PHIL PLUSKOTA: Amps vs. Sims, Reamping Secrets, and Crafting Heavy Tones

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to the URM Podcast. Our guest today is Phil Pluskota from Sonic Assault Studios. This is his second time on the podcast and he's a dude that we've known for quite a while. I kind of consider him an expert in guitar tone and I think that's kind of how he puts himself out there. But I actually just hired him to reamp some guitars for me and they came back great. And it's the first time I've ever worked with him. I had heard that he does this and never really thought about doing it before, but a situation came up where it was needed and he delivered. He delivered great. And it reminded me of just how sick real amps are. He forgets sometimes because Amps Sims are so good, but real amps are the shit.

Speaker 2 (00:52):

There's something about the low end, particularly the way it moves that the amps just have now. That being said, mixing an amp sim is so much faster and easier most of the time. But yeah, I know very often have we been pulling up even just amping head through an ir. Sometimes it's a different sound and it keeps it interesting when you're working.

Speaker 1 (01:18):

I love Amp Sims and there's people who know how to really get the most out of 'em. There's nothing wrong with that. It's a real amp is a different kind of sound. It's a different beast. And when it's done well, it's okay. So here's the thing, am Sims I do think are great. I think the problem is trying to compare them, right? I think that's the big problem is when

Speaker 2 (01:47):

They're a different sound. Totally. They have their own

Speaker 1 (01:49):

Thing, different sound, different feel. Yeah, exactly. So if you're trying to be like one's better and then you start to get into that whole comparison, that's where you just start going in circles and it's kind of unproductive. AM Simms are great for what they're great for, and there's certain scenarios where they are the better choice. There's other scenarios where real amps are the better choice and one's not better overall than the other. They're just very different. But I think when people get in their head that there's this better out there, like Amp sims are just better. I don't know about that. Sure.

Speaker 2 (02:38):

Different is not always better. It's just different. It's like you can have a Honda and a Toyota. Both of them are a great reliable car, but they drive a little different, they break different, they steer different. It's a different vehicle, it's a different driving experience, but they're both a solid car,

Speaker 1 (02:53):

7 47 or an F 35. You know, I going to, yes, one I'll use to fly my family and the other I'll use to bomb my enemies. But they're both great. They're both great. Or Lambo versus Ferrari. It just two totally different, it's just two totally different things. I think people need to stop getting into this better kind of comparison thing. And you hear this all the time with which DAW is better. It's like

Speaker 2 (03:26):

Cubase.

Speaker 1 (03:28):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (03:28):

What would we do if we didn't spend all of our time arguing on the internet ale? What would we do with our, we

Speaker 1 (03:33):

Wouldn't have jobs,

Speaker 2 (03:35):

None of us would work at anything. It's the whole point is to argue.

Speaker 1 (03:41):

I think that there's some level where the arguments are good because they help you strengthen the fact that the arguments are stupid. Hearing people argue about this stuff really strengthens for me how much it matters to actually listen for yourself. So for me it's actually the arguments annoy me. They've always annoyed me because you can't argue about the way something sounds with words on the internet, but watching people do that has really strengthened my opinion that you can't do that and actually get anywhere. So if anything, I like that they are making me feel more right about my position.

Speaker 2 (04:31):

I'm too busy making records to care.

Speaker 1 (04:33):

There you go. Alright, let's get into it. We've talked enough. Here's Phil and we love him. Here goes. Phil, welcome back.

Speaker 3 (04:42):

Thank you for having me back. It's definitely felt like it's been a very long time since we've chatted last.

Speaker 1 (04:47):

It has been. I feel like you were on during the Pandemic.

Speaker 3 (04:53):

I was,

Speaker 1 (04:53):

Yeah. Which believe it or not is four years ago.

Speaker 2 (04:57):

It seems like last year. I mean really time really moves fast. It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (05:03):

I know it's insane it, but a lot has happened in four

Speaker 3 (05:07):

Years.

Speaker 1 (05:09):

Well, when you actually do start to break it down, when you think about time flies, but then you actually start to think about how much stuff happened. It doesn't feel like that anymore, but it just goes to show the older you get, the faster it feels like it's going.

Speaker 3 (05:28):

It really does. I feel like this year has been the fastest flying year of my life.

