The overly compressed tone of YouTube guitarists

NotAlexJones

New member
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.
 
LP Freak":1l47ql4r said:
Some of the best clips I hear come from an iPhone

Yup. Easy too. I really don't even bother setting up the mic anymore for forum clips. iPhone is good enough if not better in some ways.
 
Agreed. Many of the high-gain tones you hear on YT sound like complete garbage. They are fizzy, thin, buzzy, lifeless and lack body. They sound like white noise. Not sure what the appeal is. But people know what their clips sounds like because they surely listen to their own uploads. I just don't get it. I prefer the sound of a simple webcam or iPhone or something in the room than the typical SM57 directly on the cone of a speaker.
 
You guys are nuts. iPhones compress and clip in too many clips If they sound so good, people would abandon regular recording and record albums with an iPhone just based on cost and simplicity alone.
 
psychodave":3lmq0es7 said:
You guys are nuts. iPhones compress and clip in too many clips If they sound so good, people would abandon regular recording and record albums with an iPhone just based on cost and simplicity alone.
:LOL: :LOL: Golden ears has spoken
 
I prefer a good recording of a good amp. Often i don't like youtube vids because the hi gain come from pedals.
 
Well I definitely don't see myself using an iPhone to record, but I know what the other posters are getting at. The iPhone recordings tend to be a more accurate representation of the what the amp really sounds like, despite the sound quality or lack thereof.

Which brings me back to my original post, as a person looking to drop a decent amount of coin on recording equipment, how can I avoid falling into the fizzy abyss all these YouTube guitarists have fallen into? What equipment would someone recommend? The Majority of these players use Universal Audio, and I gotta say I can't see myself pulling the trigger on anything UA makes given what I've heard so far.
 
Writing off UA is a mistake. They’re interfaces and preamps are excellent. I will freely admit to not being impressed with OX so far, but I’m really souring on IRs and speaker sims in general.

Research in to microphones and mic techniques. I have never been a fan of the SM57 and have honestly grown to despise that damn thing. Tube screamers fall in to the same category for me.

I’ve been looking in to flat and or neutral (or flatter and more neutral at least) mics. Stuff like Earthworks TC and QTC series, the Sennheiser 441, EV RE20, SE VR1 and RN1 ribbons, and even some Schoeps mics. Expensive though sadly.

I think you’re doing ok now with having identified strongly what you dislike and do not want. Next step I would take is make sure you have your in room amp tones dialed in as close to your ideal as possible. Work on and research techniques and gear choices that then allow you to capture that as accurately as possible. Gear wise, I wish I could be of more help. I’m looking at the Audio Technica AT2035 as an inexpensive staring point to experiment with more accurate mics.
 
LP Freak":2ic0vl94 said:
psychodave":2ic0vl94 said:
You guys are nuts. iPhones compress and clip in too many clips If they sound so good, people would abandon regular recording and record albums with an iPhone just based on cost and simplicity alone.
:LOL: :LOL: Golden ears has spoken

It’s a curse having such discerning ears. :yes:

...as you can see, I’m not the only one who doesn’t care for iPhone clips. :D
 
I personally don't like the sm57 so since that is the most popular guitarist mic on youtube I'd rather have iPhone clips
 
NotAlexJones":2o5pkihy 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.

Serious question, what's your opinion of my Youtube clips, here is my channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJzVbD ... subscriber
 
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.
 
I still use my old digital camera to record clips and then transfer it to the computer. It's a little gritty but doesn't break up. Sounds good to me. :dunno:
 
Whowantsamustache":1zlv3hao said:
All iPhone clips sound the same to me. I literally can’t tell the difference between any amp.
Agreed
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
 
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