Gain- Live vs Studio

[fps]

Here's one that interests me. I always thought you'd go for more gain the studio, less gain live. Or, fewer mids studio more live if you look at, say, the tones of James Hetfield or Dimebag in studio vs on stage, 88-92 and 92-96ish. Went in to start rhythm tracks for my band's demo and found myself turning the gain down, and down, and down, to about 9'clock. We're not, by any means, a metal band. My set-up is pretty metal, Carvin DC727 w/Nailbomb into Randall V2. Still, it was interesting, with less gain the tone had more bite, and at the same time more warmth.

Live I've been using a lot more gain than that. Now I'm thinking that I should totally keep the gain at least 3 notches below where it's been before. Do you think most metal and hard rock guitarists (us amateurs) use waaaay too much gain? Or do you think studio and live are so different it makes little difference what something sounds like in one area compared with the other, that the two are separate entities?

[EtherealEntity]

Most do use far too much gain, yes.

I think live usually requires a little more gain, because you don't have the luxuries of a mix with lots of fine tuned compression etc, and multitracking.

[SW Davion]

Yes, you are right. Live Gain is cranked up. In my case I am in a band that I am the only guitarist.

Studio, usually guitars are dual tracked to increase depth, so lower your gain as you will end up with increased "power" thru the dual guitar tracks..

[Solodini]

Yeah, over the years I've found my gain becoming lower and lower. Halfway is usually pretty high for me. From there onwards you just start to lose definition, I find. Too much gain and chords seem to disappear, as well. You can make things sound as you want easier with less gain: manipulate with chords/harmony and rhythm.

[SirMyghin]

Originally Posted by Solodini

Yeah, over the years I've found my gain becoming lower and lower. Halfway is usually pretty high for me. From there onwards you just start to lose definition, I find. Too much gain and chords seem to disappear, as well. You can make things sound as you want easier with less gain: manipulate with chords/harmony and rhythm.

This has been my experience also, the more I play, typically, the less gain I want to use.

[DomitianX]

Less gain during recording for me. Otherwise it gets messy. You also have to remember that most of the time you are close mic'ing the cabinet so you dont have all that air to "clean up" or "mellow out" the sound waves before they get recorded. If you are 6 feet from the cab, you have plenty of time for the wave form to develop and sort of mellow out. Close mic'ng gives your "ear" an up close picture of the sound.

[rug]

Everyone is on the money here. Less gain, more definition. Don't worry if the original track sounds really thin - by the time you double track it (or triple/quad ) the gain will add up and you'll have some nice, fat sounding tracks. You can always add gain later, but you can't get rid of it once it's there.

[vanhendrix]

I'm the same way. I've been steadily backing it off and off. I just recently modded my powerball for less gain in fact.

I also find that after my amp has been on for at least an hour I need to drop the gain down even more. Maybe my toobz just take a really long time to get cookin, but it's a night and day difference from what it sounds like after 20 minutes of being on

[Solodini]

Do you have any clips of your modded powerball?

[hutchman]

I find that less gain adds way more punch, definition and note clarity. Also you can actually HEAR the notes of chords. I have my gain on my Mesa set to about 9-0'clock plus a little from the tube screamer to saturate it a bit.
I've had people come up to me after a show and say that when I was sound checking they thought I was crazy that I and the other guitarist had so little gain they also thought the guitars didn't sound heavy at all but once the whole band kicked in we sounded huge.
The thing is you will never have as much punch as the kick drum and never as much fatness as the bass. So why not let them fill those jobs for you instead of trying to fill up all the frequencies yourself. (enter importance of mids). Less gain I find makes the sound guys job a lot easier aswell. I just got off a tour where every band we played with couldn't figure out how come we had a great front of house sound and they sounded like mud. I tell them less gain, more mids. Of course they ignore me and blast the distortion.

It is harder to play with less gain but if you can nail it everyone will hear every note you play. I think this goes for studio and live.

[RevDrucifer]

The less gain ya use, the more apparent you're EQ settings will come out as well, (depending on your amp, but this has held true for 95% of amps I've used).

A lot of guitarist definitely suffer from too much gain and not knowing how to set an EQ. It's easy to confuse things without experience. You hear killer walls of guitars on an album and with your own amp in your bedroom, the easiest way to get that sound is to crank the gain and bass up.

Lamb Of God is a good example; listen to their first few albums leading up to Wraith. By the time they got to Wraith, the amount of distortion coming from the amps was minimal, it's mostly a well executed right-hand attack.

And definitely for lead work, the more gain you've got going on, the less dynamics the notes will have and they lose that singing quality.

[scottro202]

THIS is how an amp EQ should look for a guitarist

[Zeff]

recording - less gain and multi tracks to fill out or the mix will get muddy
live - more gain

for the post above ^^ you're joking right?

