Can't seem to get any tight distortion out of Guitar Rig

I'm struggling to get tight, ballsy distortion sounds out of this thing. I'm using Ableton Live 6 and Guitar Rig 2 for all guitar tracks. I'm doing up to 4 tracks for rhythm guitar and pan them individually, but it would always sound like mud. Distorted guitars just drown in the mix and don't sound defined on palm mutes. I'm having no problems with clean guitar tracks though.

My guitar is a Fender Esquire GT with a single Duncan Invader humbucker at the bridge. Maybe I have to plug it into the slot for hi-gain guitars on my Line 6 TonePort to get an overall better sound?

My friend uses an Edirol audio interface with Garage Band and even though he uses less tracks for guitars it still sounds heavier on the bottom end and remains clarity.

Does anyone have a clue how to solve my problem?

Thanks in advance!

 

Not really my speciality, but you often find that when bands record layer after layer of heavy rhythm guitar that they are doing so with far less distortion than you would expect.

Try using lower gain sounds - the multi-layering should ensure that it sounds thick and heavy without saturated distortion.

 

post an mp3 so we can hear the problem.

 

A quick fix may be trying some of the distortion pedals into the clean channel of the "Gratifier". I can get some pretty fat sounds with a rat or metal zone.

 

The song is on my myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/palmstroke

It is called "Good Morning" and the guitars sound like a real real bad earthquake on the chorus (00:59 min.), so don't set your speakers' volume too high. It sounds so fuzzy, you can't even hear that there's actually a chord progression going on.

I don't really know how to solve this. But I guess I should use less gain and compresion on each track. Or just be recording guitars via micing my amp (which is gonna drive the neighbours crazy though).

Thanks.

 

I tend to agree with Hont-a lot of times the actual sound going in is not as distorted as you would think from the end result-when I've tried super-driven sounds on input, they usually lack punch and focus,or just muddy up the mix.Less gain,doubling/inversions.....

 

I would use less distortion as already suggested. But also, unless you're applying a steep high pass filter at an appropriate frequency (depends on your bass sound) and are thinning the lower mid range - 120 to 500 hz then you're bound to end up in mud city! You've probably got all your guitars, bass and kick all crowding that frequency range with all that distortion on top.

Try doing the eq'ing from your host or GR. Don't worry if the guitar sounds thin on it's own - it'll sound ballsy enough if you've got the eq'ing of the bass and kick right.

 

I don't think you'll find the answer with Guitar Rig my friend. I've had guitar rig 2 for a few years now and I've been messing about with Guitar Rig 3. It's just not made for heavy distortion. It suffers from the problem had with most amp simulators, mud and fuzz. I've been recording metal bands for a while now and I know all the tricks to getting a good crunch and backing off the gain and layering is one way (perhaps the best way) but the original tone has to be intact to create this and it that's where guitar rig fails!

It's strange, a good heavy distortion tone Is where most guitar amp sims seem to fall flat on their face which is crazy considering probably over at least 35-40% of the players out there are hard rock or metal.

I've never tried guitar rig through a large P.A or anything like that though, but I bought it for direct recording not live shows!

I'd keep GR around for the cleans but until N.I. get it right your better off getting a POdxt for your heavy tone.

I'm not bashing N.I. BTW, I just thnk they need more time to get it right!

Hope this helps!

 

Hm, didn't people claim that the new amp models of GR3 are way better for high-gain stuff? Now Krenzathal states that he doesn't see considerable improvements.

I'll have to play around with it alot more to find out myself. GRs seems to have a hard time with my Pearl 70s Gibson Custom, but most pedals I tried have the same problem. Other than that I think that many people try to get a real amp's sound out of GR while it's more for attaining a miced amp's sound.

 

GR is capable of getting clean, or heavy sounds. As a previous poster mentioned, you need to back off on the distortion, If you take a bunch of heavily distorted guitars and start layering them you will end up with a swirling mess that sounds like crap. Start with much less distortion, and then start adding your layers on top. When you listen to an individual track it may sound weak and not heavily distorted but when you layer multiple tracks and add dimensions such as delay or reverb, you will get the sound you are looking for. If you listened to a GNR song in a pre-master format and were able to listen to individual guitar tracks, they would not be super distorted. Put them together, and that is where the magic is created.

 

I'll probably get bashed for saying this in NI's forum but, have you tried using Alien Connections Revalver MKII? For all of the high gain stuff, it seems to be what is preferred.

 

I havne't actually, I've never even heard of it! I'll give the demo a bash (If there is one!)

I wouldn't feel bad about mentioning it on an N.I. forum. most people just want results and a good combination of a lot of things is usually what get's it.

It's nice to not have some fanatical follower of a product telling you you can't mention other programmes or tools on a specific forum.

Thanks!

 

Hey there. What about the intro to "Don't Damn Me" (UYI II)? It's just a single guitar all by its lonesome, and it's tight, thick and heavy...sounds bad ass! Wish I could get that tone with my Marshall...

 

The point I was making is that when you start layering guitars there is much less distortion than you would think on each individual guitar track. When they are all blended together you get a much heavier sound, if all your guitars were super distorted you would have a mess.

The song you referred to, "Don't Damn Me" clearly is very distorted but is standing alone so it works. There is some studio magic applied to the sound during mastering that makes it difficult to re-create exactly through GR or any other program. Best to err on the side of too little distortion than too much.

Regards

 

Consider upgrading to GR3, the new Ultrasonic amp has a really great distorted sound for metal and the like. I use it all the time now, used to find things were a bit thin.

 

Try adding some EQ/compression to the setup, that could make alot of difference. Espacially the EQ.

 

Yes, EQing is pretty important. I have yet to come across a Guitar Rig distortion preset that doesn't need to be EQed. Their initial settings all tend to sound thin and flat. Some of them are almost completely useless, like the preset for System Of A Down or Blink-182... They also sound nothing like the original.

I'm still thinking 'bout upgrading to version 3, cause I really can't record any real amps at home. I hope the 'Ultrasonic' model is good.

 

Everybody here said that Ultrasonic is great. I tend to disagree on that matter. Though Ultrasonic does reign when it comes to hard-rock and alternative, if you want to plug in some serious metal attitude my vote goes for the Lead 800 with Matched cabinet, or, if you like both worlds, the Lead 800 with an Ultrasonic cabinet. And yes, EQ it. It's simply a must. Also I find that a slight delay/reverb or both give the sound an all needed richness. You can achieve fuller sounds by dropping a Psychedelay set to Chorus mode near the end of the rig but that depend solely on the sound you're trying to get.

And I have to agree with most of the people here: forget about GR2. Go for GR3. It's arguably the best software in it's category.

 

It does vary between guitars of course, some pickups and amps are better matched than others. With my Dimarzios I've found that the Lead 800 is great for a nice crunch with an edge but pushing it any further it loses too much definition.

 

I get exactly the same behavior off my Powersound Super Distortion HB. Maybe this is some sort of rule for humbuckers.

Rule #131242: Thou shall use the Lead800 with a humbucker. But thou shaun't push it too far or thou shall lose thy definition.