Speaker 1 (05:32):

Yeah, it's almost over.

Speaker 3 (05:34):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (05:35):

It just started.

Speaker 3 (05:36):

It feels like it just started.

Speaker 1 (05:39):

So by the time this comes out, the song will have already been out. So you amped some guitars for my band doth for our Slipknot cover, and they came out fucking sick. And this is the first time that I've ever asked anybody who's not the mixer, I guess, to reamp anything. For me. I've never had someone just do amps, but now I'm like, why haven't I done that? When you get a project to Reamp, how are you getting into the, I guess the sonic headspace of getting it right for the project? If you're not in the project, you know what I mean? You're not there in the production, you're also not mixing. So you kind of have almost a slightly disconnected perspective on it. How do you get yourself to where you're dialing the appropriate tone because you gave us several tones and they were all the appropriate tones.

Speaker 3 (07:00):

So really for that particular song, being so into Slipknot for most of my life, I kind of had an idea of how to get there in a more modern way with what I have available to me. But whenever I do other band stuff or other records, typically if I'm sent a backing track that's mostly already mixed, I can kind of figure out while I'm listening to the DI's and the mix, what Guitar amp cab combination will work in the mix later on once it's actually processed.

Speaker 1 (07:34):

That makes sense. Do people give you directions that they'd like to go in?

Speaker 3 (07:39):

Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes I'll get references, but most of the time people just trust me to just give them something. They're like, have fun with it. Do whatever you want. We trust you. Just listen to the song and see what you think is best for us. So typically most of the time I just do whatever I think is best for that particular song and the vibe of that particular mix.

Speaker 1 (08:02):

I feel like the only direction I gave you was give us a version with HM twos.

Speaker 3 (08:09):

Yes.

Speaker 1 (08:10):

Because CURT's mixing.

Speaker 3 (08:11):

Yeah, you said give us some with HM two on it, but also make sure that it's brutal and that was it.

Speaker 1 (08:17):

Yeah. What else do you need?

Speaker 3 (08:19):

Yeah, that's enough direction for me. I know how to do that.

Speaker 1 (08:23):

So what did you end up using?

Speaker 3 (08:26):

I think for that I end up using the Omega granier and then I also use the MLC Vogue on some of those tones. And then I also use the Rum Audio King in yellow, which has a cool parallel loop on it. So I kind of just looped in the HM two and just blended a little bit of that in just so it wasn't full on HM two, but it was enough of it chainsaw sound, but it was still clear and heavy.

Speaker 1 (08:51):

Interesting. So not in front.

Speaker 3 (08:53):

Yes. So technically it's still in front, but on the pedal itself it actually has a send in return.

Speaker 1 (08:59):

Oh, okay. Got it.

Speaker 3 (09:00):

So you can blend in whatever pedal you want with the original signal. So it was just a little bit of that HM two nasty mid range added to the sound.

Speaker 1 (09:11):

That makes sense. Yeah, it wasn't like, it definitely was not nuked.

Speaker 3 (09:16):

No, no, I didn't want to blow it out completely, but I gave it enough of that Cocked wa sound that was on the original two Slipknot records as far as the tones go, but just blending in a little bit of that definitely gave us that sound you were looking for.

Speaker 1 (09:31):

Hey everybody, I want to take a quick break from this episode to talk to you about URM Academy now. So if you're new here, URM Academy is the best online school for metal and rock producers and musicians. When you join, you get a whole access to a range of content. There's nail the mix, which I'm guessing most of, and that's where we bring on a different artist and a different mixer every month to walk through a mix and give you the raw multi-tracks. And we've had on mixers like Will Putney and Borin Tom Lord Algae with artists like Bring me the Horizon, Shuga, periphery, opec, even Nickelback and tons more. If it's under the heavy music umbrella as I like to call it, we cover it. You also get our mixed lab tutorials, which are little bite size tutorials about very specific topics. We have over a hundred of those now.

