All Audio Classes > Guitar Recording > Studio Pass With Steve Evetts And Ben Weinman > Choosing A Cab With Demo
Choosing a Cab with Demo
Lesson 8 from: Studio Pass with Steve Evetts and Ben Weinman
Steve Evetts, Ben Weinman
Guitar Recording > Studio Pass With Steve Evetts And Ben Weinman > Choosing A Cab With Demo
8. Choosing a Cab with Demo
Background & Recurring Themes
Prep and Setup
Choosing a Guitar
Getting Tones and Choosing a Head
Micing Basics
Signal Chain
Micing Demo Part 1
Overview Leading up to Tracking
Dialing in Tones and EQ'ing
Single and Multi Mic Setup
On/Off Axis Mics
Tracking Guitar
Pedals and Punch Ins
Tracking Guitar Demo Part 1
Layering Guitars Part 1
Editing & Mix Prep
Prepping Tracks and Reamping
Audience Submitted Track
You're using for twelve, you know you're you know you're looking for a certain response and then even mesa makes these for the rectifier is they pair the they have these four twelve that air oversized it's a much bigger box in that they're not my favorite aa lot of people love them for live used to use the oversized cabs right live because the bottom end is huge on that they're really just like and they really like shake the ground and it's great, I think it's really great for live just for my taste I mean, a lot of people love them, make them work in the studio for my taste there are little to the bottom is a little too uncontrolled they're a little too witty, so I generally shy away from those you know, the standard classic is the marshal cab you can almost never go wrong with it, um, or an orange cabinet, which I love very much and for the for the same reason the two twelve, like I said, if you're looking for a little bit of a tighter tone and a little more focus and a little more c...
ontrol, a two twelve might be a good option for you because just because the cabinet smaller and it's not generating as much base, so you're going to get a more focused low in response and then the the open back thing is it's just you have to he will have to hear the difference it's just a very different kind of sound and mason used to make a half back which which we've used on recordings they don't make them anymore but I have one and it's the same it hasn't opened back there so most of the miss machine record a good part of the ms machine record that we did together was with this to twelve open back mesa cabinet have you exactly and I have at home a four by twelve with two fifteen's on the bottom are you did you know that I just got you know and that has a whole other life to it which is great uh and and I think you know you should get into how you tune your guitar may influence what cabinets yeah well absolutely that's the thing you know I got the fifteen because I'm typically in standard e so I like something that was right you know it's so funny because like you know just a quick little side is that you know, people always talkto talk to him and they you know they don't realize that dillinger tunes to e standard for most of the time you know because people always associate you know extreme kind of music with now especially nowadays they some sort of dropped low tuning returning to see if see sharper and you know work with suicide salins there in b flat, you know, but there aren't actually any standard, so it actually gives me a little more room to play with tones for example, the suicide sounds record I just did you know their tunes so low that there's already in enormous amount of bottom and inherent in the just the resident tone of the it's hard because they're using long scale guitar's like baritone scale guitars basically tune really low um, you have thick strings like seventy two gauge on the bottom on the e string like just ridiculous like super love like heavy and it's like just by itself it's just like, you know you can hear it so, you know, trying to rein that in a little bit in the studio on dealing with the bottom end and, you know, we want abusing the oversized basic cabinets believe it or not, but we had to dial in, you know, like, just dial back on the bottom end to just get it a little more focused to get it make that have the right impact and make it punch. So um yeah, and then the next step in uh, choosing the cabinet, the big thing is listening to you know, another factor is especially if you have the wherewithal, if you have this the ability to do it and listen to the amp in the space listen to the amp and how responding to how it's responding to the room and for instance, just see the way these guitars are set up um say you have an amp that you want to get more low and out of it and it's it doesn't have it already. One trick is basically is to stick it in the corner like this, and you're actually making what's what's known a standing waves you actually making them work for you, you're increasing if you put the man in the corner, you're going to increase the bass response. So it's an interesting thing to do, just just just like you would, you know, when you're doing your track and say, you're talking drums, you're trying on drums in the room, you know you I'm sure you done the drums in different space in different spots and found the best thing, you know, you see people, they walk in the studio, I used to notice all the time used to happen all the time, especially a track sees, you know, like when you go to him toe lie room and like a ban or somebody walking in the there's