Recommendations regarding amplifier setup

[William Wave]

Hello.

There is a couple of issues with my current project, and frankly, no idea how to solve them. The project consists of three instruments: standard drums, standard bass guitar, and Ample Guitar M II Lite. Both guitars are amplified with TH3, a Metal Solo preset to be exact. The first issue is that guitars seem to lose power on higher notes and start sounding too thin compared to lower-note sections. Increasing volume in the amplifier solves it to certain extent, but it results in crackling and humming. Seems like the most rational way to solve both is to adjust the amplifier, but again, no idea what has to be changed and what values are supposed to be set.

So, to sum up, my tasks in this case are to keep the consistent rich sound along the track and avoid noises at the same time.

It will be helpful if you take a look at the project and explain what to do (provided that posting files is allowed here, that is).

[Byron Dickens]

[Lord Tim]

^^ HAHA! That would do it!

With TH3 the input makes the most difference. Most of the patches just work, whether you like the sound of the patch or not, it's fairly consistent.

But if you have your input messed up somehow, be it a bad sounding instrument, bad sounding DI, busted cable, or just the wrong input level, everything in TH3 will sound pretty crappy.

If this was a live instrument, I'd almost certainly say it's a bad cable or DI box.

Since you're using a plugin, I'd look at first what you have dialed in. If it's an acoustic guitar patch, it won't sound great for metal - you'd want an electric guitar with humbuckers as the patch. Then I'd make sure that is 100% entirely dry with no reverb or EQ or effects in any way.

Then check your TH3 input to make sure that's hitting the correct level. If it's too quiet, it'll futz out fast.

Edited April 27, 2023 by Lord Tim

[Byron Dickens]

In all seriousness, without hearing it, it is just a guessing game.

However:

4 hours ago, William Wave said:

guitars seem to lose power on higher notes and start sounding too thin compared to lower-note sections.

almost sounds like physics. As the fundamental of a note gets higher and higher, there is less and less low frequency information to fill things out. But you probably already know this and assuming you don't have unrealistic expectations, yours is probably a gain staging issue as His Lordship mentioned.

Also, are you really playing the bass through the same amp sim ? You should be using a bass amp sim; bass through a guitar amp sounds like *****.

Another contributing factor could be the preset. One of the major reasons I avoid [other people's] presets is because, for hard rock and metal, they almost always have too much gain.

The secret to getting powerful high gain guitar tones is to back off the gain and hit the front of the amp harder. Too much gain starts to thin out and get fizzy.

[William Wave]

11 hours ago, Byron Dickens said:

without hearing it, it is just a guessing game.

Here is the project file then: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e84aJ3wWT8pr85puutZ80ivUjdZQeYZW/view?usp=share_link .

[Xoo]

11 hours ago, Byron Dickens said:

bass through a guitar amp sounds like *****.

Tell that to Lemmy! 🙂

[John Vere]

Ample Guitar is an acoustic guitar and is not something you normally run through an amp. I can't think of anything that sounds worse than my Acoustic guitar with overdrive! If you are looking for metal guitar tones you need to use an electric guitar sample like Strum Session or ( sorry, don't flog me ) TTS-1. 

[Byron Dickens]

9 hours ago, kperry said:

Tell that to Lemmy! 🙂

Wrong. Lemmy used Marshall 1992 Super Bass amps.

[Byron Dickens]

2 hours ago, John Vere said:

Ample Guitar is an acoustic guitar and is not something you normally run through an amp.

There's your answer. Case closed.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Byron Dickens

[Terry Kelley]

I've used the Ample M Lite to great results with effects including overdrive. It just depends on what you want. Like running a clavinet through a Phase 90. only different ...

The fact he's using the Ample M Lite doesn't slam the door on the conversation.

Edited April 29, 2023 by Terry Kelley

[Byron Dickens]

Some overdrive is a whole different ball game than a Mesa Rectifier with too much gain and ungodly amounts of delay and reverb.

 

He can try an electric guitar or he can keep fighting this.

[William Wave]

Okay, it's definitely worth trying an electric guitar, but first it is interesting to know your recommendations about what plugins in particular will suit the most (both main and bass guitars, free options only).

