Guitar Tip: Heavy Metal Distortion

_ Short Version: Don’t use Renoise distortion for guitar, but DO use a real guitar pedal with Renoise’s Cab Sim_

Long Version:

Ok so a long while back there was a big thread where I was trying to get a good clean, crisp, super heavy guitar tone out of Renoise without VSTs. Some people tried to help me but, no matter what, it just sounded terrible. The cab sim by itself sounds fine, but you can’t crank it very high without getting too dirty. You really just can’t get it heavy enough by itself, so the obvious solution is to put a distortion in front of it. Well that definitely makes it heavier but it just sounds god awful. There’s the horrible warbling sound that I’m not sure how to describe, it’s the metal guitar equivalent of mashed potatoes I guess. Palm muting with this chain, no matter how you tweak it, doesn’t even sound like palm muting. It’s just a terrible distorted mess of noise. I’ve tried every combination, every eq tweak I can think of, and it’s just either straight up not heavy enough or a horrible distorted mess of noise with no in between. You get to the noisy insanity quite quickly without being even remotely heavy.

Exibit A (Mashed Potatoes):

Anyways for whatever reason I have never ever tried any other distortion with Renoise’s cab sim other than Renoise’s distortion. I guess I figured if I’m going to use VSTs anyways then just use VSTs, and usually I rely on just the amp sim without a distortion plugin at all. So I had just never tried it. For some reason I ended up trying it today. So the setup is VST distortion>cab sim with just a semi moderate amount of gain on the cab sim. The warbling is just gone. It sounds… it sounds good. Really good. So the problem is Renoise’s distortion is just not good for guitar (at all).

However: that’s an easy fix. I’ve never met a guitarist that doesn’t have an actual physical distortion pedal. I have a bunch, they’re just all in my closet because I’d been 100% plugin based guitar processing for years. So I busted out my favorite pedal and:

Exibit B (The way it should sound):

Almost every cab sim sounds at least decent when driven by a real guitar pedal. Some of them better than others, but at least now I can drive them into the “heavy zone” and still retain the clarity I’d expect.

Hm. I listened to both, and the first one doesn’t actually sound bad. it just sounds like a “different” tone. Since every subgenre of metal/punk/hard rock/etc and every band/guitarist prefers a different tone, I can actually imagine someone liking the first one…

:shrug:

P.S… I’d wager that you could make Exhibit A sound similar to Exhibit B with a little creative EQ/Exciting

PPS, I did a little messing with it

http://organicio.altervista.org/alterpages/CarbonThief-Guitar-EQ.wav

No it’s not the same as Exhibit B. But better than A perhaps? It’s a chain of EQ (mostly removing the low end), Distortion (razor 6% drive), Exciter (default settings, 100% sharpness), mpreverb 357ms. (Your Exhibit B has some kind of reverb or something that A didn’t have)

Being a non guitarist, I didn’t even know what you meant by “palm mute” until I messed with this, but now I obviously understand that the “palm mutes” still don’t sound as gritty in Exhibit A or my attempt

But yeah. DAW Distortions aren’t really designed for guitars in the first place anyway. If I remember correctly I used the built in Reaper distortion on this song (listen in the chorus i.e. around 3:39), and it sounds kinda weird I guess, but has a crunchy digital goodness that I actually liked :slight_smile:

PPPS, maybe you and I should write a metal song together someday? :drummer: :guitar: :yeah:

I like 1st sample more :badteeth:

@organic io

Definitely the problem is the palm muting clarity. If I was just strumming chords it would be ok, and I would totally agree that it would be just different. Just strumming chords actually sounds kind of cool and for some styles of punk it would probably be great. The palm mutes though, I can’t even consider that just “different” it just sounds straight up bad to me.

Sadly I didn’t have this “breakthrough” until right before I had to go to sleep but I did manage to tweak my chain made for pedals a bit and it sounds fucking awesome. In fact I think I’ve got it to the point now where I don’t prefer VST amp sims at all any more. One other thing I did notice though: I still don’t like regular distortion pedals feeding the cab sim. I have a Boss OS-2 which blends overdrive with distortion, and with it blended it sounds like there’s a shitty guitar sitting on top of the awesome guitar, it actually sounds like something is just wrong. I actually reset my audio interface because I thought it was screwing up and bit crushing the sound. But then I turned the blend knob to 100% overdrive, and I was like oh, that’s why. With 100% overdrive and a little tweaking to the chain, I have a sound I would proudly compare to my beloved Ingite Amps plugins.