(10:29):

So if you don't have the time for a nail to mix session or an entire course, you just want to find one tidbit of info to help solve a problem. That's what Mix Labs are for. We also have exclusive members, only Facebook and Discord groups where you can make friends with and talk to thousands of people from all over the world who do the exact same thing as you. And what's super awesome about our community is that it's troll free. We kick trolls out. It's like an Oasis online and also our instructors are part of the community and they interact with everybody. So you can not only make friends, but you can I guess socialize and learn from the best. Also we have URM Enhanced, which is our more advanced membership tier. The main focus of that is our Fast Track library, which are some very, very, very detailed courses on everything from editing drums to post-production effects, automation, creating impulse responses, working with low tune guitars and more. We have over 70 of these. It's actually insane how deep and comprehensive the fast tracks are. And when you join Nail the Mix or you RM enhanced, you also get access to Riff Hard. Our online school for metal guitarists with hundreds of lessons from artists such as Animals as Leaders, spirit Box, arc Spire, Jason Richardson, and many more. So go to U URM Academy. Let's get back into this episode. Do you use Amp Sims? Very rarely.

(12:03):

I was just curious because you have an Insane Amp collection and you do amps but am Sims are really good these days. They

Speaker 3 (12:10):

Are SSOs are extremely good. I'll use them for prem mixing, so whenever I'm mixing a record, I'll use those as a placeholder until I'm ready to reamp.

Speaker 1 (12:20):

Got it. Okay. How many amps do you have now?

Speaker 3 (12:24):

I have 34.

Speaker 1 (12:26):

That that's insane. Top three.

Speaker 3 (12:31):

Top three at the moment would probably be Wagner Ecstasy, Carson's Empire. And then MLC, vog.

Speaker 1 (12:39):

MLC. Vog. Is that like Vog from Decapitated?

Speaker 3 (12:42):

Yes, that's his signature amp.

Speaker 1 (12:44):

Ah.

Speaker 3 (12:45):

And if you haven't used that amplifier, it's freaking incredible. I

Speaker 2 (12:49):

Have not. How could Vogue's Amp not be amazing,

Speaker 1 (12:52):

Right?

Speaker 2 (12:53):

I mean when, have you ever heard a guitar tone from him that wasn't mouth on the floor? Come on.

Speaker 1 (12:59):

No, he's like the best.

Speaker 2 (13:00):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (13:01):

His

Speaker 3 (13:01):

Right hand is ridiculous,

Speaker 1 (13:04):

Man. We toured with them Summer Slaughter 2007 and the Atlanta Show. I used to live in Atlanta, the Atlanta show, summer Slaughter. I made the mistake of deciding to do an after party. I had moved back in with my parents when the band first got signed and they had a big house. And so I just figured we'll just use the basement. And I wasn't thinking, it didn't cross my mind. It was a bad idea to bring eight bands that were in the middle of a tour like this to my parents' house, but it was wild. But I remember V specifically, very, very inebriated at three in the morning, finding a full stack that just happened to be there and just being like, I need to hear this. And just blowing out the neighborhood and I thought it was cool. I thought it was cool. I was also a little concerned, but it was like, yeah, when else is this ever going to happen? And even in that situation, he just sounded fucking amazing, just drunk as shit, building a rig out of whatever he could find and just blaring it and it was just like, God, this dude is

(14:35):

The best.

Speaker 2 (14:35):

When the cops pull up Al, just listen to this guy's tone for a second before you write the noise.

Speaker 1 (14:40):

That was going to be the was going to, I was going to say it was like, but just listen.

Speaker 2 (14:46):

They would agree and they'd be like, all right, you guys are good. Just can we come in and listen to the

Speaker 3 (14:51):

Man s watch his right hand. Yeah, just watch his right hand. Just

Speaker 2 (14:55):

It is the law.

Speaker 1 (15:00):

I really do think he is the best riff riffer in extreme metal maybe or one of them. It's hard to say, but I think

Speaker 3 (15:12):

He's definitely the best as far as precision and still having groove.

Speaker 1 (15:16):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (15:17):

Yeah, I guess pure precision. Of course there's some other guys out there that are just absolutely ridiculous, but when it comes to Precision Plus feel, he's definitely the best there is right now.

Speaker 1 (15:28):

It's unbelievable. So back to the Amps thing, what made you decide to go down this path of specializing like that?

