Have you thought of changing your tone for different parts of the song? I can envision your sound being a complete sonic wall, and that's fine if you don't have a guitar player in your band, but you do. You might want to approach it the way two guitar players would: they work out their tone together, then they get out of each other's way at the right moments.
Yep, I use different dirt pedals with various tone and gain settings for different parts.
I have a fairly wide range tone....not so much ultra high end, but very full in the mids and lows.
Good point about the two guitarist thing.
it may be that I'm just too loud overall, and my tone is fine?
This dilemma is not uncommon. A question I would ask first is are the guitars 6 or 7 string. Guitars in the low B range often "step on" what is traditionally the bass frequencies. Second, it depends on how much "space" you need to fill. This will truly dictate tone and volume. For example, I don't particularly like Gene Simmons tone, but it works for KISS because he is filling a lot of space. If John Myung used Gene's tone, it would sound like just a rumble.
To echo an above comment, you (as a band) need to know the role of each instrument.
In HEDDA we use this philosophy: The bass and drums comprise the skeleton; the foundation that drives the body - the rhythm section is the mass that holds the body together. The guitars are body itself, sometimes fat sometimes atmospheric, depending on what the tune calls for. This can be a sticking point for some guitarists...they often times have the need to hear EVERY note they play as though it were the solo. Yep, we fought that same battle...and still do from time to time. Listen to some recordings of the bands you want to emulate...How do they shelve the instruments?
My suggestion is to consider any given frequency to be a 5 pound bag - you can't try to cram 10 pounds of stuff in a 5 pound bag without creating a big mess.
Good Luck.
JM
6 string guitar tuned to C standard and sometimes dropping the low string for dropped Bb (like dropped D).
I've tailored my tone to fit this band.
We've been at it for almost 2 years I think, and I've evolved my tone over that time. Various gear changes, playing style changes, etc.....
I think my tone is great, but that might not work in a mix as well as I hope it would.
Where are you getting the complaints about the sound from? Audience hearing the PA, audience standing right in front of the stage? Sound engineer?
People standing right in front of the stage always complain about the sound but they know nothing about sound and are probably just getting blasted in the face by your rig and not hearing the PA mix because it is behind or to the sides of them blasting forwards. if the complaints are coming from people further back in the audience then it might just be the sound engineer not getting the mix right. if your engineer is the one complaining then you should try sort it out at the source before your signal goes to FOH
The first comment was from a guy in recording college, that recorded a recent demo for us.
He said the sound was "muddy" and we (guitar and bass) "were fighting for the lower mids"
The other was a fellow musician that said in various words that I was too loud, I think?....but he was getting blasted in the face with my rig.
I didn't think I was loud, and the guitarist didn't say anything.....
the rig you are running also sounds a bit complicated, mixing speaker sizes is one thing but mixing those same speakers with different signals from different preamps is likely to interfere with each other much more. are you running distortion from both preamps or is one running clean? Another option is to run a clean signal and overlay a dirty signal but put a HPF on it so that the lows stay clean.
I'm running into my pedalboard, then Y cable into the preamps......so both preamp are getting a dirty signal.
Each preamp feeds one side of the power amp, and the channels of the power amp each feed a cab. So preamp A is going through cab A and preamp B is going through cab B.
It is complicated, but it finally sounds awesome.
I considered running clean/dirty, but after I heard both together, it sounded too good to mess with. IMO anyway.
My band plays in B with a 7-string guitarist and when we recorded, the bass overdrive sounded good, but we ended up taking it out because the mix was soooo much cleaner and clearer without it. Bass OD or distortion tends to blend/overlap the bass and guitar frequencies more in the mix which is good if you need it but bad if the mix is already too full and needs clarity and/or definition
That's something I've been thinking about as well....since I use fuzz most of the time.
We're sludgy, so clean and defined really isn't one of our highest priorities. Frankly, I even want our recordings to sound a little more organic and dirty as well. I hate all of the new squeaky clean stuff.
...that said, I know I'm filling up a lot of sonic space with my live rig....which is why I tried to scoop it out a little.
We recorded an EP in a pro studio, and I hated my tone on it. The recording sounds great, but does not represent my tone at all, and is very guitar focused (multitracked up the wazoo).
Live, the guitar player doesn't have that layered sound....he's just got more of a crunchy marshall-y type tone with a touch more low end.
I guess I'll give a clean/dirty rig some more consideration......but power chords and a more aggressive pick attack sounds kinda bad clean.
