Metal Tones - how do you approach them with your KPA?share your knowledge/tips/tricks.

  • Hello everyone , its my first time making a thread , so ill introduce myself.
    I hope i am not making that thread in the wrong place .. if so please go ahead and move it to a proper place.
    First of all i am sorry for my english i hope i am understandable.
    My name is Marios Aggelopoulos i am from Greece , ive been playing guitar for 15 years now , i am a tone enthusiast and one of the reasons i picked up the guitar was for the tone of guitars/amps/cabs can produce ...
    I've been using tube amps for the most part of my life on the simpliest form of it i love to keep things simple ... plug and play.(You will understand why am saying all this )
    So... i've came across an Kemper few years ago , i was blown away from the sound ... so i bought one imidiatly.
    It was so fun at the start using KPA for all those tones etc for jamming and playing along etc...after certain time i decided that i want to make videos for youtube and start recording covers for certain bands/artists wich i loved their playing and most importantly their TONE , in a mind set/self thinking that if i try and approach my beloved bands/artits tones ill finally understand of how to make my own tone wich always lead me to disaster i was always disapointed even though people and comments and emails and friends who wached my videos etc was saying great things about my tone .... but i am not even close to what my head/ears wants to go with my tone.
    Ill leave the story unfinished about here and start getting into the point .


    My favorite and ideal RYTHM tone is Keith Merrow's ... song names : Heart Of The Sea Nymph , People Of The Bog , Braving The Tune etc... you get the picture.
    And my favorite LEAD tone is Paul Wardingham's ...anything from Assimilate Regenarate its good for me.


    So... my process is ok lets break down every tiny detail to achieve that tone ... making my research and everything asking them personaly getting all the infos i need , so LETS GO
    The rythm tone i love comes from a 5150 original moded with Randall Iso cab or a Nomades 2x12 with a SM75 most of the times ... through a baritone guitar 26 3/16 scale length with Sentien Nazgul Saymour Duncan.


    All check i have everything i need guitar wise and everything lets start dealing with Kemper


    Lets try every 5150 profiles thats free and what not on the internet even Keith Merrow's own Profiles ...boom complete failure my guitar is completly lifeless and my guitar Tone completly diffrent way that i want it to be ...
    I got into a evil trip ok my guitar sucks my cable sucks my monitors sucks etc... so i worked my ass off all those years to go buy every top notch gear to reproduce that tone ....boom failure again . (I know its the stupidiest thing you can do )
    (P.S. I know there are alot of the things i am listening when i am listening a record and alot of things that matters for the final sound that comes to my ear and makes me think that THIS is the guitar sound i know i am aware )


    Same thing with my lead tone ... i asked researched soldano x88r with Marshal Greenbacks cabinet....you know the resault.


    So....how you metal heads try and produce the guitar tones that you love when almost all profiles that you Load dont bring the dynamics etc etc that you'd love and you feel that your guitars are lifeless


    Any tips and tricks that you do to achieve certain guitar tones ?
    What you suggest me ?


    Guitar videos : https://www.youtube.com/user/AggMarios/videos


    Cheers and have fun !

  • Ah and something last i forgot about guitar tones... some times you've made a tone and you are so close just if you could move the Microphone on the cabinet ... what you do on those cases?

  • Hey Azazil,


    I'm no way a metalhead; but your quest is common among musicians regardless their favourite genre, so I believe the follow applies to your case as well.


    First of all, tracks on records are heavily produced. 4-tracking is quite a common case for example, and also 6-tracking with three tracks per side in a stereo spread. You playing a single line will never sound like the record! Even your heroes would not as well :)


    Another important thin to take into account is how different a track sound outside the mix.
    Do a search for "isolated tracks" from famous records, and compare them to how they sound in the whole picture: they are really different from how we perceive them in the mix.


    So if you eq your track to sound like the isolated tracks, and multitrack a few of them, you will start sounding closer.
    The point is that every (multi)tracks is perceived differently depending on the frequencies and the levels around them: something for example lossy compression algorithms are based on (frequencies which cover other frequencies depending on their level).


    So, in order to sound like the tracks you hear on the record, you need the whole arrangement around your own sound.


    I'm sure the differences you perceive between the isolated tracks and the records will help you realize how to tweak your sounds.


    HTH

  • Thanks for replying from the bottom of my heart every little helps in my case i think...
    So... i have done what you are saying and thats what exactly i did on my video heart of the sea nymph and i also had a great help from Paul Wardingham mixing and mastering the track if you read the description of the video.


