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

Quote from Michael_dk

Get great bass and drum tracks going, and experiment

yes,good tips from everyone here. have a default drum and bass track set up in your DAW which you can use for your guitar tweaking,applies to all genres of course.

Quote from Kydas

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!

...Wish I heard that at my day job more often...

My personal way to find a good tone:

1. Find a ton of tones that you think sound good
2. Record all those tones
3. Put them in a mix
4. Filter out anything that doesn´t sound good
5. Re-play the profiles that actually sound good in the mix
6. Develop an ear for "what works" and "what not".
7. Go back to #1

Multitracks files: i'm not sure i'm allowed to give the direct link here but if you google : multitrack mogg
you're very close to find the world's largest repository of multitracks files, ready for download

Keith is an insane rhythm player.

You really have to experiment with different ways of muting/hitting the strings on the picking hand to get that kind of tone down.
Where to mute, how hard to hit the strings, where to hit the strings etc...
Replicating the tone of another player in that regard is one of the hardest things to do.

If you'd get a DI file of Keith playing and run it through a lot of different rigs, you'd realize that it always sounds like him, regardless of the amp/profile used.
Of course it will sounds better with some than others, but I think the key ingredient that you seem to be so determined to nail down is the tone in his hands.

Comparing his playing on the original with your cover it's evident that your playing style is different than his.
I'm not saying yours is bad, but the one thing I noticed is that Keith plays quite a bit harder than you when he hits the strings, and he also mutes closer to the bridge.
That paired with brighter guitars than the Les Paul and different Pups results in a pretty different tone to begin with.
I guess that's also why his profiles didn't work for you (they don't work for me either, fwiw haha)

Hope that helped a bit, just try to experiment with that for a while, and you should be able to get closer to what you want to hear with any kind of good quality profile.

I'm totally in love with the looks of your les paul btw.

hm no, I don't agree with the mentality that you can play softer with active EMGs than with passives.
Sure the emg compresses (limits, actually) the signal, but if you play too soft it still sounds like you played too soft.

But however you wanna approach this man, do it your way!

What I experienced so far, was that most of the times when players seek a certain quality in the tone of a certain player, they totally get lost in the gear and focus too much on details.
Sure, every element plays a part in the overall tone, but that kind of gear oriented attention to detail makes you miss the most important part of the chain:
the players hands.

just my 2c.

Quote from Mago

Sure, every element plays a part in the overall tone, but that kind of gear oriented attention to detail makes you miss the most important part of the chain:
the players hands.

just my 2c.

But then again the players hands only do so much.

<grin> Tone is physics. Style is in the hands. +1

Quote from Hannes_ITS

But then again the players hands only do so much.

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What do you mean man, there's obvious differences in the tone they produce haha

Quote from Mago

What do you mean man, there's obvious differences in the tone they produce haha

Yeah there is an obvious difference - but it´s not really big. It´s there but not really in a way that the basic tone in itself differs in a significant way.

yeah the guitar tone stays the same, but the player totally alters the way it responds. I'd dial in different tones with all 3 of them to get the best out of each.

Some tones I recorded while a ago

sorry my playing is a bit sloppy.

Quote from Hannes_ITS

Yeah there is an obvious difference - but it´s not really big. It´s there but not really in a way that the basic tone in itself differs in a significant way.

I'd expect to see a bigger difference if they were playing melody lines or lead guitars. There is a subtle difference in the tone when each of those guys played it, but when I think concepts like vibrato would demonstrate a bigger difference in tone than just playing power chords.

Yeah of course - BUT - if two skilled players do play the same part but with different "playing styles" the difference probably wouldn´t be big. The whole "the tone is in your hands" philosophy only applies (and this is highly subjective of course) in my opinion only to those cases where you have a very skilled and a very unskilled player next to each other

Quote from Hannes_ITS

Yeah of course - BUT - if two skilled players do play the same part but with different "playing styles" the difference probably wouldn´t be big. The whole "the tone is in your hands" philosophy only applies (and this is highly subjective of course) in my opinion only to those cases where you have a very skilled and a very unskilled player next to each other

I wouldn't say it doesn't hold water either. Even experienced players will sound different and indeed, even the same player can sound different. It's just that guitar playing is imprecise and by that I mean, unlike a computer, there's a human variable in there. Same with the drums and other instruments. How you play the same power chord twice in succession could differ greatly. And if you consider two or more people playing the same thing, there's bound to be a difference in how each of them play those chords, minute, as demonstrated in the video, but still there.

In that sense, if those players chose a tone that's suited to their style of playing, I'm convinced they wouldn't narrow in on the same sound -- one is likely to have had something with more bass, another with more treble, etc. If you put each of them with the same starting tone in different rooms and asked them to tweak the tone just using an EQ to their ultimate taste, I have no doubt that their fingers would decide the characteristics they choose. So in a way, the tone comes from their fingers

Another example of how tone is in the fingers. Look at a guy like Jimi Hendrix. Super sloppy playing style, I mean just in terms of how he holds chords, plays notes, etc. I have no doubt that any of today's guitar virtuosos would be able to transcribe his music, note for note. Would they sound like him though? Most probably not. That's why you can sometimes instantly identify a guitarist, not by his tone alone, but also the way he plays.

If you dig further into it, the kinds of phrasing, vibrato, etc. But definitely, at least to some extent, "the fingers" have a role to play in how someone sounds on guitar.

Quote from Hannes_ITS

Yeah of course - BUT - if two skilled players do play the same part but with different "playing styles" the difference probably wouldn´t be big. The whole "the tone is in your hands" philosophy only applies (and this is highly subjective of course) in my opinion only to those cases where you have a very skilled and a very unskilled player next to each other

I don't know how many other players you have recorded yet dude, but believe me if after a while you really are able to tell what part of the tone comes from the player and what not.

It's a different kind of "different tone" than changing the cab or the mic though.