Helpful ReplyEnhancing Guitar Punch & Dynamics - What Method/Plug Do You Prefer?

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SonicExplorer
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2018/06/05 05:38:20 (permalink)

Enhancing Guitar Punch & Dynamics - What Method/Plug Do You Prefer?

Hi,
 
I find guitar tone "simulators" often lacking in the punch & dynamics aspects compared with a real amp.  Was wanting to get some opinion on preferred methods and plugs for adding punch & dynamics to distorted guitars.  Something that could be crafted to allow the leading edge of attack through, or else expand it.  (And be mixed back in with the original signal I suspect). 
 
 
Sonic

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bitflipper
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Re: Enhancing Guitar Punch & Dynamics - What Method/Plug Do You Prefer? 2018/06/05 18:25:14 (permalink) ☄ Helpfulby iRelevant 2018/06/08 18:09:36
It's the distortion process itself that kills dynamics. Kind of its thing. 
 
Once heavy distortion has been applied, there simply are no transients left to emphasize or recover. The reason you don't notice that as much with analog amplifiers is that a) they don't necessarily distort immediately and b) the amount of distortion is proportionate to the input signal. Some amp sims try to emulate that, to varying degrees of success. I'd focus on trying out different amp sims rather than attempting to mitigate loss of dynamics with processing.
 
That said, parallel compression can be used to good effect. Mix in a clean signal with a high compression ratio and long attack and release times.


All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to. 

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Cactus Music
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Re: Enhancing Guitar Punch & Dynamics - What Method/Plug Do You Prefer? 2018/06/05 18:51:30 (permalink)
It is that exact issue that keeps me using an amp and a mike for guitar. You loose that attach the minute anything digital is involved. My Blackstar is the closest I have come to a Tube amp "feel" with a modeling system. But the minute I plug back into my old Fender Princeton I notice the difference in response.  
Pedal boards always did that too, they just felt sluggish. 
I'd love to try one of those high end systems like https://www.fractalaudio.com/ax8-amp-modeler-multi-effects/
 

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SonicExplorer
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Re: Enhancing Guitar Punch & Dynamics - What Method/Plug Do You Prefer? 2018/06/05 19:44:14 (permalink)
I need something that will latch onto the attack transients so I can accentuate them.  I set my gain amp profiles in a way that still allows for some dynamics to sneak through - a balance between having just enough gain to remain playable while recording.  So I usually have a bit of dynamics, just enough that I was hoping some plug might be able latch onto the attack transients so I could accentuate them (overly so if necessary and then re-combine in parallel processing fashion).
 
Already tried a few compressors without much luck....
 
Sonic
 
 

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PhilW
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Re: Enhancing Guitar Punch & Dynamics - What Method/Plug Do You Prefer? 2018/06/05 19:56:28 (permalink)
You could see if a transient designer would work, by which I mean grab that initial attack and emphasise it. 
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chris.r
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Re: Enhancing Guitar Punch & Dynamics - What Method/Plug Do You Prefer? 2018/06/05 21:12:26 (permalink)
give sknote grasso a look
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tlw
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Re: Enhancing Guitar Punch & Dynamics - What Method/Plug Do You Prefer? 2018/06/05 23:18:57 (permalink)
Compressors are the opposite of what’s needed to boost transients compared to the average signal level.

A transient shaping plugin after the sim might help.

Lack of transients in guitar setups is often due to using too much gain/distortion which compresses the signal too much. The problem I’ve found with sims is that they simply don’t respond (or sound) like valves do, or like transistor fuzzes, distortion pedals etc. do either.

My “silent recording guitar” setup is an amp (currently an Orange Rocker 15 Terror head) into a Palmer speaker emulating DI and load box and a few good pedals. Sounds and feels very convincing. As does the same amp on it’s lowest power setting which is around 0.25-0.5 Watts. Some of the small sub-1Watt amps are worth considering as well, e.g. the Blackheart one. The Blackstar one is popular as well, but much too noisy for my tastes.

The Sansamp Character series and Flyrigs are also worth taking a look at. For a bunch of solid state circuits they do a good job.

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SonicExplorer
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Re: Enhancing Guitar Punch & Dynamics - What Method/Plug Do You Prefer? 2018/06/06 04:47:47 (permalink)
I'm using a Kemper at the moment. It has great speaker/IR emulation, however I find the amp emulation is a bit compressed compared to a real amp, so the end result sort of cancels each other out. 