[Lord Tim]

All of the guitars you hear are entirely TH3 in this: 

So it definitely works, but this is a real guitar running humbucking pickups.

You might be able to replicate that a little better with Ample Guitar by running a compressor and a EQ to sculpt the tone a little bit by rolling off the low and highs (highs especially) to try and more closely match the way an electric guitar pickup sounds. I'd agree with the other comments though, a different guitar plugin that emulates electric guitar will give you better results if you can't use an actual guitar.

 

[William Wave]

1 hour ago, Lord Tim said:

I'd agree with the other comments though, a different guitar plugin that emulates electric guitar will give you better results if you can't use an actual guitar.

Of course. Still, specify a couple of free plugins to try. At this point my goals are same: achieve the consistent sound like in the intro of the project and avoid noises.

Edited April 29, 2023 by William Wave

[John Vere]

took me 20 seconds. 

https://plugins4free.com/plugin/3067/

 

[John Vere]

https://plugins4free.com/plugin/2315/

https://plugins4free.com/plugin/2333/

Not an electric but it's cool sounding - https://plugins4free.com/plugin/1348/  

Another free acoustic          https://plugins4free.com/plugin/1065/

Take note I have not installed or tested any of these yet, I just watched the demo videos for the 2 acoustics. 

The other place to search for free VST's is KVR   https://www.kvraudio.com/plugins/effects/hosts/newest

 

Edited April 29, 2023 by John Vere

[abacab]

16 hours ago, William Wave said:

Okay, it's definitely worth trying an electric guitar, but first it is interesting to know your recommendations about what plugins in particular will suit the most (both main and bass guitars, free options only).

While there are some decent free acoustic guitar plugins, I cannot think of any really GOOD and FREE electric guitar plugins.

Examples of some (paid) high quality electric guitars can be found at: Ample Sound, Indiginus, Native Instruments, Orange Tree Samples, and others...

https://www.amplesound.net/en/purchase.asp from $119

https://www.indiginus.com/renegade-electric-guitar from $59 (full version of Kontakt required)

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/catalog/komplete/guitar/ from $99 (works with FREE Kontakt player)

https://www.orangetreesamples.com/products/categories/guitars $179 (Evolution guitars work with FREE Kontakt Player)

I would include the UJAM Virtual Guitarists as well, but they are more designed to use on-board FX, and are difficult to get a fully "dry" guitar signal output from that you can use with an amp sim. https://www.ujam.com/guitarist/ from $149

If you compare any of these electrics played through your amp sim compared to that Ample acoustic, you will surely notice a difference.

While there are a few free electrics available, they don't stand up to these... in this case, you do get what you pay for.

Edited April 29, 2023 by abacab

[William Wave]

Instruments have been changed to BJAM posted above for the main guitar and Ample Bass P II Lite for the bass. Using electric guitars really makes a huge difference: the sound has become much clearer. Now, there was something about decreasing gain to get consistency on high notes. Explain in more details how to do it.

[Lord Tim]

Try a dynamic EQ like TDR Nova or the bundled Sonitus Multiband Compressor before TH3 to zero in on the band that's too loud and clamp down on it.

Really, since you're going into distortion, you could probably even get away with running a Sonitus EQ before TH3 and dropping the offending frequency and it'll sound fine.

[mettelus]

On 4/27/2023 at 10:43 AM, William Wave said:

The first issue is that guitars seem to lose power on higher notes and start sounding too thin compared to lower-note sections.

Start with the basics here. Lower frequencies have more power than higher frequencies, and that ratio will not change by turning up volume on either end (before or after an amp sim) of things. The more effective solution is to EQ the guitar signal before it goes into an amp sim (-3 to -6dB on the high power portions adjusted for taste). Also realize that amp sims tend to create artificial harmonincs above 8K so that area should be tamed as well if needed. Voxengo SPAN is a good freebie to let you visualize this (and you can use multiple instances in the FX chain as well).

Plugins are stupid, they always work with what you feed them. Be sure the signal that goes into any FX is what you really want to be processed. Errors on the input are 10 times harder (or even impossible) to correct on the output side.

Edited April 30, 2023 by mettelus