How I Fixed My Bad Heavy Guitar Tone – Recording Metal Guitars

I was a guitar player long before I ever got into engineering and recording metal guitars. 

I’ve been playing guitar for 26 years (almost my entire life) and love everything about the instrument…especially great tone. 

There are few things in life more satisfying than locking in with a kick ass drummer while riffing out through a cranked tube head.

After years of chasing guitar tone (long before ever getting into production), I had finally found the secret:

Solid playing on a solid guitar through a killer sounding tube head is where it’s at..

Simple.  

After years of trying out every other gimmicky pedal, fx processor and modeling amp..I learned that the tone I was looking for was hiding right in plain sight.   

A tube head plugged into a 4×12 cab.  DONE. 

Well..I’m sure you can imagine just how bummed I was when (even after 5 YEARS of constant experimentation) I was STILL unsuccessful at capturing the massive tone of my amp in my home studio.

It drove me insane.

“How can this massive sounding guitar tone sound so great on stage and in my room, but so terrible when I stick a mic (or in my case, multiple mics) in front of the cab?”

“Is it the fact that I’m using cheap preamps?”

“Do I need to upgrade my stock plugins for a more ‘analog’ sound?”

“Is there some secret guitar micing technique that the pros use and don’t ever share with the public?”

No matter what I tried, my recorded tones either sounded like straight razor blades or a wooly/hollow mess of crap.

As an aspiring engineer this frustrated me to no end, but it was even more frustrating as a guitar player who thought they had figured the whole good-tone thing out. 

In this video, I shine light on the ridiculously simple discovery that allowed me to FINALLY capture the guitar tone when recording metal guitars.

Also, be sure to download my FREE impulse response. Load it into your amp sim of choice and get right to dialing in killer tone without any fuss.

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About

My name is Bobby Torres and I’ve been a full-time audio engineer/producer/mixer within the metal and hard rock genres for well over a decade.

I’m on a mission to put an end to all of the false information that leads aspiring producers and mixers down a never-ending path of confusion, wasted money, wasted time and very little progress.

5 Steps to Better Heavy Mixes

Price: $17 Free Today
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5 Steps to Better Heavy Mixes
Price: $17 Free Today

You will also be subscribed to my weekly newsletter with my latest metal mixing tips.  You can unsubscribe at any time.

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