something, you know, things like, what are you doing? You know, but there is some merit to that because, you know but clapping is not going to do it because what's clapping and you know it's not a sinner jim it's not a guitarist than anything you've gotta like, so it helps too to maybe move the cabinet around if you have the the ability to do so we don't really do that here for demonstration because the cameras and for the space that we're in we don't really have the ability to move it around so much so we're leaving them fixed but I just want to point out that you shouldn't if you can experiment and you know it's like, well, the cabinet sounds good here, but what does it sound like on this side of the room? What is this telling facing the wall? Where is this sound like not, you know, facing in where what is this selling in the corner? You know, these are things you can think about these air definitely things that people might tend to overlook um and then another thing in prepping before we'll start firing up some of these samson just listening just listening to characteristics of each, um is decoupling the cabinets what's this called and say if the if the low in response is, uh, again to loose, one thing you can do is and we can't really demonstrate so much, but um get it off the floor it's ah it's very important that if that here were on a thinker on a concrete slab it's not going to matter as much, but if you're on a wood floor, say, and the floor is resonating, you're create, you're increasing the bass response of the guitar of the cabinet significantly, so if you get it off the floor, you can get on I mean, I see people put it on a milk crate I've seen people use, I have phone blocks like you can go toe like a furniture supply place the upholstery places, upholstery supplied places, and they sell blocks of foam rubber and you can buy big blocks of foam and you can put the cabinet on the phone, so then you're you're basically isolating it from the floor, so the floor is not vibrating and it's going to tighten up the sound significantly and then people with combo lamps, I've seen people like literally of, you know, calm ramp, and they get a folding lawn chair and they put the combo amp in lawn chair, and then they might get that way because it's, you know, you're letting it, letting the whole thing kind of resonate and letting the space in the air resonate underneath it and it changes the sound you should just experiment just just like I said there's no rules just especially you have a combo ambu let's try it up on the shelf let's try it on the floor let's try on on an angle let's you know let's do different things that's you know so it's it's a lot of it's just about trial and error and experimentation and what feels right to you all right so let's just go through a couple of different amps and just I'll talk a little bit about him and you could just hear a basic like I said we'll do a control where basically we'll leave it on this marshal cabinet with I just have you know, talking about mike positioning right now it's basically just a fifty s m sure some fifty seven dead center s o that's our control so these aren't going to change so now we're going toe just change the heads were going to plug in the head, listen to it and then on then just listen to the differences between each one and start with that so got been there we've got this is the mason boogie mark five with the reverb off and just listening to this all right so this is what this is what the distortion channel the red channel in the mark five looks like their sounds like go ahead so yes so the mesa were running we have the graphic you running but they have these mesa on the mark five has these little preset instead of you don't want to use the graphic it has these little preset knobs and you could just sweep through and it's kind of like a a filter set that you can just change the point of the filter so glad just playing the sweep through it a little bit yes so what? I was sweeping through the filter you could hear it. It goes from a much more mid range forward sounds of the left and then as you sweep it seems like it's it scoops out the mid range a little bit more and then you know you can go to do the same thing and you can go with sliders and justice that's just the one show that, um so the big thing when I was talking about power tubes before now keeping the control the same with same cabinet we're going to the marshal head. Thank you. Um here's the big difference when I was talking about power ramps and power tubes rather the big difference between the two the marshals type of sound and the boogie type of sound is the marshal uses e l thirty four power tubes we want to go back really quick show the okay so the three types of power tubes I was talking about so the mesa boogie and the tv sixty five of five and the rectifier actually all use primarily six l six is the mace is actually give you the option if you want to use the old thirty four's you can swap them out and there's a switch to switch the bias of the head you khun switch them but so the marshal now we'll show you the sound the marshal uses eel you know thirty four's as opposed to the mace is on the tv, which is a six l six and here's the difference in the tone now with the marshal with the eel thirty four year old thirty four is a much more mid range focused sound no matter pretty much