creepy controls (IMHO).

I do also want to hear news on Electri6ity, as quite some time has passed since the last (and only) update. There are confirmed errors in programming and stuff, there are tonns of requests, but there is no update or news on updates anywhere. Silence frightens, as i like this instrument a lot.

Oh, and i have a question for you all. Here is double guitar track (non-maximized, no EQ, clean doubletrack), made with Electri6ity:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/591327/Blind%20 ... 0EQ%29.mp3
My bandmates kick me heavily for it being "not realistic" and "sounding like it is some kind of math synt, just distorted" (quotes). I'm trying to figure out, what they two don't like, but have currently no ideas... If you can hear something i can't, help me with that pls! From my point of view, these guitars sound quite natural...

[bill45]

Sounds good to me.I wonder, If they are just prejudice against sampling.
Play them progtronic's stuff, or Javi Perarra, Darkness.Don't tell them
the guitars are sampled see if they can tell.I played an MOR 2 demo,I did,
for some knowledgable people.They couldn't tell that the guitars where sampled.

[lol4ever]

Sounds good to me.I wonder, If they are just prejudice against sampling.
Play them progtronic's stuff, or Javi Perarra, Darkness.Don't tell them
the guitars are sampled see if they can tell.I played an MOR 2 demo,I did,
for some knowledgable people.They couldn't tell that the guitars where sampled.

Actually, I gave my mixdowns (though, quite bad ones) to my brother's producer. He did not know that it was synth, and he never guessed. Also, a friend of mine, who is sound freak even (and has a freaking expensive sound system), told the phrase "wow, you've managed to record guitars so cool".
Yes, thay are prejudice (but have no choice about using or not using synth, as we've kicked out 6 guitarists during last 2 years for being lazy and playing too badly), however they did listen to Perarra's songs. For most of them they said, that guitar sounded pretty nice and liked it (except for this one:

http://www.benjaminstelzer.de/demo_new/ ... 56_GR4.mp3

which was also said to be too synthy)... Unlike our own mixdowns. Also, they said, that for some music like, for example, Static-X plays these guitars would be perfect, but they are still not alive enough for ours. I'm frustrated. Almost all humanize settings of Electri6ity have been turned on to max.
So, now i'm still trying to figure out, what is the key difference between Javi's mixdowns and mine. Maybe it is something very faint, like using differently humanized midis for doubletracking or something like that.
Maybe it's not the guitar they don't like, but the ampsim (though the settings, used for mixdown i posted they set up themselves, matching the amp we have in studio, i only modified them a bit for mixing purposes). This we will check on this Saturday in the studio. We are going to record some direct guitar signal and use different ampsims on it.

The reason i'm still fighting to make them say "ok, it's guitar-sounding, not synth" is that for an unprepared listner, who cannot differ ever totally un-humanized Electri6ity from a real guitar, this difference may be percepted like "i don't like the sound". So this i don't want to get anyhow.

Oh, and yes, they both liked V-metal thing. But there is me, who doesn't like the price and lack of demos

[Dreambliss]

lol4ever, the preamp is one of the overlooked settings for enhancing realism. When I was still struggling to find the sound I was looking for, it was the preamp that helped beef up weak sounding tones. There are a number of other settings that help with realism as well, such as:

Tone | Strumming:
Horizontal Strumming

Tone | Picking:
Vertical Picking

Tone | Muted:
Bright

Playing | Muted Tightness | Chords:
1

Playing | Muted Tightness | Single Notes:
1

Strumming | Velocity Muted Notes:
100% (please note that chucka-chuckas are non-existent with this setting, if you use chucka-chuckas then leave this as 0% or map it to a CC and switch it to 0% when hitting the chucka-chuckas)

Picking | Velocity Muted Notes:
100%

Releases | Palm Mute | Type:
Hard & Percussive

Releases | Finger Noise:
Muted & Sustain

The humanize section is also very helpful. I don't use the double tracking feature in Electri6ity. Instead I quad track by using a multi I created with two tele's and two P90's. One tele and P90 is hard left and one tele and P90 is hard right. I change the preamp settings on each guitar as well as the tone and pickups so each guitar has somewhat different settings. I also created custom presets in Guitar Rig 4 where each guitar has its own preset. Here's an example of what I've achieved with Electri6ity and Guitar Rig 4 (using Rammfire):



The above is a song I just finished recently. Almost nearing the completion of my album - woohoo! Hope these tips help you.