Speaker 3 (15:41):

It was basically on accident. I already had a pretty decent collection of amps when I started recording, but amping seemed like a really fun thing. It's just like, oh cool, I can run someone's di through an amp, dial it in, record it, send it back to them and they're happy. And then just because I love Guitar Amps so much, I was just like, I'll just keep getting amps that I think are cool just so I have more flavors. And it just kind of snowballed into what it is now.

Speaker 1 (16:09):

Do you find that with Amp Sims being as good as they are, that people value what you do more or less? Or how are you navigating this world where pretty good tones are just available to people as opposed to before where pretty good tones were not just available to people because dialing amps is hard.

Speaker 3 (16:34):

So I've definitely noticed a downswing of getting hit up as often for amping work, but when I do get hit up for amping work, it's because the bands are looking for specific unique sounds that they can't get from sems. So many amps that I have that are not either made in an SEM form or not properly put into a plugin. So when I do get hit up for that, it's usually because people want something specialized.

Speaker 1 (17:00):

Got it. What about micing and cabs? So you've got like 34 heads. What about when it goes to micing and heads? How wide is that range?

Speaker 3 (17:13):

So I have 10 cabinets that I can switch between from my KHE switchers. So I have a lot of different varieties of cabinets, microphones, I don't have a lot of mics, but typically it's the classics. So 50 sevens, four 20 ones, R one, 20 ones, and then also a cam 180 4. So I throw those up on a cab and kind of see what ones I like for the blends that I'm going for, and then just commit to two microphones usually on every time I do a amping job. Do

Speaker 2 (17:42):

You have one of those robots? Sorry,

Speaker 3 (17:43):

Go ahead.

Speaker 2 (17:44):

You those robots where you take and it can move and place the mic. It's like a

Speaker 3 (17:48):

Dina Mounts.

Speaker 2 (17:49):

Yeah, yeah, that's what it's called.

Speaker 3 (17:51):

Yeah. I don't use Dyna mounts. I do everything by I, but for the stuff I do, I'm so used to micing up my cabinets that I can kind of just look at the speaker with a flashlight and know exactly where to place the microphone to get the sound I'm looking for. And I'm pretty solid with getting mics in phase without having to measure them or anything. I can just look at 'em and see if they're in phase with one another.

Speaker 2 (18:15):

Do you have any advice for somebody starting off learning cabs? Because rewind, I remember 20 years ago sitting there and putting up a mic on a cab and the only thing you could get was those Vic Firth isolation headphones, which are, it's like putting earplugs in, it helps, but when you're sitting in front of a loud cab moving a mic, trying to listen to where's the perfect top end and you think you get it, then you run into your room and you're like, oh, it sounds so different. But you're starting to blow your ears out over time. It's really hard to figure out when you're learning where to put the mic because what you hear on an album is not representative necessarily of what is necessarily coming in as a raw tone. That was the most frustrating thing. I sat there for days and days and days and days, putting mics on cabs over the years and hating my life. So what advice would you give to somebody who's going through that process?

Speaker 3 (19:04):

So the best thing to do is literally old sneak form stuff. Put the microphone right at the glue line where the dust cap meets the cone. That's the perfect spot to start off with. And then kind of just move the microphone to the left or the right, depending on if you want darker or brighter. But other than that, if you're not great at micing up cabs, start off with just putting the microphone directly on the grill, taking a lot of your room out of the equation that way. Start with one microphone. If you can't make one microphone sound good, you're going to fuck it up even more if you add a second microphone in. And then once you're good with one microphone, then you can start learning how to actually blend mics together and get phased. Correct on those.

Speaker 2 (19:43):

What about distance? Meaning how close or how back a mic is to the grill cloth?

Speaker 3 (19:50):

Yeah, so usually I'll do just directly to the grill cloth, but sometimes if I want a little bit more of the room added in, I'll bring it back about three to six inches from the grill, but very often don't. In the space I'm currently in, having the microphone directly on the grill is the best sounding considering I'm in an apartment with my cabs on carpet.