Record a metal song? Hell yeah. Maybe even do something with Bellows. However right now I don’t want to commit to coop project because I really should be studying for the cert exam I’m taking in 3 weeks.

@emre_k

:blink:

To each their own. Looking forward to experimenting more with this tonight I MEAN STUDYING OH GOD I NEED TO STUDY

have you tried distortion that is less a waveshaper and more of a fast compressor?

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aliasing sucks in every galaxy too

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a bit of feedback would be cool too

You mean plugins or pedals? I’ve tried all of Renoise’s distortion options, and I’ve tried using the compressors and maximizer to drive the cab sim harder without turning up the gain up on the cab sim too high. In terms of pedals, besides the OS-2 I have the Boss metalcore pedal, which to be honest sounds like garbage to me on any setup. I got it for so cheap that it wasn’t worth returning but I’ve never liked its sound on anything I’ve plugged it into. I have a digitech compressor pedal, a boss bass overdrive pedal, and that old boss pedal with like 20 different distortion pedals crammed into one and an extra stomp on the right to switch between 4 presets. I haven’t actually tried that one with cab sim yet, if I can find it that will be my project for tonight.

In terms of plugins, I have tried some of the compression/distortion plugins from antress. I wasn’t super happy with the results I got, honestly I normally prefer the most simplest chain possible, just an amp sim that can distort enough on its own and an IR for the cab. I’m trying to get off of plugins entirely though, because they’re a pain to deal with in terms of portability of the .xrns, and pretty much kill your ability to share an .xrns with someone.

If you apply the distortion dsp to a short sample and compare the output with the original, you clearly see that a lot of sound is added:

Distortion.jpg

The same sound with and without distortion razor at 75%

Maybe a solution would be to add a gate within the distortion DSP itself? A gate that gates this distortion tail, based on the input signal?

A solution might be to use a signal follower>hydra connected to the wet/dry sliders or a gainer, i guess you could loose the tail this way if you get the signal follower to react the way you want, but might just sound crap i don’t know…i’ll see if i can test it out.

Personally i find that i like a sound one day, but the next day i prefer another one…i think the most important part lies in the mix between all the instruments. If you have the most awesome sound while jamming on your guitar it does not mean that it will work well in a mix. A common mistake by metal guitarists is that they crank up the lows to get this beefy sound, the problem with this is that it will be a fight between the bass and kick and result in a duller sound in the end product.

^Another thing I haven’t tested yet, is I believe distortion in Redux has oversampling, that may or may not make a difference.

I agree with not boosting the lows, I usually actually cut them quite hard, sometimes I hipass if I want a lot of bass. The bass guitar can carry that end of the spectrum just fine. I just like a tone that has a crisp crunching sound when you palm mute, not too much high end hiss, not too much boom, just a nice crisp smashing crunch. When I drive the cab sim with the distortion dsp, palm mutes don’t even sound like palm mutes, it sounds like a sustained strum just noisier. It doesn’t decay like it should, and it’s really boomy.

Here’s another quick example after I’ve tweaked it a little bit. Still no EQ, just adjusted my pedal’s knobs a bit, adjusted the gain on the cab sim a bit, and put a subtle delay before the cab sim.

https://clyp.it/jvtubsyt

Sounds good, but you should also try using the convolver after the cab sim, using one of these awesome room reverbs:http://www.samplicity.com/bricasti-m7-impulse-responses/

I tried the thing i suggested with the signal follower, but i didn’t really get a useful result yet. I got rid of much of the ‘tail’, but i couldn’t really get it to sound right. Not shure where my fuzz pedal is hiding and my guitar has turned a bit 60-70s on me with no real good humbucker tones. I used the free TS999, with no good results. I hope that turning the humbuckers to the original way will do the trick, but i fear i will have to rewire the whole thing.

Here’s another quick example after I’ve tweaked it a little bit. Still no EQ, just adjusted my pedal’s knobs a bit, adjusted the gain on the cab sim a bit, and put a subtle delay before the cab sim.

https://clyp.it/jvtubsyt

Could you paste the DSP chain in a code box for me, i want to try it with my guitar, but i struggle to get the right sound?