that's kind of like the deal with marshall and you know it's in the freezer especially in like more I'm not that so much of the metal but the hard rock just the regular rock thing the guitars are very mid range the base is very usually focused more in keeping in the low range of the frequency spectrum and the marshal works so great for rock because it's all it's pretty much just mid it's mid low mids the top and can get a little scratchy at times if you don't watch it but he'll thirty four's are definitely a very mid range kind of sound for the power tubes the power tubes uh overdrive easier than the six sixes six house sixes will give you you can get huge base response you heard the difference in the mesa, the bass response in the mesa the marshal right now play again the bases on ten that's it literally that's a ce far as much bottom and you're going to get out of that unless you start putting in like extra q and doing things like that. So it's it's a much tighter, much more focused sound on the sixty six is give you this there's more headroom in them and it's much more of the extreme bottom an extreme top. So a lot of people love that for medal because it's more just naturally scooped out because the middle guys really loved that really scooped kind of like mel guys love that scoop sound so that's why I think the tv and the mesa get ah used a lot more for metal just because of that characteristic. Um it's now let's, switch down to the rectifier underneath. Same cab uh let's go it's for there's. No sixteen on that. No four here. Yeah, cool. This one is okay, so this is the mace a single rectifier and this is again with sixty six power tubes. You can hear the difference and what this is doing and you can hear the difference in the bottom and response right away go ahead, so yeah, I mean the difference even I mean I know every control is going to be different but the rough roughly same amount of bottom in response on that that was getting out of the marshall the base is only up to you know, like two or three right here so you have so much more room in the top and sometimes you can get a little bright but go ahead then so there's that just for another total variation and then let me just look really quick in the back here um something on is their their switches I thought that's interesting you know, this doesn't have the spongy, bold and the you can switch between the yeah yeah usually the the I guess the I'm used to the duel rectifier which has a couple other options tonal options on the back to switch between the solid state or the tube rectifier usually the solid state rectifier um is actually punch here for my taste and then there's also the power in response which is spongy or bold and so it's it also changes the the saturation and the low in response to the amp so you don't know if we check that on the mate mark five and their their past some additional does stuff yeah ok all right, well this well, like I said, this is just running through the various heads so just to show it um and then finally the peevey and that goes back to sixteen homes on the other side on the cabinet side. Okay, wait. So, like I said, you could hear it it's very it's a little more similar to the marshal, even though it's not hell, thirty four's it has a marshal like quality to it, except with the added thing because of this, mostly because of the six sixes, and then ah, it has the added bottom in response. Plus it also has this extra low in response. This that only deals with the power I'm section is a resonance and a presence, and that doesn't deal with the pre inside. The regular tone controls are all in the pre empt side, but these two are on the power inside, so if, say, if you were tio use, which I've I've done in the past, where you actually you can patch in another thing to do if you had, say, like a, uh, one of those rack mount creams like the mesa try axis um, there's a few companies that still make those like rack mount like pre to preempt like you, so you could select there's many selectable to prem's like that, but there's no power am section you could actually just tap into the echo, send the senate affect sent in return on the on the amp if you just plug into the return on ly you will access the power in none of these controls will work except for the post volume and these two tone controls so these are covering only on the power and so that gives you another tunnel option and that's the thing people do you can actually you know, people of I've slaved heads together that way where you take ahead and you're running to a cabinet but then you run out of the seine into one into the return of another amp and running into another cabinet and using like a multi kind of cabinet had set up it's another thing another trick you khun dio but like I said, these controls air are only affecting the power ramp side of things so it's ah it's a pretty cool thing I definitely love it for aa lot of metal stuff from the views I don't even like, you know like lighter stuff too it's a really great head so we've got that now let's say uh let's go forward back in oh, yeah ok. So that's really it listening to the amps and now, um let's keep our control the same let's pick ahead pick one of the heads. How about the mr director fire directed fire okay, hopes so rectifier back in two forums right this rectifier doesn't have a sixteen mile put correct correct