NotAlexJones":26gjwdru said:I'll start out by saying I love the content from players like Pete Thorn, Rob Chapman, Shawn Tubbs, Rabea Massaad, Dan & Mick from That Pedal Show, and many of the others outstanding players who are making YouTube a better place... But I have a question about their overdriven guitar tones. Every time they dabble into the medium to high gain arena, what I'm hearing from their channels are severely compressed, fizzy, and not even remotely what they'd be hearing while in the room with the amp. Is it really just YouTube's audio compression doing this? When bands who have "made it" upload their content to YouTube, it sounds close enough to the lossless audio files I have on my hard drive to where I'm not complaining about fizzy guitar sounds. Is it as good as lossless audio? Not even close but it's close enough to where I'm not complaining. So why are they having this issue?
As someone who's in the market for recording equipment, I'm afraid of falling into the same situation they're in where I'm thousands upon thousands of dollars deep into DAW's, direct, boxes, mic preamps, the works... And then it just ends up sounding like someone turned the compression up to 11 in post. I'm not trying to bash these guys, hell I wish I was as good as them, but what they're uploading in terms of the medium to high gain content is not okay to my ears (the playing absolutely is, just not the tone - and if I were in the room with them as they were playing it I have no doubt I'd be ecstatic with what I'm hearing).
I see these players using top of the line equipment from Universal Audio, Apoggee, ect. and it doesn't seem to be helping their cause. The Universal Audio Ox is a great example. Looks amazing on paper, but pretty much every video featuring saturated guitar sounds from the Ox into a DAW using their cab / mic sims are Fizzy with a capital F - it sounds revolting. Is this something that just can't be avoided with the equipment that's available for the at-home player? Or some other variable I'm missing here? Sorry if this is coming off as negative, I'm just trying to wrap my head around all of this and it's probably easier to get answers if I don't sugar coat anything.
littleguitars":a3si39qd said:I wonder if a lot of people listen to clips on their iPads or their iphones. If that's the case, then yeah, maybe you're not going to think an iPhone clip sounds that bad. Personally, I'm usually listening through some good monitors, and I find very little to like about iPhone clips.
It's easy to get a shitty sound using a mic too, of course, but that's usually through some combination of user error, poor mic placement, shitty amp, shitty playing, out of tune guitar etc.
FourT6and2":2zomb0tu said:I have a few different pairs of quality headphones ranging from iPhone ear buds, to new Bose QC something or others, to studio cans. If it's an amp demo by some dude on YouTube, I'd still rather hear it recorded "in the room" by anything (webcam, iPhone, camcorder, standalone audio recorder, etc.) over a badly mic'd speaker cone by someone who isn't a professional recording engineer. And even some of those I've heard sound bad. The way an amp sounds IN A MIX, with a REAL BAND on and ALBUM, is very different than most DIYers. And for me, I get a better idea of how an amp sounds when it's just a simple room mic. Room mic = distance = time.
When I listen to a demo, I don't want to hear what it sounds like if I had my ear up against the speaker cone. Isn't the goal of properly mic'ing a guitar cab—to make it sound like it's NOT mic'd up? You want it to sound natural, right? Like how you hear it in the room. Many amp demos recorded with a mic on the speaker cone sound like a mic on the speaker cone. And I don't like that. I am not a recording artist or engineer. But I presume the best recorded tones are some combination of mic'ing techniques? Maybe one mic on the center of the cone, one farther out on the perimeter, and maybe another one or two at different distances in the room? And then elements of each source are mixed. And then the guitars are double or triple tracked and mixed.
But I'm obviously a weirdo and don't know what I'm talking about. So that's just me lol.
