Couldn't agree more Doc.

I saw Def Leppard back in 1980 and they definitely were a real metal band - alongside the emerging [albeit, far better] Iron Maiden.

If you can get a copy of Def Leppard's first album 'On Through the Night' you can immediately see the difference between that and their more famous stuff.



The sound on that first album is definitely polished and definitely aimed at the US market of the time but the underlying feel was very much in keeping with the then blossoming New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, the unwieldy term coined by Geoff Barton, then of Sounds magazine and later to be heavily involved with rock/metal magazine Kerrang!

All I can add is that on stage, with only two guitars, their stripped down sound was just right, and to me, much better than the later, sanitized and overlayed product that made them very rich!

Regards

Steve

Jessie,
It's not an enormous Les Paul. It's a very tiny truck.
And it's not really a Les Paul, it's a '74 Ibanez. Our lawyers will be in touch.

ORIGINAL: jamesg1213

New Wave Of British Heavy Metal

Aaah, 'NWOBHM' that takes me back Steve...Tygers of Pan Tang et al...

Hi there James

I went to the 1980 READING FESTIVAL - looking through the bands on show I should imagine that was the definitive collection of the NWOBHM front runners altogether for perhaps the only time:

Friday 22nd Aug:
Red Alert
O1 Band
Hellions
Praying Mantis
Fischer Z
9 Below Zero
Gillan
Krokus
Rory Gallagher

Sat 23rd Aug:
Trimmer and Jenkins
Headboys
Writz
Broken Home
Samson
Q Tips
Pat Travers Band
Angels
Iron Maiden
UFO

Sunday 24th Aug:
Pencils
Sledgehammer
Tygers Of Pantang
Girl
Budgie
Magnum
Gary Moore's G Force
Ozzy Osbournes Blizzard Of Oz [replaced by Slade]
Def Leppard
Whitesnake

Djs : John Peel, Bob Harris and Jerry Floyd


For my money, the only omission whose presence would have made it a full set were Saxon.

BTW, Maiden [with Paul Di'Anno] were clearly the best and there were great performances from Tygers, UFO and Praying Mantis - the older guard weren't let down by the magnificent Whitesnake, Gillan and the rejuvenated Slade [my childhood heroes] - surely only Noddy could get everyone to sing Merry Xmas while the band just stood and listened [that particular Reading set is on the recently re-released and updated 'Slade Alive'].

Incidentally, the obvious 'appealing to America' Def Leppard were pelted with hundreds of empty beer cans and any other junk those offended audience members could get their hands on!

Ahh - memories, nostalgia certainly ain't what it used to be!

Cheers

Steve

Actually, guitar layering of several guitars is done all the time in most of todays nu-breed metal as well as the days of alternative. I've never heard of this phasing thing being applied to multiple guitar layers to be quite honest. There are several ways to achieve the procedure known as layering, all of which do not bring any phasing into the scheme of things. Here are 3 basic ways to do it correctly.

Example 1: At any given time, I record anywhere from 2-6 rhythm tracks. To some this is overkill, to me it's musical illustration. You can use the same sound 6 times with different eq curves for each guitar recording direct via speaker sim if need be. Here's my method to my madness explained in full.

Record 2 rhythm tracks of metal guitar. Pan one at 70% left, the other 70% right. Eq them to taste as these will be your main guitars in the tune. They will be "the voices" and will be the most dominant.

Next, record 2 more rhythms. Pan these at 75% or 80% left/right. Adjust the eq so that they are a bit brighter. These you can bring in on a pre-chorus to intensify your dynamics.

Finally, record 2 more the same way using the same sound. This time, add a slight chorus effect and either pan at 85% left/right or full 100% left/right. This will intensify your chorus section and make it hit hard. You will also be layering and painting a pretty awesome sonic picture with your guitars making them seem heavier and more apparent.

Now, the keys here are proper volume and pan. For example, the first 2 rhythm tracks may be at -6dB, the next 2 may be at -8dB, the remaining 2 with the chorus, -10dB. The object here is to not make them louder or the same volume as your original 2. You are painting a picture, not killing with volume and too much guitar. The subtle volume changes in these will build "the wall" and there will be no phasing at all.

Example 2: Layering with multiple amps is another way of achieving "the wall". The different tonalities in various amps adds a different type of sonic placement due to how big or how small the sound is. This can stem from the mics used to the amp that is used. Some amps just sound throaty, thus they will appear to give you more sound and bigger sound. Other amps may sound smaller but give you a certain bite that helps to accentuate what is already there. And still other amps may be bass heavy or loaded with mids like a Marshall cranked with no effects. This will also mold the tones to where you have your throat, your mids, your bite and your bass. When you mix these all together, eq properly and pan accordingly, you have a great wall of sound. Now, with mic'ing, phase can come into play, but you usually know this before you print. I've never heard mulitple sounds recorded that were mic'd properly have any type of phasing whatsoever in my 25+ years of being in this field. This of course is not a bash on the poster that spoke of phasing, I'm just saying it's not something I have ever encountered.