Sure thing, it’s a fairly simple chain:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<FilterDeviceContainerClipboard doc_version="0">
  <DeviceContainerSlot type="TrackFilterDeviceChain">
    <SelectedPresetName>Init</SelectedPresetName>
    <SelectedPresetIsModified>true</SelectedPresetIsModified>
    <Devices>
      <TrackMixerDevice type="TrackMixerDevice">
        <CustomDeviceName>Mixer</CustomDeviceName>
        <IsMaximized>true</IsMaximized>
        <IsSelected>false</IsSelected>
        <SelectedPresetName>Init</SelectedPresetName>
        <SelectedPresetIsModified>false</SelectedPresetIsModified>
        <IsActive>
          <Value>1.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </IsActive>
        <Panning>
          <Value>0.5</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </Panning>
        <Volume>
          <Value>1.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </Volume>
        <Surround>
          <Value>0.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </Surround>
        <PostPanning>
          <Value>0.5</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </PostPanning>
        <PostVolume>
          <Value>1.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </PostVolume>
        <SmoothParameterChanges>true</SmoothParameterChanges>
      </TrackMixerDevice>
      <DelayDevice type="DelayDevice">
        <IsMaximized>true</IsMaximized>
        <IsSelected>true</IsSelected>
        <SelectedPresetName>Init</SelectedPresetName>
        <SelectedPresetIsModified>true</SelectedPresetIsModified>
        <IsActive>
          <Value>1.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </IsActive>
        <LDelay>
          <Value>374</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </LDelay>
        <RDelay>
          <Value>499</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </RDelay>
        <LFeedback>
          <Value>0.401639342</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </LFeedback>
        <RFeedback>
          <Value>0.319999993</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </RFeedback>
        <TrackSend>
          <Value>18.1131058</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </TrackSend>
        <LineSync>
          <Value>0.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </LineSync>
        <LTapPan>
          <Value>0.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </LTapPan>
        <RTapPan>
          <Value>1.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </RTapPan>
        <MuteDrySignal>
          <Value>0.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </MuteDrySignal>
        <LSyncTime>
          <Value>3</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </LSyncTime>
        <RSyncTime>
          <Value>4</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </RSyncTime>
        <LSyncOffset>
          <Value>0.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </LSyncOffset>
        <RSyncOffset>
          <Value>0.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </RSyncOffset>
      </DelayDevice>
      <CabinetSimulatorDevice type="CabinetSimulatorDevice">
        <IsMaximized>true</IsMaximized>
        <IsSelected>false</IsSelected>
        <SelectedPresetName>Init</SelectedPresetName>
        <SelectedPresetIsModified>true</SelectedPresetIsModified>
        <IsActive>
          <Value>1.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </IsActive>
        <Cabinet>
          <Value>0.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </Cabinet>
        <Routing>
          <Value>0.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </Routing>
        <Distortion>
          <Value>0.537543833</Value>
          <Visualization>Mixer and Device</Visualization>
        </Distortion>
        <Wet>
          <Value>1.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </Wet>
        <Dry>
          <Value>0.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </Dry>
        <Stereo>true</Stereo>
        <Gain0>
          <Value>0.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </Gain0>
        <Gain1>
          <Value>0.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </Gain1>
        <Gain2>
          <Value>0.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </Gain2>
        <Gain3>
          <Value>0.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </Gain3>
        <Gain4>
          <Value>0.0</Value>
          <Visualization>Device only</Visualization>
        </Gain4>
        <Frequency0>100</Frequency0>
        <Frequency1>1000</Frequency1>
        <Frequency2>2000</Frequency2>
        <Frequency3>4000</Frequency3>
        <Frequency4>8000</Frequency4>
        <BandWidth0>1.0</BandWidth0>
        <BandWidth1>2</BandWidth1>
        <BandWidth2>2</BandWidth2>
        <BandWidth3>2</BandWidth3>
        <BandWidth4>1.0</BandWidth4>
      </CabinetSimulatorDevice>
    </Devices>
  </DeviceContainerSlot>
</FilterDeviceContainerClipboard>

And here’s a neat tone. Subtle delay, All Classic cab at 0% gain, guitar juuuust so lightly colored with the overdrive pedal, and at the end of the chain smash it to shit with a compressor. This lets you play really really soft and cleanly articulated phrases, and it sounds really neat. The really strong compression lets you mix in really soft muted plucks with occasional not muted plucks and still be able to hear everything really cleanly.

https://clyp.it/xf0jpmid

I really like this pedal.

I tend to use the Le Poulin amp sims along with the Renoise cab sim to pretty decent results.

Also this one: https://soundcloud.com/wahrk/hammer/s-uiiLY

Finally i got my guitar back sounding the way it’s supposed to. I found a combination with The Anvil and the cab sim seems to work quite nice for me and i also tried the TS-999 tubescreamer distortion in front of Carbonthiefs DSP Chain above and it works quite well.