Speaker 2 (20:15):

So that's one thing I think is missing in a lot of modern guitar tones, especially the amp Sims where the IR is really, and I love irs, I love Sims. I also have a bunch of heads. None of them are mine, half of them are ale and the other kids upstairs, but we use 'em all the time. And one thing with the IR is that I always feel is lacking is sometimes when you go back and listen to those old guitar tones, for example, limp Bizkit break stuff, you can literally hear the room shaking under the punishing volume of the cab and there's just a certain ambience that it adds to the tone that's just unbelievably cool and unique and interesting. And then it's like you don't hear tones like that anymore. And sometimes I'm like, huh, I wish people used a little bit more room in their sounds. And I mean, I know metal, obviously when you're drilling it, you don't want to hear a room, but

Speaker 3 (21:03):

No. But in bigger sections, of course, if you add a little bit of a room to the cabinet for big held out cords, that sounds super sick even in more modern sounding mixes.

Speaker 2 (21:13):

What are you using for a room mic and where would you recommend placing it?

Speaker 3 (21:18):

So I use typically a four 14, and I kind of just will just walk around the room with it and just see where it sounds cool and then just leave it there. But it's just a lot of listening with headphones on and just walking around with the microphone until it kind of clicks in with the direct mics and then I'll just leave it there.

Speaker 2 (21:37):

Very cool.

Speaker 1 (21:39):

Yeah, the Forrester ve on the carnival mix that we did on now the mix, he had room mics for the guitars and that was really cool. You don't see that very often at all.

Speaker 3 (21:57):

No, it's usually always just direct microphones.

Speaker 1 (22:01):

Yeah. I think also it is kind of in line with this idea that it's bad to put reverb on rhythms. It is not the same, but it's kind of like a branch off the same tree. That rhythms should always be bone dry. The only kinds of effects should be chorus or something like that, but not reverb. And rooms and reverbs are a similar sort of thing. And I think that, so this metal, this pure metal orthodox way of doing things does not allow for room mics on guitars or reverb on guitars, but I mean reverb on rhythms sounds fucking sick in the right context as do rooms.

Speaker 3 (22:57):

Yeah, if you're doing a Swedish death metal band, just adding a little bit of reverb to the actual rhythms, it's pretty sick.

Speaker 2 (23:03):

I mean, I use it on everything that I've done probably in the last two years. Then again, I don't mix the heaviest stuff in the world, but I mean a lot of active rock. I love a little bit of verb. Again, especially when you're using irs, it just helps give a little bit a sense of space, just a little bit. And I think that goes a long way because I don't know, sometimes when I feel like when the guitar is a little bit too bone and dry, sometimes it's kind of hard to gel it in the mix. It's like something's missing. It just sounds like this dry as guitar. And usually people have a room their drums are in, so there's some ambiance or if they're programmed for example, there's going to be ambiance on that. But you have these really dry guitars, but you have wet vocals and wet symbols and wet snare and it's kind of like, I don't know. I feel like sometimes a little bit helps with that ambiance cohesion.

Speaker 3 (23:52):

I can agree with

Speaker 1 (23:53):

That. Yeah. The issue is then when you have hyper intricate stuff,

Speaker 2 (23:59):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (24:00):

People want to hear every single little articulation. You just got to make decisions. I think

Speaker 2 (24:09):

You kind of feather it in where you feel it more than you necessarily hear it, where you mute it and you feel like something is kind of lacking. The little bit of the glue disappears, but when you're drilling it on the chugs, you're still still there.

Speaker 1 (24:23):

Yeah. I would vote for reverb on rhythms if it was up for a vote.

Speaker 3 (24:30):

It's going to be a new pension for reverb on rhythms

Speaker 1 (24:33):

Forever. This November 5th vote for reverb on rhythms. I am not into bone dry recordings at all. They make me uncomfortable when people say they like, well, okay, I like the old Slipknot, but when people say they like the way the first corn record sounds or stuff like that, stuff that dry kind of makes me feel uncomfortable to listen to.

Speaker 3 (24:59):

It's funny though, because the guitar tones on the first corn record sound better than the tones and life is peachy.

Speaker 1 (25:05):

Yes. The tones on the first corn record sound fucking awesome, but that level of dry, it's so dry, it makes me uncomfortable.

Speaker 3 (25:17):

Everything on that record's pretty dry.

Speaker 1 (25:22):

I don't feel like you hear that much in modern production anymore. Joel, have you come across that at all? Just bone fucking dry mixes or bands that want it to be just raging against the machine in the nineties or corn in the nineties?