Example 3: D.I. safety nets. As you record an amp or direct pre-amp guitar sound (like a pod, tube guitar pre amp, something with speaker sim etc) you can also run a clean D.I. out of a good D. I. box with every track you do. What this allows you to do is run that recorded clean signal into the amp, pre-amp or VSTi guitar rig of your choice further painting your guitar layering picture. You could literally run the clean signal into a Mesa Tri-Axis, Marshall, Laney or anything else you decide to borrow from a friend. This safety net allows your limitations to be in your mind only and the various techniques I have shared here can be combined together. As long as you use proper pans, different EQ's or different sounding amps, and know how to record with mics properly IF you decide to use them, this system is golden, and fool-proof.

Ah Randy, I thank YOU for YOUR confirmation, as my "phasing" example was way off the mark actually. The phasing you're referring to (and probably the original poster as well) is in the delayed clip that would be cloned. I never liked that approach because it just always sounded weird to me. I believe this is a form of the HAAS effect if I'm not mistaken? Another problem with this method is the delayed/slid back clip hits your ears later making you think it needs to be louder. It's weird though, you need to find the sweet spot in order for this to not give you that phased effect. Usually I use "ticks" in Sonar and stay in the 4 tick to 6 tick range. Of course you can also do this with a delay as you probably know as well by taking out all the dry signal. A modulated delay can help compensate the phase thing as a modulated delay has a slight chorus built into it that seems to smooth things out a bit and counter the "straight ugly phase" animal. My apologies for not recognizing THIS was the phase people may have been referring to. I don't use the clone method often and hate it, so I wasn't thinking about those that may use this procedure. Thanks for straightening me out me, much appreciated. :)

ORIGINAL: Thomas Campitelli

I also don't agree that chorusing rhythm guitars sounds very good, at least not when "heavy" is desired.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. :) In the example I gave as far as layering in a chorus'd guitar, it's not dominant therefore it accentuates the 4 powerful un-chorus'd guitars and spreads the the guitars over the entire spectrum. If it were the dominant guitar tone, I would agree. but in a layering situation with the right chorus, the right eq's and the right guitar tone, the sound is massively heavy.

Van Halen's later efforts often included some chorus on the rhythm tracks. I thought it took away some of the punch. The single, phased track of guitar on Unchained, however, is mighty heavy. What a great tune that is.

Yeah but Ed never really wanted a punchy tone and never had one live back in the day. Only his early studio stuff seemed raspy which gave the appearance of "heavy". Thus why he went on to create "the brown sound". Also, a single chorus'd guitar (or even a stereo chorus like Ed uses with a ping pong delay that hits on the right side now days) is a different texture altogether. It's more a voice than a "heaviness". That said, in my personal opinion, the old Eddie tones from VH 1 to Fair Warning wouldn't fit with the current VH stuff. But it's all subjective really. Solo that guitar sound of Unchained up sometime on a good set of nearfields....it's not as heavy as you think. It's actually not as much gain as you may think either and the tone is literally achieved by the mic placement phase more than the amp and the actual tone itself. Ever hear any boots of Eddie live with his old rig? Very mid-range sounding with just about 0 bite and not much gain. More volume sustain than actual gain. Even at insane volumes his sound would die out at times.

Can you name any songs or albums that use four or more rhythm tracks for the whole tune? I'd be especially interested in something where the guitarist, or someone associated with the album, said "We recorded x tracks of guitar." It may well be that various bands that were dubbed "alternative" used multiple tracks. However, given the genre's somewhat relaxed standards for rhythm tightness and a lack of emphasis on delivering a sonic punch in the face, I would be surprised if any of these songs really sounded "heavy."

Actually, I don't believe I can name any that had 4 or more consistentlyn nor have I heard of anyone confessing to having 4 or more consistently. But I can name a few that had the 2+2+2 formula which I think is perfect for dynamics and controlling the impact of how the intensity of a song builds and explodes.

Okay, so what do I consider a good "heavy" guitar sound?