[lol4ever]

...

Thanks a lot for the advices!
However, what you have posted i had tried, but that was not enough. So, i had to go a bit further. Well, not a bit, actually, i use both unique midis AND electri6ity's double tracking, though the latter is used for a bit different purpose than humanize plus i played for a long time with all of Electri6ity's settings to get and understanding on what they are and how to use them. And now, finally, here is my mix:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/591327/Blind%20god.mp3

Actually, i got a grip on electri6ity's settings waaaay earlier (well, not way, a week or so ago), just had a hard time actually mixing and mastering the song to a state i don't think to be too horrible + my bandmates don't. This exact mix is a pain, because, first, it contains two guitars, A and D tuned, but that's not too bad. The bad thing is that each guitar each time plays only one note, and chord is formed on two guitars. Sounds good, but mixing guitars like that + electronics made my head blow a bit. Luckily, other songs are way simplier.
Anyway, ss i have finished it, on saturday (or even maybe on friday, not sure yet) i will start making a first of series of Electri6ity realism tutorials (script for it is already written anyway) on what and how to do to make Electri6ity realistic like hell + a bit of amp setup, which is mostly common for both synth guitars and real ones, if they are played through virtual amp. Amp CAN do a lot of bad things to sound, that's for sure.

I've spent a TON of time on it, but it does sound good


PS
About Guitar Rig and Rammfire. I do have them, but will not use them for distorted guitars anymore. The reasons are the following:
1. It does not have adequate stomps. At all. All stomps, presented there, act VERY strange when you try to get a distortion.
2. The whole software produces very "digital" sound. All high frequences are crawling with digital noises, and low frequences are too "thin", so thin that even EQ cannot save it.

Though, for clean guitar it is definitely good.

Now, as a distorted guitar sim (as i have tried virtually all of them), i use RevalverMKIII, as it has VERY good impulse sim + impulses itselves + preamps + stomsp. It can start sound digital, but this only means, that something is tuned terribly wrong.
For more "prog metal", Meshuggah-like sound i would use Pod X3, at least as stomp, as it has a very nice stomps for that plus not so bad ampsim.
And, as a possible replacement, i still have overloud TH1, though it is also very strange (but still better than Guitar Rig).
I also tried AmpliTube Metal, but i could not find nice cabs there - too digital or to thin low mid. BUT. If you have a cab, but don't have a good amp - this is the choice thanks to it's output characteristic. I actually use an AmpliTube preset for our band's trainings (as i had stated, i am a drummer + sound engineer, but now i don't know, what i am more )

Not-so-bad sound can be done with all of them, but with Revalver to trash the sound you need to try harder So it is my choice so far.

[progtronic]

...About Guitar Rig and Rammfire. I do have them, but will not use them for distorted guitars anymore. The reasons are the following:
1. It does not have adequate stomps. At all. All stomps, presented there, act VERY strange when you try to get a distortion.
2. The whole software produces very "digital" sound. All high frequences are crawling with digital noises, and low frequences are too "thin", so thin that even EQ cannot save it.

hmmm.. I'm just not having the issues you listed getting good, (low) chunky Death Metal tones out of Electri6ity, Guitar Rig and any one Electricity guitar (even the hollow bodies).

I use just about every combo of stomps, heads, cabs and guitars for the same basic Metal chunk tones.

but I'm using the 'stomp boxes' more like pre-amps.. by just adding a bit of grit to the initial tone and helping to shape the chunky muted low end, before it hits the amp head.

then I apply most of the distortion in the amp head itself.. tweak the cabinets and mics (usually around three different ones).. then eq all that for the basic overall tone.

from there I add some fx.. then maybe eq a bit after that as well, before it leaves Guitar Rig.

really not understanding how (or why) you are having to use multiple guitars to just emulate one.. would totally mangle my brain to even try to get that to work.. lol

[bill45]

Nice tune lol4ever.