Speaker 2 (25:40):

I think more on trend right now is if I see anything, things are getting a little bit more eighties and a little bit more cock rocky on the snares and things like that.

Speaker 1 (25:48):

So more Def Leppard.

Speaker 2 (25:49):

Yeah, I've mixed a lot of stuff in the last two years where it's like producers are bigger snare or more reaver. So I see it kind of going back in that direction. But again, you're right, there are stuff that also comes in that's super dry, but I think more on trend right now is to add a little bit more ambience. So it's a sound, it's a vibe. There's nothing wrong with either or. If everybody's doing one thing, I always try to go in the other direction if I can. So I guess maybe you should start doing bone and dry all next month.

Speaker 1 (26:20):

Lose all your clients.

Speaker 2 (26:22):

Yeah, make it all uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 (26:23):

Yeah. So when you get di, do you ever inquire as to pickups used and all that stuff or does it not matter?

Speaker 3 (26:34):

I used to ask that all the time, but nowadays I don't ask. I just listen to the DI's kind of hear what they sound like, run 'em through some amps because basically if you run any DI through a 51 50, you can almost immediately tell if the mid range sucks on them or not. So I usually just run it through an amp, listen to what it's actually doing, and then kind of just figure out where I'm going from there as far as I gain structure what the mid range sounds like and how the low end translates according to their pond mutes.

Speaker 1 (27:02):

So doesn't matter what they say, it just matters what they sound like.

Speaker 3 (27:06):

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (27:08):

Very wise. I think a lot of people will make decisions in audio based off of stuff they read too much without. You see that in the group all the time. It's not as bad in the URM group as it is in other groups. I think that we've educated people, but still it is still a thing where people will ask for advice on something and they don't let you hear the thing they're asking for advice on. They're just like, I have this problem, this audio problem, what do I do? And then parallel compression and then you get a hundred answers and it's like none of you have heard, none of you have heard what he's having a problem with. What are these answers? I mean, they're all smart answers. Sure, but what are we even talking about? None of you have heard this. You don't know. You don't know What the fuck are you talking about?

Speaker 2 (28:14):

No, it's parallel compression.

Speaker 1 (28:15):

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you're right. And a 50.

Speaker 2 (28:17):

Yeah, put parallel compression on it. That fixes it.

Speaker 1 (28:19):

Yeah. Run it through Devil Lock.

Speaker 2 (28:21):

Yeah, devil lock. Yeah. Parallel compression through Devil lock. You got to try it. That's it.

Speaker 1 (28:26):

But I feel like that's kind of how the pickups conversations go among guitar players. It's like, use this. No, use that. I like this person uses that. It's like, what are we even talking about? You have not heard what it sounds like through your guitar with your hands, so what the fuck are we talking about when people are asking for pickup recommendations? I hate EMGs, I love EMGs. I like Fishmans, I hate Fishman's, blah, blah, blah. Active passive, I'm happy people are talking, but the conversation is irrelevant until you can actually hear something for yourself. In my opinion.

Speaker 3 (29:07):

The famous words of Frank Zappa pick up your guitar and shut up.

Speaker 1 (29:11):

Yeah, so you just listen to the DI that gets sent to you and go from there.

Speaker 3 (29:18):

I've gotten a lot less scientific over the years. I just listen and just vibe out with whatever I'm trying to achieve instead of asking detailed questions. Sometimes the details don't really matter. It's how it actually sounds under a microphone that matters.

Speaker 2 (29:33):

What about revisions? So say you send somebody, you're like, I got the hardest guitar tone. You send it over and they're just like, eh, not what we're looking for. What do you do in those situations? I mean, do you send 'em a 22nd Glip or do you do the whole thing or?

Speaker 3 (29:49):

So nowadays I just commit. I just go straightforward and just dial in something I think is sick and send it over. I rarely get someone who comes back and says, we want something changed. But

Speaker 1 (30:00):

You send options.

Speaker 3 (30:02):

I do send options, so usually I'll send two to three options of the full song to somebody, and so that gives them a little bit of choice, but honestly, the only time I really ever get revisions is if they're like, oh, we just want either more or less gain. That's usually about it. I'm like, sure. Yeah, no problem. I'll just turn the game down a little bit for you. I'll just juice it up a little bit more. Whatever you guys want.