two four two four seven eight all right we'll leave it on for even know these other cabinets or sixteen that's fine it's another thing to note vernon instance like this where the mesa only has a um ah four and eight home output um it's okay it's not optimum but if you have a sixteen okay it's always best to use the proper image for the heads cabinet and make sure they match but if you have to use something different you have to make sure that you on ly go up in homage to the cabinet don't plug out of the sixteen home output or nato mouth put into a forum cabinet but the opposite way it's not optimum but it works that's the safe way to do that I wonder if you can elaborate a little bit kind of on the theory of the science behind home loads and kind of for those who or I'm not even so well versed in and I just know honestly I just know that well you could damage I know you can damage the head you can damage the tubes and even some of the resisters in the circuitry if you go for one obviously if you if you ever if the head doesn't have if it's not loaded properly you can spot on tube side you can damage it solid say it's not going to do anything and I know that for a fact I'm not sure about the theory necessarily behind it I know the resistance um because there's uh less resistance and it's putting out you want to make sure you always have the higher oh midge, if you're on a lower why lower only setting on the head you want to make sure the cabinet is at least it's or higher never lower yeah um yeah, so that was that's really it's so like I said this this cabinet can go sixteen or four so we can put it on for but then these two cabinets or both sixteen so his lungs were state we stay there, we're ok, so we're keeping the control again the same so we've got our guitar, our controls, the same parties playing is the same and now we have listen one more time in the martial cabinet and then I'm going to move the mic over and we're going to switch to the black star and then we'll switch to the arms just to hear the difference in the sounds wait, so when you listening to that and I know it's just I'm not really sure even what that sounds like in there because I'm not going through any my gear, I know what it sounds like through the cabinet, so I don't know what you guys are exactly hearing at home but I could hear not just when you listen to that and just play one more time to seek vengeance now I kind of like like I said if you deconstruct that and you're listening knowing what you're listening for ok so now just listen to the bottom end and like how is that bottom in responding now let's quickly now we're going to go and we're going to switch over to the black star cabinet from out of the martial cabinet and go just to the black star cabinet on I'm gonna quickly you should note that always always loose in the stands properly before you move the mic and don't do what I just did it it's coming through really clear tio steve is like the sound okay get um really quick we don't have a little flashlight I can't really see the exact center in there we have anybody an iphone something he's the flashlight on perfect just so right now we're just looking I'm not really so much we're worrying about position I'm just trying to be like pretty much center of the cone so so again noting what we heard on the thanks you knowing what we heard on the marshal cabinet and now let's hear it on the same thing with same settings on the black star cabinet ok what would you can you right off the top of your head? What was that? You can hear the difference in the two cabinets lost a lot of the low end. We lost a lot of low end because primarily one it's mean there's a few reasons one it's one speaker it's a one twelve as opposed to a four twelve this cabinet sizes bigger is much smaller on the one twelve less space, less volume west, low end plus it's open back so a lot of the sound instead of part of the residents have a cabinet when it's a closed back cabinet, the sound the bases is the whole thing is acting as a resonator and it's it's actually, you know, the low end is resonating throughout the whole cabinet. So when it's, the sound isn't trapped in there it's it's not rattling around and making this it's escaping out of the back. So you're losing a lot of low in response. Ok? So and then let's switch it back again to the orange juice in the stand I think this thing's just gonna create no matter what. Are you okay again? I'm not really sure on the position, but we're just hearing it more, more so in the room again, you hear the difference? Lohan's tighter mid range is way more focused on the top end is nowhere near is brittle, I think also because a lot of it's it's it could be, I'm not sure about the speakers on this. Do you know what? The waters and what does it say? On the wattage? On the back of the cabinet to say three hundred one, fifty one, one fifty? Okay, right, so can you play that one one more time? Absolutely have been. Is that one not clear? I'm like I said, I'm not sure if I'm dead center on the co owner, not on this one because I can tell you, is this the basket so thick, but but again, it's just stressing the same thing that I did before that it's, we're keeping the control that's, like the exact, keeps saying that using that phrase, but it's, the only way you're ever going to really get the right pairing, you know, to me I would