    Although the track sounds great and in someone else's ears the tone might be okish/good/great in my ears its not where i want to go with my tone sadly :(

  • I could give you dozens of examples in person what i would want to do with my Kemper but after tweaking etc etc all those years seems my hands are tight to where i would want to go ... so ANY help is welcome !

  • Just listened to that track. I think the guitar sound suits that style of music really good. The only thing i miss is a little bit of high end "hair". What separates cheap sounding modellers from real tube amps (and the KPA as well) is how they translate that special high end crunch. The trick is to make it sound alive without making it too fizzy. While those guitar tracks seem a little bit too bright when played alone that brightness is covered in the mix.


    Apart from that it´s more the sound of the programmed drums that i would worry about. Since the sound of the drums make up about 70% of the whole mix, i would try to get a real drummer involved.

  • One of the tricks used by a lot of the guys doing covers of songs in videos is EQ matching. You could do this by doing an analysis of the tone of the isolated guitar track on the record vis-a-vis your tone.


    I'm not too sure of the specifics, but I think if you do a little searching on the web for EQ tone matching, you should get some good ideas.

  • Thank you really much both you , i will try everything you just mentioned !
    I downloaded Tills cab pack sounds good ! althought i am searching for a 1968 Marshall Basketweave with Greenbacks if anyone is familiar with that cab and know's where i can get it please let me know !
    Keep the good informations coming who ever reads the thread , a tiny bit always helps !


    Cheers !

  • There are a lot of components involved in achieving the modern metal tones we love on today's albums. The tones we hear on albums today are quite processed and far from natural. Some have already been mentioned.


    Pick a good profile- for Merrow's tone, obviously his profiles are a good place to start.


    Multi-tracking- at least 2 takes (most often 4) panned L/R


    Additional processing- a lot of guys add tape saturation to each track. Compression, limiting, and gating will also affect the overall tone.


    The drums and bass- I cannot stress this enough. The overall sound of the drums and bass will affect the "perceived" guitar tone in a huge way. The actual guitar tracks when soloed will, of course, sound the same. But, in the mix (with the proper drums and bass) they'll sound much better and much bigger. In other words, learn how to record great drums/bass and fit them in the mix and you'll instantly improve your guitar sound.


    Your hands- Merrow, for example, has a very unique style that IMO is a big part of his tone. Study how he plays (what he does with his hands) and do your best to mimic it if you're going for that tone.


    Studio tricks- a lot of modern metal bands use quite a bit of studio trickery. Recording note by note, recording at slower speeds, copy>paste, etc. will also have some effects on the final product.

  • A good Metal-Guitar Tone is 90% good Drums and Bass. :)


    I heard so many tones that were huge on their own, but the drums and bass sucked and everything turned weak, cloudy and muffled.
    On th other hand there are a lot of tones out there you would 100%ly skip on your KPA because they subjectively sound like garbage.
    But in a great mix they evolve to massive face-wrecker.

  • That's so true pepper. But how to train that thing I am a guitar player not an engineer, most of the times I load a profile and play along or jamm tweak to my taste and then I decide this sounds crap... And I delete it how I am suppose to know that it's super insane profile inside a mix.share your tips and tricks cheers

  • Get great bass and drum tracks going, and experiment. As I said, reamping is your friend.


    Fact is, if you want to make songs that sound great in a mix - you need to learn a bit of engineering. That requires you to do a lot of experimenting and using your own ears. It's not something that can be learned by asking and reading, though it can point you in the right direction.

  • right.


    great tone (a great mix) can't really be broken down into components like: "well, use these pickups with this profile and eq it like this and it'll sound killer"
    you don't put together pieces following an instruction, instead, you have to have a vision of what you want the mix to sound like and then use your experience to get there, and/or get there by trial and error.


    take frequent breaks and listen to what you got so far the next day with fresh ears.
    don't delete projects, make clearly labeled alternative mixes and compare those.
    modern record sounds in general and especially metal have gotten very technical,
    don't expect to master it overnight :)

  • "Great tone" has always and will always be completely subjective.


    IMO the only tip or trick to finding "Great tone" is to play a lot of gear and find out what creates a sound that resonates with you.


    Someone like you (a non engineer) IMO shouldn't worry too much about "in the mix". There are people on this forum who are after features like " a low cut that i can use without using up a pedal slot". The reality is stuff like this just isn't really needed. Any live/recording engineer can do this at their desk in seconds, if its needed.