NotAlexJones":1h7wbtzi said:Well the main point of this post is to pinpoint where the failure is for these YouTube guitarists, whether that be the equipment they're using, mic placement, editing the audio in post, whatever the case may be. As I'm trying to avoid throwing money down the drain. I'm not trying to bash guys like Pete Thorn, I love the dudes playing. He was absolutely incredible when I saw him on tour with Chris Cornell. But if I drop anywhere from $5k to $10k on recording equipment and my gained up tones are as harsh, fizzy, and compressed as his are on a regular basis, then I feel like I'd be better off taking that money and tossing it into a bonfire. It's even worse for Rabea Massaad, holy hell his treble frequencies are soooooooo harsh, how does he not notice this? It's unacceptable for your recordings to sound this way when "this is your job".
As people have stated in this thread, mic'ing a cab up close has worked for many a rock bands in the past, and the tone of the amp comes through. So again, where are these guys failing? Because they clearly are, and I'm not the only one hearing it. This thread is full of other people sharing the same complaints.
Again I don't want to bash anyone, but sugar coating this only compounds the problem, nor is having low standards going to help. I have good hard earned money, I want to spend it, but I don't want to waste it. Just to make this thread as productive as we can, let's focus on the one thing that can't be changed- the gear. Mic placement can be experimented with a thousand times over and eventually you'll find that sweet spot. But for the gear itself which is an unchanging thing, once you buy it you're stuck.... What gear would someone recommend to make the recordings sound like the amp? I don't care what it is, how expensive it is (well okay let's keep it $10k or less if we can lol), just list whatever equipment you think would help avoid the disaster known as YGT - YouTube Guitar Tone.
Hearing string noise is epic fail at recording. Those are the worst sounding clips.crankyrayhanky":238jc4fd said:AgreedWhowantsamustache":238jc4fd said:All iPhone clips sound the same to me. I literally can’t tell the difference between any amp.
It's always odd to me when someone posts an iphone clip to great applause....meanwhile, I'm thinking I hear the strings more than the distant room sound of the amp
Throw a 57 on there and let her rip
NotAlexJones":3n3z03nx said:I never said anything about recording for the purpose of uploading to YouTube, I'm just using those players as a benchmark for how you can spend a pretty penny and still not get what you pay for. I'm building a home studio, it's my hard earned money, and this is how I'm choosing to spend it. Trying to get me to see your point on how the money should be spent is derailing the thread for no good reason. Moving forward please let's keep the post about the gear, and any recording technique's that help keep the amp's tone in tact. Keep the agenda's out of the thread please (mod's feel free to remove agenda driven posts if necessary) - anything else is counterproductive at this point.
NotAlexJones":3r2ycoj8 said:Nothing SJW about me or the silly last minute name I chose, pretty big judgement call based off a name there slick. I never said iPhone recordings were ideal or even good but often times can give a more accurate idea of how an amp sounds compared to supposed properly mic'd cabs running into expensive equipment. The thread has now been hijacked by trolls and narcissists, so unless a mod can clean all this up I guess it's end of discussion.
Came here looking for answers, only to find out maybe this was the wrong place to ask these kinds of questions.
NotAlexJones":wny3q0zx said:Threads on forums have to be cleaned all the time due to confrontational internet trolls derailing the discussion which is exactly what's happened here. Nothing SJW about me or anything SJW wanting to have the conversation stay on topic. Try to re-read the thread, it's pretty clear I'm looking for people to state whatever gear, recording techniques, or anything else that would help avoid the pitfalls of the players I have mentioned. That mean's everything from the ground up...
In terms of equipment... When I say Universal Audio, it's pretty god damn obvious I'm referring to any one of their recording interfaces whether it be 8p / 16, the Ox for a reactive load, the 2-610 for a mic pre, any piece of gear that is beneficial. Over the course of the thread this has been made quite clear, but instead you want to argue about literally fucking nothing and derail the conversation, talking about SJW's? Seriously?
And you got involved in the discussion because you were looking for any reason to interject shitty metal players like Wes Hauch (yea sorry I don't have time for that noise and could give a damn about your shitty taste in music - nor how you think I should spend my money), but there's too much noise for this to go anywhere. Internet trolls always win in situations like this, congrats I'm done.