How do you get a scooped sound to cut through?

[MDV]

Oh, on topic, dont forget that these guys are all micing up. Have a look at the frequency response of an SM57 ;)

Yeah, theres proximity effect in close micing bringing lows back in, but then there are desk and outboard EQs and compressors as well...

[Loomer]

So, would it be a good idea for a single guitar band to use a highpass filter, if there's no bass player?

I really like how thorough this thread has gotten. Really interesting stuff :)

[AndyR]

So, would it be a good idea for a single guitar band to use a highpass filter, if there's no bass player?

Live, I've no idea. On a recording, I wouldn't have thought so if there's no bass guitar (depending what else is in the mix).

I'm liking this thread too. Lovely stuff MDV.

I do tend to treat my guitars like monkey8911 suggests - rip the bottom out of them as a matter of course. But I'm not playing metal. I do it mainly to make room for the bass and the keyboards. Recently, I realised it had become a "rule-of-thumb" that I was doing without thinking/listening, so when the bass/keys are coming through how I want, I do investigate whether any guitars could benefit from getting their bottoms back. Our ears are the most useful tools we have... if it sounds good, it is good... if it don't, something needs changing... but you have to listen without prejudice - not always easy, especially when you're knackered and have just spent hours concentrating on one part in the mix.

Overall though, I'm a singer-songwriter, so the band parts I record (no matter how much I like the guitars!), are always "backing" for the lead vocal. I tinker as little as possible with the vocal track itself - I'd be very loathe to strip the bottom end of that. If feels like I need to, I tend to start looking for other instruments that are getting in the vocal's way! :lol:

I do have a little trick I play to get a vocal to cut through without being too loud. I do it with a duplicate of the vocal track though - I rip everything off the duplicate except the highs, then compress the cr@p out of it, NO OTHER EFFECTS, then turn the fader down ready for later. Now on the original, very little EQ (try not to use any - if it sounds naff, then rerecord a better one!), and put as much reverb/etc as you want. Once you've got the rest of the band mixed, bring this vocal up to where you think it ought to be - not too in-your-face, just nice for the band. At the right level, the vocalist (me) probably thinks it's too quiet, but a casual listener (guitarist) thinks it's ok. This is where you bring up the fader on the bright/compressed vocal track - just a little, a slight seasoning... it's an amazing effect. The vocal is quiet enough for the rest of the band, doesn't interfere with all the wondrous arrangement, and it doesn't "jump out" unnaturally. But suddenly you can hear it like you're stood next to the singer. It brings the lead out as a distinct voice from a wall of backing vox, and it seems to be the way I can make a blues/rock vocal sit nice with a rocky guitar mix... (I understand that it was the old motown dudes that came up with this trick to get a heavily reverbed lead vocal through a heavily reverbed band and backing singers).

Can't really help on the scooped guitar sound though (my solution tends to be "why are you doing that? it sounds naff!!! Let me help you adjust your amplifier..." - but that's just my personal taste in guitar sounds and types of music in general :lol:)

[witeter]

hey guys thanks for the very interesting replies and discussion.

As i mentioned earlier when playing live i boost my mids and i cut through fine but its just that id like my sound to carry more oomph! and have a more of an aggressive/darker edge.
For example my general settings are (out of 10)  Bass 4  Mid 7  Treble 2  - i then boost further with a Tube Screamer
The reason i keep the treble so low is that on the Mesa single Rectifier the Treble works differently to other amps, to make the bass and mid be more pronounced (especially the mids) you gotta lower it to roundabout that setting-it gives you a huge mid boost (people who have rectifiers overlook this and wonder why they dont cut through). Again this is ONLY for live-recording is a completely different scenario.

Anyways, the problem is that the sound cuts but its too 'boxy' for my liking, i miss the low end i guess-and yes, the more bass i add the more the sound gets lost. Its an interesting conundrum but whats also true is that all amps are different and some have more of this/more of that-ive recently found a Peavey head for example that cuts but carries the bottom punch with it...hell yeah(as Hetfield would say)

[monkey8911]

Hey MDV,
Those graphs are really interesting! One thing that comes to mi mind is that most f those bands play in dropD or lover, so the guitars have to get mixed differently. Also, there is never such thing as "just guitars" in a mix, because there is always some ambience reverb or just some early reflections mixed to it to blend them into the mix. And those reverbs processors usually arent hpf-ed.
I agree though, that my frequencies were quite radical, I checked some music I have mixed, I would take away 50Hz from my descriptions now and add a lo shelving eq to the descriptions.
When listening to some not heavy modern music, most times the guitars seem to be thinned out quite dramatically, like in some sum41 songs and quite a lot of 30stm songs. 
After all, thees a lot of ambience and synths going on there.

Live is quite hard, most mixes I hear are really bass heavy, it clouds up the whole thing. Also, most live mixing engineers wont cut the treble on guitars mich sometimes makes them turn into white noise. I guess most live-guys don't hear anything above 15k anymore...

@ witeter: boxy and no low-end=tubescreamer. I have modded my tubescreamer to have a lover cutoff frequency, its really easy to do, u just have to change one cap there. I also added a switch so I can go from standard to modded, makes it more versatile.
Also, during soundcheck, try to go off stage and check how your band sounds from the view of the audience, might not be bad. (proximity effect of mics will add some body to the guitar)