immediately, honestly, I would probably my first choice right now is the orange, because low and isn't nearly is good, but we can we have a little bit of headroom to die a little more low, and we'll try that in a second. But just because the the the mace is the rector, fires tend to get a little spit e and chirpy on the high end, and I really feel like the orange cabinet kind of mellows out that. That little harshness in the top end and it's giving you a ton of mid range kind of bark, which I really like, especially for that kind of like, aggressive kind of sound, so I mean, we'll see if we can just really quick with the cabinet right there play again, but wait just just real quickly sweeping through the control if you could just hear how the cabinets responding to what I'm doing with the head so yeah, um, that's really good any on any of questions, so right now you're coming up with some great sounds just between the head and the cabinet, how do you deal with situations where ah, guitar player comes in with a massive pedal board and doesn't even think about these factors before he's already turned on a dozen effects? I I absolutely make sure to break it down like a we have to always start with the base and always starts in the basin I love when you try to have a guitar, players have a huge pedal word I'm all about it is like I said, I'm about committing, so I want to get a lot of like the sounds using guitar pedals and like a lot of weird stuff and like, I mean so all that even extra distortions and like if if he uses a tube screamers apart of his guitar sounds like well let's use that let's not just you know let's I want to start with his base like I'm breaking this down to the really simplest element but if the guitar because like I always used to screamer great so that's part of the control if you always use the tube screamer let's always use the tube screamer and let's go to different amps and then you know, because you khun you start with that and then you can always take that to screamer off go well let's see what sounds like without it really quick, but if that's part of his deal, I don't try to ever like I said, I never tried to force the issue if that's what you're used to if that's your comfort zone if you're going to be more comfortable playing that, I would rather a just a little bit of what I'm doing to what he already has unless it's like some crazy thing that's just out of control with like you know, three delays tap delay in a river been chorus and it's like, well, I can't understand what it is that you're doing you know first I need to, like read the clue get clarity first and then we can add that stuff back in but again it's it's always it's their record so it's like let's try and take what you is that you do and maximize that so yeah if he they come in with that I'll you know I mean like I said unless it's a bunch of like weird effects I'm like yeah let's run through your stuff because that's your deal and well dallas on from there so steve which is the same process than if you're using like amp simulator because somebody doesn't actually have an orange cap for example yeah well absolutely you do know it is this this right that's a great point actually and aiken eleven on that this these techniques in this auditioning technique even applies to that if you have an am simulated like a second like pot farm and all those things they give you like a bunch of options they give you a bunch of has that gave you a bunch of cabinets they even give you a bunch of microphones and even a room sometimes the room space too and so it's like ok well let let's do the control it's like okay let's start with just the basic like the marshal and the marshal cabinet all right so let's if we're staying with the same guitar let's let's change heads keep the same cabinet don't don't don't intend you khun really quickly especially with them am simulator you can just tap through and scroll like marshall mason that that it's a good good good not good good good good all right stop and then you're there and then you go all right, that heads good all right cabinet to twelve for twelve open back though you know it's like did they did good that that's good that's not good that up that one good same thing microphone but it's again it's you used you go one thing and it's like all right there's there's one and you've got all the things your options you scroll through there's one that's locked in and the next thing there's our options that's it and now all of a sudden, after all that then you're locked in I do like demo and stuff I use a lot of like amp simulators to understand my home studio and a lot of what I'll do is like I don't think there's anything wrong was starting with someone else's preset that sounds good but then okay now for guitar too. All right. The marshal um priest the marshal simulation sounds good. I like that vie for what I'm doing now let me start the next one and start changing some of the other elements from the same preset to start to have the layer that's going to go on top. What compliments that now so even if I started with an already existing free set changing the mic, changing the cabinets, changing the distance of the mike in the simulation under that or the just the head completely from him too like a mesa type simulation wherever you can go through the same process even if you don't come up for the most