Recording guitars - Home studio with upgraded professional monitors

[HellraiserJohnny]

I recently purchased a pair of Kali LP-8 studio monitors and this being my first pair of professional monitors, I now hear all my past mixes very differently. For the last 20 or so years I have used high end consumer speakers (JBL, Klipsch, Infinity etc.). Even though those were advertised as Studio or Reference monitors, I now can hear the bass and guitar tones are, let's just say, very different.

So now I'm listening to a lot of guitar heads and IR demos and I am finding that the tones are, to me, very nasal and high in the mids than I am used to hearing. In the past I have always wanted the sum of the tracks I cut to have a good tight bottom and some thump to them. Now with real studio monitors I am hearing my tracks, like the demos I hear on-line, are far more mid-range and less deep and powerful.

I have always made sure that in the end; my guitars don't step on the bass track too much and that the bass adds punch to the guitars and that the bass track doesn't step on the kick drums punch. Now it seems all out of balance and it's a bit frustrating to thing I have to go back over years of work and re-cut all my high gain tracks and re-mix everything. I've tried EQ and a little compression and it improves the tones but it seems like I just screwed myself thinking that the consumer speakers I used were not giving me an accurate account of what was initially recorded.

I know that guitar tones are very subjective and everyone is a little different so I won't ask what tone or amps or IR's to use but more of a question if anyone else has any input on recording their tracks and what you folks look for when recording guitars. My music is mostly focused on modern rock but I also write ballads with clean guitar tracks and acoustic. I am heavy in the sense of rhythmically heavy and melodic, I am by no means "Metal". I do blend clean guitar parts with high gain tracks on most songs on certain parts and blend high gain passages together in most songs as well.

It may be that I just have to re-train my ears to listen to the tracks and see how they blend on the new monitors. I am also thinking of using the old Klipsch R-50m's as a test refernce for the mix after I'm happy with what the LP-8s give me to see if the balance of the tracks translates to those speakers well.

Would really like some input. Thanks!

 

[DanTravis62]

It sounds (to me) like you are expecting raw guitar tracks on real monitors to sound like the "full mix" sound on consumer grade speakers. (as in, full, rich, pleasant to listen to) And you finally hear them for what they really are, frequency wise.

They are all going to, inherently, sound nasal and like there are too many high mids - that's the frequency range they are supposed to fill out.

Whether it actually is too much high midrange and cut, is of course, completely subjective. But maybe if you could give us some comparison clips we could hear what you're talking about?

 

[GearGasms]

I can't say what I'm looking for specifically when recording an electric track other than it needs to sit in the mix and support the song when all is said and done. I will say that now that I've learned more about it, the solo of a track with guitar on it by itself quite often sounds awful. For example it took me years to understand that bad ass sound on it's own often doesn't fit in the mix. That's one big reason I record direct and use Amplitube or PodFarm for the tracks. It gives me more options at mixing. And even on a mic with acoustics, I had to learn to carve up that glorious Taylor tone by scooping the mids like I was mixing Metallica. But it gave room for the vocal and in the final mix actually sounds better.

 

[RaceU4her]

It took me years to really learn my monitors to the point I can now get about 90% there on the first mix and have it translate well to all my listening devices. Lately I have been using my iphone of all things as my first “translator” as I find if it’s balanced and even on those little speakers, it generally sounds great in my truck, ear buds, home system and wherever else I listen. Usually it’s just some minor low mid tweaks from there

As for guitar tones, I just look at them as another part of the mix that are no more important than any other instrument, and there’s too many variables with tempo, tunings, what is going on with the bass to have any rules. I hardly ever solo my guitars anymore when working on a mix cause I’d end up tweaking the guitars to sound good, not the mix. If there’s a bridge or something in a song where there’s a solo guitar part, I’ll just record another track with a more pleasing solo tone or maybe automate some eq or whatever. Mostly in general though, guitars are always a little thinner and brighter than I would think would work, especially with the faster metal I usually play

 

[stratjacket]

Studio Monitors really very linear in price vs performance, you get what you pay for. As long as you know your monitors and your room, you can get good mixes though. Listening to tons of reference music that you are very familiar with will help in getting to know your new monitors. They will hype and cut different frequencies

 

[Chubtone]

It is going to take a while to learn how those new speakers actually sound. You need to listen to all your favorite artists through those speakers over and over again. Get completely dialed in to them. And when it comes down to it, it doesn't really matter how things sound on your home studio monitors because no one else will ever hear your music through your home studio monitors. The job of those studio monitors is so you can mix your music so it sounds good everywhere else besides your studio.