Step 3 - EQ

The goal in equalising your freshly recorded track is to highlight the good, and take out the bad. A little bass, some scooped mids, and some nice highs can give you a great heavy/rock tone.

You don't want your guitar tracks to mix into the bass tracks, and either of those to take away from the drum track. When mixing EQ at a very basic level, you need to learn about adjusting the level of Hz. Here's what I know...

The scratchy/hiss noises are usually around 5K, 8K, and 10K. Adjusting the levels down here should take away the hissing noise, but it can affect your tone as well. Here's a screen shot to give you a better idea of what I'm referring to.

In this example I've trimmed off a lot of the low end as to allow bass, and drums to come out in the mix. If you have a guitar track with that boomy heavy sound, you'll kill all your other tracks instantly. Which isn't good.

A small dip at 5K allows for some reduced hissing, and trimming off the high end sounds at about 8K and up gives my sound a better tone and cleaner distortion.

I want to mention that the screen shot above is a plug-in that's built directly into Reaper. And it's quick and easy to use.

As usual, if you have any questions about this section, just email me or leave a comment.

Thanks for reading,

JFoBTQ

Step 2 Plug-ins

So I know there might be questions about setting up and how to configure your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), and if that's the case email me with your questions and I'll do my best to answer.

The next piece is about using effects properly and adjusting the tone. I personally use impulses and simulators. Here's a screen shot of the names of the effects I use, which you can google search and download for free.

If you want to use the same plug-ins as me save them all in a folder after you download them.

Eg, C://vstplugins

Load them into Reaper in the same order I have mine. Now since every guitar is different and everyone's sound will be different the only suggestion I can make here is to keep tweaking the sound until you find something you like. I have a preference for very heavy sounding distortion, in case that makes a difference.

If you go the other way and use plug-ins that are ready right out of the box, Amplitube and/or Guitar Rig are my choices. There's such a huge variety of tones, and effects that you can never get bored playing with either of these apps.

 Below is a screenshot of reaper with all the effects I use and how I dial them in. It's not my exact tone that I use in my recent tracks, but if you try to get something similar out of these, you'll start to understand how these work.

I hope you find some use out of all of this, and again if there's questions just email me and ask. My email should be in my profile page.

Next up, EQ. You'll notice that you'll have too much low end or high end in your sound, so I'll go through how to use built in EQ's or downloadable plug-ins.

Thanks for reading,

JFoBTQ

Step 1 for RecordingNewb

I've been playing music for roughly 17 years. Although home production and recording is relatively new to me, I wanted to create a page with useful tips and tricks on how I get my sound.

First things first, you're going to need a good Digital Audio Workstation to get started. I personally recommend Cockos Reaper. http://www.reaper.fm/

Once you've installed Reaper, you're going to want to configure it to allow you to hear your guitar and record properly. You may have to look online for instructions on how to do so, as I can't go through that since there's so many different pieces of hardware you might be using.

Now that you have your devices and DAW configured, you might want to start looking at various effects for your sound. I personally use several which are the following: Amplitube Guitar Rig Amp Simulators and Impulses (Free)  Some of the effects I also use are built right into Reaper. Load up a track in Reaper and arm it for recording by clicking the little red button on the left hand side of the track.

Once you hear your clean guitar playing back through your headphones or speakers, then you're good as gold. Now you can start loading some effects and playing around with them to change the sound of your guitar completely. Try recording a segment of you playing and see how it sounds playing back, now change the effects you're using and see the difference.

If you've made it this far, now you can really start recording multiple tracks and overlaying sounds to create your own unique tone.