Guaiana : Yeah , they ’ re just so good these days . There ’ s a few things that they struggle at , but the only people who truly care about guitar tones being real or sim are producers and guitar players . Nobody listening to the song is going to be , like , bummed about it , you know ?
There are some things like fuzz guitars that are pretty hard to nail with plug-ins . For things like that I know that I can mic an amp and get it sounding how I want . But when I start mixing , I do my best to zoom out and stop putting every little thing under a microscope . I realize that I ’ m still getting the sound I want at the end of the day . So , it ’ s kind of this balancing act of “ When do you stop focusing on one element and start looking at everything as a whole ?” I know that my threshold is like , “ Amp sims will completely do every job I need them to do right now .” If I really can ’ t figure something out , I ’ ll go mic up a guitar amp but it happens so rarely these days .
I ’ m also finding newer amp sims take pedals a little bit more like real amps . So , I know that if we ’ re going for a pedal tone like a good fuzz or octaver ( or both ), I ’ ve got amp sims that I know will deal with that . I still do pedals and stuff on the way in , and that ’ s actually kind of my compromise of “ Well , I ’ ll go with amp sims , but if you ’ ve got some pedals in your chain you want to rock with , let ’ s combine these two elements .”
I mostly lean on STL Tones ’ and Neural DSP ’ s stuff . The Fortin Cali [ by Neural DSP ] is a really good JMP plug-in . Like , I haven ’ t heard much in the Marshall [ sim ] realm that actually sounds like a Marshall amp , and that one very much does . Neural ’ s Archetype : Gojira ( a suite of amp models developed with Gojira guitarist , vocalist , and producer Joe Duplantier ) is really good too . It ’ s got the best octave pedal in it , and I love octave pedals on guitars , I always sneak those into everything .
I ’ ll use sims on bass too . I spend a lot of time on bass tone ; it ’ s incredibly important to my productions . I think one reason I ’ m less worried about guitar tone ( like an amp versus an amp sim ) is because in my mixes , the bass carries a boatload of the actual tone . It really glues the guitars together . So , almost any guitar tone I can get with a sim will work with the bass tone I pick at the end of the day .
PS : When mixing bass , what ’ s your philosophy on how much high-end to use ?
Guaiana : Bass is interesting to me , because like I said , it ’ s super important . It ’ s one of the few things I have a very set-in-my-ways method of recording . In my mind , it has to be a Fender P-Bass . Sometimes I ’ ll go with a Jazz Bass if a guy brings in a Jazz Bass and we ’ re playing it and it actually feels and plays really well . But if not , I default to a P-Bass with the freshest strings . We change strings , like , every two songs . Get me a tube preamp , ideally a UA 610 pre , and a boatload of 1176 ‘ till the waveform looks like a sausage and I ’ m totally in my comfort zone .
If I get stuff to mix from bands and it ’ s tracked with nothing on the way in , I ’ ve got an in-the-box plug-in version of that same chain to make the DI sound like I recorded it . So yeah , I ’ m very particular about bass tones and choice of bass . For me , it ’ s not so much highend as much as I want to hear the pick attack really well , and P-Basses are fairly mid-forward . So , I want to make sure I ’ m sculpting those mids right ; sometimes they ’ re a little too mid-forward and I ’ ll take out like a bit of low mid , but it ’ s just so the right stuff is poking through at the right time .
PS : When working on a record or an EP , do you typically start on a song and work it until it ’ s done before moving onto the next , or do you jump around from song to song ?
Guaiana : It sort of depends . Say I ’ m doing an EP just to make it a little easier to explain . Pre-production happens first . We look at every song , making sort of macro changes to them , like , “ Are we cutting parts ? Do we need to rewrite something ? How are all the vocals , chord structures ?”, things like that . But we ’ re not really getting into incredibly fine detail in pre-production . However , these days , if I ’ m producing a record remotely , I ’ ll dive a little deeper to make sure everything is mapped out for the
engineer that ’ s recording it all .
For me , it ’ s making sure that the song is structured how we want , especially vocally , and then we can start recording . I tend to sort of bulk record ; we ’ ll do all the rhythms for the songs , and then all the bass , and then usually vocals and lead guitars back-to-back so they don ’ t step on each other ’ s toes . Drums are last as I mentioned earlier .
Lately though , if I ’ m doing a full length , I ’ ll try to group songs off based on style or how prepared they are . If I ’ ve booked , say , four weeks for a record , we ’ ll do three songs per week and put all our focus into them . With a very diverse record , I ’ ll try to group them accordingly so we can stay in a certain headspace for that week . So , if there ’ s more electronic songs , they get their own week , if there ’ s more spooky jams , they get their own week . And then , if the drums don ’ t need to stay the same across the record , you can tailor the kit every week to the batch of songs you ’ re about to do .
For the most part , and for the style of stuff I do – I like doing a lot of active rock and pop punk , stuff like that – consistency is super key across the record . It ’ s one thing to have variety across the board , but for the most part , it ’ s important to keep a cohesion throughout the record . But if it ’ s a record where there are different vibes across it , then yeah , we sort of group it as is and plan for that .
Andrew Leyenhorst is a Niagara-based freelance producer , recording engineer , and mixer , and the Assistant Editor of Professional Sound .
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