Almost anything off of the Black Album. Load and Reload from Metallica are also pretty tasty from a sonic standpoint
Sepultura's Chaos AD is decent
Helmet's Betty, Aftertaste, and Size Matters
Rammstein's Rosenrot (the mastering on this album is poor, but the heavy guitars still manage to sound good)
Paradise Lost's Symbol of Life and Requiem

Gotta agree on the Mettallica stuff you mentioned. I always wondered how they got so much distortion going on yet it never sounded like it was tripping over itself. That in itself is quite impressive as it's way too easy to go over-board with distortion and make it sound like it's a train wreck when chugging chords because the distortion trips over itself and is one constant sound. I never dug Sepultura and kinda stayed away from the extreme heavy stuff as my playing progressed. I never felt that stuff wouldn't take off so I dove into the commercial side of rock/metal....boy was I mistaken because take off it did to an extent! ;)

Hiya Doc,

Well, like you, I too am an old school tape user so I'm sure we have lots of things we could share. LOL!!! Yeah Doc, what you said about the snare phase, that stuff I'm familiar with. I just never heard that in a guitar tone as most times it won't be printed that way. Like for example, and you'll crack up laughin at this man....but it's true unfortunately. The last album I recorded, I wanted to try something nuts. I usually use 2 full stacks whenever I can and wanted to see how it would sound if I totally mic'd the thing up for what it was. We literally ran 16 SM-57's on every speaker. LOL!! We then mic'd the room at medium and far with a few mics. Now, this was a nightmare due to how phase could contribute to a mess like this, but the engineer I worked with really knew his stuff when it came to this sort of thing and angled the mics so that we didn't get any phase at all. I figured it would be cool to at least try it as all those speakers make up the sound I hear when I play...not just 2 or 4 of them, ya know?

Our end result was a fantastic sound but it had one major drawback that of course made us have to do away with it. I had the studio booked from 6pm until 6 am every night. We made sure we strategically measured and wrote down every mic setting, used a ruler, used tape for reference spots....every possible way to try and achieve the sound consistently. But you know as well as I do, every day makes the sound different and you'll never get those mics set back up perfectly. It also brought in the problem of me sometimes not being "on" in my performance, so if I couldn't finish a tune in one session, coming back to it with a new mic set-up would totally make things different sounding even though the sounds we got were very close. Heck, there have been times when I've left a mic rig set up and it still sounded different the next time I tried to print, ya know?

So this wasn't gonna work. LOL!! But believe it or not, I found a pretty awesome work-around to where the engineer and myself couldn't tell a difference. As you know, mic'd guitar tones are most always the way to go. But I had this challenge to try and simulate it using speaker sim and some effects. I took the tracks home that we did at the studio in wave format and studied them closely. So close in fact that I wasn't gonna quit until I copped that sound. Since it was my same pre-amp being used, I felt the only thing I needed to compensate for was the phase of the mic's being on the speakers, and the speaker air movement from the speaker to the mic. Having all these guitar tracks allowed me to solo them up and listen to what was also going on in the room.

My work-around was to use my XLR outs from my Digitech 2101 tube pre amp, press the speaker sim button and create a sound inside a sound. With a few verbs and some impulse verb effects, I was able to cop this tone to the point of not knowing the difference between the mic'd cabs and the speaker sim. I built a room inside a room with plug ins pretty much and it worked fantastic. Once we saw how well it could work, I recorded the rest of my album this way and it remained consistent. I could just stop playing if I had enough or I was having a bad day etc and just pick up where I left off the next day and things would be exactly as they were. I really went nuts on this though and it wasn't easy until I came up with the template for it.

On some of the impulse verbs and sounds I added, I cloned the guitar tracks and used more pre-delay just mixing them in in moderation to add to the over-all sound. So to make the sound the way I wanted, I first had to see what speakers in my rig I liked the best. Once I got tha sound going on in my pre-amp, I created a small room verb for the sound to have a bit of ambiance. No long decay, no pre-delay on this one. It basically set my sound in a room to where there were a few reflections just like if you clapped your hands in your room and listened for the decay. From there the impulse effects came into play. Constant eqing to get the mic air sound from cab to mic, over all far distance room mic simulation just mixed in enough to make the sound swell a bit more...stuff like that. It was very challenging but also rewarding for me. If at the end of the day you're happy with the tone you're getting, it matters not if you're the only one that feels that way I say. :)

On the stuff you'll hear on my myspace page, there were only 2 rhtyms used at all times so it's not gonna be the wall of guitars you may be expecting. I didn't want to go too crazy with production because I play live a lot and if I can't pull stuff off live and make it convincing, I won't do it at all. Sometimes I have a rhythm guitar player with me, sometimes I'm the only guitar player so I try not to go too crazy if the stuff will be performed live, ya know? Same with vocals and other studio tricks. Everything I've ever put on a CD gets performed live or I won't do it. Of course there certain elements that may not be there. For example, if you listen to a track on my myspace site called "Fool" there are 15 back up vocals tracks that start that song with a reversed type effect. There's only 4 singing members in my band, so we won't be able to make it that thick and the reverse thing will not be as apparent as you're only as good as the soundman and reverse verb that gets put on you at the time. But we make it as close as possible. :)