[scottro202]

Originally Posted by Zeff

recording - less gain and multi tracks to fill out or the mix will get muddy
live - more gain

for the post above ^^ you're joking right?

I'm really not

[budda]

I run as little gain as possible for both applications - rock band and metal band.

[Zeno]

Originally Posted by scottro202

THIS is how an amp EQ should look for a guitarist

Not gonna lie, I just tried this (But with gain set at half) and it sounded great. Not a metal tone, but a great sound nonetheless.

[budda]

Originally Posted by scottro202

THIS is how an amp EQ should look for a guitarist

Try that on a mesa, it won't sound the same

[scottro202]

Originally Posted by budda

Try that on a mesa, it won't sound the same

Well, the MOAR MIDZZZZ LESS GAIN principle's all I'm trying to get across

[Chickenhawk]

I absolutely use too much gain. I'm aware of this.

But, I play sludgy stuff most of the time. When recording, I drop my gain a massive amount, and double or triple track the guitars to help thicken up what might be missing on a single track.

Live? I up the gain. I've been the only guitarist in a band. I've been the second guitarist. Hell, I've been a third guitarist for a few live shows, but my gain is always way higher live than in the studio.

But, I've also been told countless times I use too much gain. One of these days I'll wise up.

[budda]

Why not just wise up then

You can get away with a bit less mids in the studio as well.

[Deliverowned]

gain at 6 oclock on my 5150 and about 8 oclock on my vht. I want as less gain as possible on the amp abut im using, in my ultimate setup, pedals that adds gain, od,comp,clean boost,comp so i get massive distortion and clean n natural saturation while keeping clarity and definition. ill drop the gain in the studio but im already on minimal gain settings everywhere so i guess my tone is just crushing in both applications haha

[Solodini]

Originally Posted by Deliverowned

gain at 6 oclock on my 5150 and about 8 oclock on my vht. I want as less gain as possible on the amp abut im using, in my ultimate setup, pedals that adds gain, od,comp,clean boost,comp so i get massive distortion and clean n natural saturation while keeping clarity and definition. ill drop the gain in the studio but im already on minimal gain settings everywhere so i guess my tone is just crushing in both applications haha

Can we hear this crushing tone, please?

[Malkav]

Originally Posted by scottro202

THIS is how an amp EQ should look for a guitarist

I looked at this and lol'd immediately, I use a GT-10 and my patches are generally set like that, even for my heavy metal sounds I play an 8 string though so I think that explains the need for such a ridiculous low end cut.

I use the vintage rectifier model cause I think it sounds better than the modern one and my gain almost never goes above 35, even for lead patches, in fact my current favourite lead patch is setup with gain at 25. I also use a parametric to boost 800hz, 1.4Khz and use another EQ on the end of the signal chain to cut a bit of 250hz and raise up the 4Khz a tad (not more than 3db max).

Low gain is the true way to a BrOOtal tone!

[somniumaeternum]

It's true that most people use too much gain. It's easy to use it to mask things you don't want in the tone or use it for compression if you're playing leads. Without as much gain, it makes you have to play more spot on I think.

The main point is that everything really depends on your set up. Mesas are super finicky as was said for example. Solid state rigs will have different properties. Depending on the voicing of the amp and what it was intended to do, it'll handle the distortion differently (for example, an Powerball vs. a Lonestar).

From my experience a lot of this has to do with how you're obtaining the distortion. I find that on many amps if you push the preamp up front instead of using the gain setting on the amp it'll have more bite and clarity (while the amp tone controls add warmth and the body) It's just a combination of what you're using and what you want to hear.

For something fairly clear and fluid, like a lead sound, I put everything to 12 0'clock and push the preamp with pedal of choice. I get the smoothness from that. Then I dial in the amp EQ settings (figure out where the flub is in bass, etc.). Then I finally play with the gain control to fill out the sound and not really to get a lot more distortion. (then, of course, fine tune with external EQs and whatever else you have going).

I find that my ear gets fatigued really easily when dealing with a lot of distortion. So if I can I'll usually get a patch I really like going then come back to it the next day. Play along with a CD of your favorite band and you'll notice that their tone is probably like 65% as distorted as yours... so tweak away. I usually have 4 to 5 different versions of the same patch with slightly different settings so I can go back to a previous setting if my ears were fatigued when I do it (i usually get adventurous with tone at around 3 in the morning.. d'oh)

[Deliverowned]

Originally Posted by somniumaeternum

From my experience a lot of this has to do with how you're obtaining the distortion. I find that on many amps if you push the preamp up front instead of using the gain setting on the amp it'll have more bite and clarity (while the amp tone controls add warmth and the body) It's just a combination of what you're using and what you want to hear.
)

THIS summarize my ppoint of you really well!

Originally Posted by Solodini

Can we hear this crushing tone, please?
)

I'ill put a clip tommorow with each amp panned on a side with fews riffs put togeter.