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Pragi
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Re: Enhancing Guitar Punch & Dynamics - What Method/Plug Do You Prefer? 2018/06/06 06:14:53 (permalink)
No plugin for me ,
but a self builded sound iso­la­tion cabinet and some recordings in a rehearsel room
fit my needs..
And:
less gain-/ distortion  and more master volume.
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bdickens
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Re: Enhancing Guitar Punch & Dynamics - What Method/Plug Do You Prefer? 2018/06/06 13:48:54 (permalink) ☄ Helpfulby tlw 2018/06/06 20:14:14
A lot of guitarists overdo the distortion. I find that my tone is much improved if I back off the gain until it just starts to clean up.

Byron Dickens
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bitflipper
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Re: Enhancing Guitar Punch & Dynamics - What Method/Plug Do You Prefer? 2018/06/07 02:53:43 (permalink)
SonicExplorer
I need something that will latch onto the attack transients so I can accentuate them. 

Therein lies the problem. Distortion kills the transients, so there's nothing there to "latch onto".
 
As tlw notes, compression is (usually) the opposite of transient enhancement. However, there are exceptions to that rule, one of which is combining a heavily-compressed version of the undistorted signal with slow attack and release times. This will just let the initial attack through, which you then add in under the main distorted track. You can optionally add distortion to that clean signal after the compressor if you like, since at that point all you have is the attack (and pick noise) already isolated.
 
One other possible approach occurs to me, although I haven't tried it myself, and that would be using an envelope shaper. I have, however, done something comparable using FabFilter Saturn, which features an envelope follower as a modulation source.


All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to. 

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mettelus
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Re: Enhancing Guitar Punch & Dynamics - What Method/Plug Do You Prefer? 2018/06/08 01:00:26 (permalink)
As mentioned above is hard to get the attack back, and without hearing the material I am not sure how effective this would be. MPhatik is more designed for drums, but I just tried it on some guitars. The preset "Warm Up with Attack" did have decent results on the track I was playing with to check this. You can check out the trial and see if that does anything for you.

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Chandler
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Re: Enhancing Guitar Punch & Dynamics - What Method/Plug Do You Prefer? 2018/06/08 02:40:54 (permalink)
Something else you can try is using 2 amps. If you are using amp sims its easy. Use one distorted amp and one clean amp. Adjust the volume until you can hear the clean amp during the attack, but it should almost disappear during the sustain. Experiment with the amount of gain with the 2 amps and which amp/speaker combinations you use.

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BenMMusTech
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Re: Enhancing Guitar Punch & Dynamics - What Method/Plug Do You Prefer? 2018/06/08 06:52:34 (permalink)
When trying to get a killer guitar tone, you've got to think like a baker :). You'd be surprised, that if you know what you're doing and understand how the rock-avant-gardes got their tones - then you can get great tones using guitar sims...well at least with Guitar Rig.

First to get the killer tone, I would either use a tube preamp or use the Prochannel tube sim. I actually use the latter but in the past I've used a 'real' one. I actually prefer the tube sim these days. What the sim does is level the signal and add some 2nd level harmonic distortion. Just use your ears with distortion. The signal gets a bit of sparkle is what you're listening for. -6db output and +3db imput are good starting points for the leveling.

Now one of the most important things I learnt early on is how David Gilmour gets his tone. His tone requires a foot pedal compressor somewhere in the signal chain. So for me, to get those long sustained notes, I would use a compressor before the amp sim. I tend to use Wave's plugs for this job...mainly because you can then emulate the signal chain of classic recordings. If you were after more punch and a more metallic guitar sound then I'd put the compressor after the guitar sim.

Another important idea is to understand amp types in the Sims, and this is where knowing some history is good. Hiwatt amps were favoured by Pink Floyd and The Who, Vox by The Beatles and Queen etc. Also try opening up the sound by using the air and microphone controls on the amp sim. And finally EQ and again try finding a tasty one like Kramer's Helios EQ. Oh and console emulation.

If you follow these steps you will get that killer guitar tone using amp sims. You can find examples of my guitar tones in my signature link.

Hope that helps.

Benjamin Phillips-Bachelor of Creative Technology (Sound and Audio Production), (Hons) Sonic Arts, MMusTech (Master of Music Technology), M.Phil (Fine Art)
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ZincTrumpet
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Re: Enhancing Guitar Punch & Dynamics - What Method/Plug Do You Prefer? 2018/06/08 12:08:05 (permalink)
Useful thread. Thanks for the question and answers!
 
I found this quite interesting https://youtu.be/h9Zpp7i-8Mw 

ZincT

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