  • how I am suppose to know that it's super insane profile inside a mix.share your tips and tricks cheers


    Hi !


    I had the same problem as you. One day I decided to record one of my song so I learned how to program drums and I recorded bass. I took my favorite guitar tone, tracked to guitar, 1 left - 1 right. Boom, it sounded horrible! Haha. Well in fact, it was not so bad but there was way too much bass and no mid.
    I solved this by copying the sound of August Burns Red in the beginning of "Meridian" when there's no drums or bass. The sound was horrible alone but sounded really great in the mix with 2 guitar tracks.


    If you want an example of the difference between alone and in-mix guitar tone check (at 1min) this from Ola Englund. You'll find more videos of him where he lets you hear the guitar tone alone and without EQ.


    So here's my tips to have a "better sound" in a mix (or when you play with a band) :
    1) As said before, try to find a separate guitar track of a song you like and imitate the sound. But there's a best way in my opinion which is :
    2) Find Stems files of a song you like (or that sounds like what you want to play). By "stems" I mean "separate files of a song". You can sometimes find them when a band makes a "mixing contest" and gives away (for free) the tracks of a song separately (for exemple : Bass/Drums/Gtr Left/Gtr Right/Lead) or on deluxe versions of albums (Ola Englund for example, again) etc… Instead of taking only the guitar track and try to imitate it : Make your OWN sound. When you like it, learn a riff or two of the song and record them, replace the original guitars with yours and check how it sounds. Tweak your sound until it sounds good to you IN THE MIX.


    And for this I have some more tips :
    - It seems obvious but : record a really precise and clean track.
    - Record some different riffs. One with power-chords, one with scales, one with palm-mutes for example to see how it sounds in different situations. Be aware that in records they often have different tones for each part to make them sound better. (Obvious example : Guitar solos have more reverb/delay etc…).
    - Ask another musician or audio engineer (which listen to the kind of stuff you're trying to achieve) how it sounds to his ears. Sometimes, after a long tweaking session you don't know anymore what sounds good and what don't. Listen to it another day with fresh ears (as said before).
    - Took the time to learn how to reamp. It's really easy with a kemper and it will avoid re-record each time you tweak a bit.
    - Don't hesitate to try the "extreme" (like No bass at all) to figure out how it changes the sound.
    - Listen to you mix on an audio device you are used to first.
    - Always double track (or even 4 track!) : It will sound way bigger and more powerful.
    - Try to make it sound great without processing (EQ/Compressor…). If it sounds good without it, it'll certainly sound huge with it ;)
    - One of the most common error is : Too much bass. When you play alone you like to have lot of bass but when you play with a bassist, it's his job, let the bass to him, it'll sound way better.


    I'm just an amateur and that's some of the things that helped me achieve a greater guitar tone.
    Maybe some are totally wrong and that's why my first tip is : Try and use your ears, maybe some things won't work but you'll always learn from it ;)


    If you've got a question about this, don't hesitate to ask.
    I really hope that some of this will help you.
    Cheers !

  • Good suggestions in this thread.


    I would just add: Sometimes we can't see the forest for the trees. You could try to come at it form a different angle, and do some of the things suggested for a ROCK tune instead of going full-on metal. Just to switch things up a bit. Then you'll come back to metal with a new perspective.


    And technically, "stems" is not the correct term. At least, I would advise you to get "raw tracks" or "multitracks" instead. Stems traditionally have the mix processing on them (EQ, compressor, tape emulation, reverb, whatever), and will not necessarily be the best starting point for figuring out what to go for in terms of raw guitar tone.


    A link with multitracks: http://www.cambridge-mt.com/ms-mtk.htm#Rock


    You can preview them and then what you want to inspect further. I think the preview is a mixed version, and the files themselves are the raw multitracks. Keep in mind that some/a lot of the sound of the mix comes from the processing - and as mentioned several times, from the drums and bass. But that is ALSO something you can listen for - which elements come from where.

  • And technically, "stems" is not the correct term. At least, I would advise you to get "raw tracks" or "multitracks" instead. Stems traditionally have the mix processing on them (EQ, compressor, tape emulation, reverb, whatever), and will not necessarily be the best starting point for figuring out what to go for in terms of raw guitar tone.


    Thanks for correcting me, you're totally right !
    I meant to try either with stems or raw tracks but I must agree that raw tracks would be a better starting point!

  • External Content www.youtube.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.


    :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:


    Stay Metal!