Guitar Sound

"Pop Guitar"? Like Dr. Luke funky riffs? (Katy Perry & everybody else) He tracks all his stuff direct, 59 Les Paul-Chandler TG2-Waves Gtr.

Find someone you like and copy their rig.

Marshall

I think getting a good guitar sound is hard work with no one solution. The best thing to do is to try to imitate people's sounds you admire, and then once you understand as many as possible, go and chart a course creating a sound unique to your self. But make no mistake-it's expensive. There's always a new technology that promises everything in a box (Korg A1, Line 6, amp sims etc), but there's a reason why most of what you still hear from studio and live performances by professionals is done with an amp, pedals, a mic(s) and a preamp. For those that don't want to work at it and/or can't afford it, these "all in a box" solutions are good, but not as good as the real thing. If it was, the best guitar players would simply bring their box to the studio and the road and plug in. Much easier and cheaper.

porkyman - I highly recommend a low wattage amp - don't be scared to give them a try they're are plenty of great ones these days. Don't use anything bigger than a 1x12 cab. I put my cab in a closet and set it on cinder blocks to decouple it from the floor. I use packing blankets not to dampen the sound but to get rid of flutter from the Sheetrock. I close the door of my closet and the door of my room and it's amazing how much I can drive a small wattage amp without disturbing the household. You can't place the mic too far off the grill or it starts to sound,well, like a closet. I'm trying to upload a pic of my setup but no luck. I'll keep trying......

For software I highly recommend Scuffham S-Gear. I've tried a ton of plugs and this is the only one I'll use.

I use the V5 every day it wont be my first choice for super cristal clean guitar, but I can live with it. Next best choice is the Hughes and Kettner Tube Meister 5. This Amp was able to be a true Master in all domains - clean to hard n heavy. To my surprise, the day I did want to buy it my retailer told me it was discontinued... its such a great 5 Watter...... I do not konw if they ever been sold to the Us. HK is an Amp developper from Germany.

hughes-and-kettner.com/products/tubemeister/tubemeister-5/

www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct11/articles/bugera-v5.htm

Whenever I'm given mediocre to bad guitar tones to work with and I have to mix things to feel more professional I turn to dominant frequencies often used by two the most successful mixers I can name:

01. Alan Moulder (4kHz)

02. Chris Lord Alge (8kHz)

During a mix eventually I'll boost both at points which will effect the guitars in the mix, not aggressively to where it's ridiculous or unnatural sounding, but enough where the mids of things notch out firmly above the 1-3kHz of where say a Snare would live...and below the 5-6kHz where cymbals and the beater of a kick drum generally need a boost.

10kHz usually gets a boost on my drum buses to add "Air"...so by Notching 8kHz out for the "Air" on a guitar these two things remain distinct, and separate in their definition.

I tend to favor 12Khz on a lead male vocal (and most female, though there have been notable exceptions there) for example in much the same way...and I'll sit backing vocals with 15-16kHz boosting the "air" again, keeping things distinctly in their own spheres of influence in terms of where they they top off in terms upper mids to highs.

But 4kHz is the "potatoes" mid-range of most good sounding guitar tones to me for sure. Regardless of genre.

I also favor boosting a bit of 600Hz on a guitar for the "meat" in the low mids, but the width of the Q in that case is probably going to be fairly narrow...as I will also want to notch out a bit of 250Hz so it doesn't get too flabby.

I've made some pretty generic sounding guitars feel "better" in my day, and there's plenty of occasions where I deviate from what I've instructed above as needed...but generally these are my starting points as I don't like the top end or bottom end dominant frequency ranges in instruments to overlap too much.

4kHz = 4k and so on yes. Four Kilohertz. Four thousand cycles...etc. It's all the same, and so on down the line. Just remember "when in doubt" it's better to go with subtle cuts and boosts.

The best software sim I've used is Amplitube, but it's a bit of a pain to install. I do use it when writing usually these days however.

I tend to reamp guitar parts into my Vox AC30 with Blue Alnico's or my Marshall Super Lead 100 clone (Jimmy Wyggle "Purplexing") Great amps. I've sold off my other amps since though I am looking for something to nail a "Blackface" sound in a smaller package as well.

I do agree with other posters in this thread that lower wattage amps are easier to deal with, I tend to keep things at half wattage on both amps.

I also have some secret sauce guitar stuff, but a Klon Overdrive Pedal has been every rig I've had since 2001 (Currently I use a KTR modded by JHS but it still has that "Klon" thing I just need when I'm creating.)

I tend to favor ribbon mics in figure 8 on guitar cabs. My favorite is the Shure KSM 353 ED, and I also like the KSM 313 NE. the Fathead II mic (modded with a Lundahl or Cinemag output transfomer) is also a good pick for cheap....and you can't go wrong with a Royer 121.

I am not a big fan of dynamics on guitar cabs...you can make them work, but I find I just get better sounds with ribbons, period. Still my frequency choices stem from other people usually only being able to afford dynamics and needing a more vibrant guitar tone in the mix.

I am not big on compression when tracking guitar...maybe a little in parallel to taste...or maybe a bit without parallel if it's a slide track to keep the response even.

In the mix I tend to compress a bit on the guitar submix...but I generally compress all my submixes lightly (matter of personal preference.)

For preamps, CAPI, Warm, API (if you can get an output attenuator), Great River, Chandler TG's, JLM TG's, and Neve 1066/1073/1079/1272 style preamps are what I gravitate towards, but output attenuation is a must for me to gain-stage a guitar signal correctly. I can do it with cleaner preamps, but I generally wouldn't want to start there.

Here's a sample of a mix where Waves GTR was used (was notated in the track notes) 

Pretty impressive for no amp IMO. I am missing the thump that would normally come though, but if you're just looking for decent tones via plugins this one isn't too bad. I always have to throw this out there though.... the player has ALOT to do with it, nevertheless, here's a tone that can be achieved in Waves GTR. 

www.dropbox.com/s/hkc7spsv9yrbaai/Wave%20GTR%20Demo.wav?dl=0

I've always wondered about this: oddyssey why is decoupling an amp from the floor necessary?

My cabinet is on rollers. So, I presume that's decoupling, but I am curious about smaller cabinets that have no rollers.

mrholmes is right. Lessens vibrations into the mic stand but also into the house structure for noise. Lessens ugly low end which is very important when you're recording in a closet!

No doubt. I have to fight the close mic sound a lot but have no choice if I want to use a real amp and mic's. A lot of moving the mic an inch at a time for decent results.....then you have to create your own space at mix time. Good learning process though......