original starting point you still can use that process to come up with the complimentary tone to them layer and layer and layer and layer so and the recent thing is is a good thing because it's it's goes to exactly goes to similar of of what I was saying about like listen to whatever listen what records you sound just sounds really good, you know, like a lot of them the pot farm one has like things like van halen or think that's available said something like that hail that or something that you know it's like but you know what it is or erupt right? You know what it is but you know without actually saying it's the band and so it's like well that's a cool thing but now what do I do to make it my own everything one hasn't ended your right something of the down there like some interesting name without you know exactly but yes so the preset sir I'm not against presets because again it's but I feel like it's a good jumping off point but I still feel like you should do it you should play around don't be afraid to play around with the preset I mean the priest said it's going to sound good it's like ok you already knowing that you have that safety net that ok, this is good so who cares? Jump off of it turn knobs go not do other things make it weird it doesn't matter because you could always go back to that there's your safety net you always have that to go back to and the thing is for me and I stated this before about don't be afraid to experiment and we'll be free to be wrong especially especially if you're home because you have all time in the world and who cares if you're wrong? I know three sets that are like been one been to, you know, been one right one then one left and I saved those and they started with presets but now and they probably wouldn't sound good with somebody else playing but I know for the like when I'm doing deal injury type stuff for for instance and the way that I pick I've tweak the priest said enough to get it to this point I turned the game down on you got it sorted, you know, response to my picking a certain way and I know I can go for that type of thing I can't go to these ben one ben twos and threes and that's going to the first house I mean and they all work well together, but I couldn't have just picked for free sets that would work that well together for what I do so and again, it seems like the danger would be once you have it tracked, you can go back and switch your head. You could go back and switch your cab, but you're not actually printing it. I that I encourage that right again going back to it, commit, commit, commit, commit, commit I've had like I said, I've had I mixed you? No one was talking about pronger earlier that I produced their their last record, but I just did their newest one, but I only actually produced the vocals with tommy and on by mix the record and they actually used am simulators on the whole record, I think it's our sound great, but again, pretty much because it comes from the player anyway, tommy couldn't play through anything and it's going to sound pretty close to him no matter what it is. Um, so but I told the engineer who was doing the stuff with him who was doing tracking the guitars I was like, I don't want the eye tracks like you take those tracks that you have with your plug ins and you bust them over to a new track and you print them because get your guitar sound the your stuff done and I'll deal with it, I don't want options, I don't want to sit there and tweak the amp in the mix you know, I have enough things to tweak in the mix. And I have to also fiddle with amps and the cabinet and the mike on the cavity set. And that, yeah, I I specifically use my amp simulation as a standalone, not as a plug in in in my dog. And I use it as an app, like it literally prints onto a track and that's that's for, you know those very specific reasons, you know.
Steve Evetts - Studio Pass Slides.zip
Steve Evetts
Steve Evetts is a producer, engineer and mixer who has worked with some of the most defining bands in this generation of punk, hardcore, metal, and alternative. His credits include Dillinger Escape Plan, Suicide Silence, Lifetime, Saves The Day, Hatebreed,
Ben Weinman
Ben Weinman is the guitarist of The Dillinger Escape Plan and brains behind Party Smasher, Inc. Ben was named one of SPIN Magazine's 100 Greatest Guitarists of all time and one of the 20 Most Influential Metal Guitarists Of The Modern Era by VH1 and one of Guitar World Magazine's 50 fastest guitar players of all time. He was also recently named one of Guitar World's Top 25 Cult Guitarists, one of the top modern Metal Guitar players by metalsucks.com, and was named one Alternative Press Magazine's Favorite Guitar Slingers.
Guitar Recording Bass Sound Mixing Rock Audio Engineering Guitar Recording Studio Pass
Ashton Thebault
Some really great stuff in here that helped me better understand how to coax out the nuances in mic placement, amp and cabinet selection and performance. Tips and tricks are sprinkled throughout the course that deal with guitar technique, recording, performance, etc. and are nice to make note of. Towards the end it gets a bit focused on Pro Tools functions, which is not useful to me as a non-Pro Tools user, but you can take some concepts and apply them in other circumstances.
Joshua Rathbun
Good basic knowledge, which delves into more detailed stuff later on in the course.
Haunt Luma