Speaker 2 (30:24):

What about salvage situations? Every metal producer's worst nightmare where you get something to mix or you get something to reamp and you're like, cool, I just got this awesome rigg dialed in and you're so excited. You had the perfect sound on the last record. And to put it in, it just sounds terrible. The playing is somebody edited the transient off the DI's or all the wonderful things that happened. How do you mitigate some of that stuff? Because again, there's so many people listening to this that are probably getting

Speaker 1 (30:52):

That's a great question, Joel. Yeah, how do you deal with fucking Jacks shit? Garbage piece of shit di

Speaker 3 (31:00):

Eq, compression, transient designer. All

Speaker 1 (31:04):

In front of the amp.

Speaker 3 (31:05):

In front of the amp. So what I'll do is I'll throw it on the DI track before it goes through my actual amping rig and then I'll kind of play around with that to get the right feel as I'm amping. But yeah, I'll just throw it right on the di and just start EQing out stuff. If it sounds like shit, if it has no transient, I'll throw a transient designer on there, crank up the sustain and the attack on that and just kind of figure it out.

Speaker 2 (31:29):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (31:30):

Whatever surgery is necessary,

Speaker 3 (31:32):

Whatever

Speaker 1 (31:32):

Is necessary,

Speaker 2 (31:34):

Such a brutal situation. And it's one we've all been in a thousand times, but I mean even I see this all the time in the group, somebody would be like, oh, I, I've got this into this, this. And you're like, alright, that's pretty solid. And they're like, I can't get my guitar to sound good. And you're like, well, how are you picking? You're like, no, I pick a text. Great. You're like, just post something. And then they post it be like, okay, you're picking wrong. You can't hear this, you can't hear this. You should tweak this and this and this and that. And they don't understand because most people have never sat down and been taught how to pick because they've never worked with a real metal producer who knows how to pick. And when people pick up a guitar, what do they do? They just play guitar. Maybe they're not really sitting there like, all right, this is how hard you hold the pick. This is how hard I'm going to snap it or not, or how much wrist tension or finger tension or what angle I'm going to hit it at, how thick, et cetera. Nobody takes that into consideration, something that takes a long time to learn. And it is just, even

Speaker 3 (32:25):

When you get good at picking even pick materials makes a huge difference on how something

Speaker 2 (32:29):

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if people put as much effort into getting the perfect pick attack sound and the perfect pick, et cetera on every single note in their recordings, it almost doesn't matter what amp you're going to put it in, you're going to get a pretty good guitar sound within a certain, you'll have preferences for sure. You might not like an angle, but you might like a 51 50, but it's definitely not going to sound like crap.

Speaker 3 (32:54):

No, you're definitely going to be setting yourself up for a quicker way to get good sound if you actually play it good from the start.

Speaker 1 (33:02):

Yeah. We had this dude in the URM group years ago who was making that complaint and I kept trying to urge him to look at his picking and he was like, no, my pickings great. It's like, you sure? But he would never post a video and based on everything he was saying, I was convinced that his picking sucked, but he was convinced his picking was great. So fast forward, we do one of the URM summits and Andrew Wade is doing a guitar presentation and part of the presentation was they're just going to bring up people from the crowd and have them learn a riff and check out their picking and correct their picking on the spot and show the difference. And that dude went up there and lo and behold is picking fucking sucked. And Andrew Wade corrected it in a second and magically the tone was suddenly really, really good and it was really just a change of angle and moving half an inch up. All the difference

Speaker 3 (34:11):

Really. Playing around with where your hand is at near your bridge makes all the difference in the world with how a chug sounds.

Speaker 1 (34:18):

Yeah, so what Joel said is right is I think a lot of people have just not been shown, and so don't you think you're reaching somebody by telling them online? But I've realized that with a lot of these things they don't know that they don't know. They don't know that they don't know. They think they're doing it right, but they're not.

Speaker 3 (34:46):

Most of the time nowadays on social media anyway, someone's going to post something, they're going to get a billion replies. They're not even going to look at 'em if they're too long. They're just look at their phone. They'd be like, I'm not reading all that TLDR pick better,

Speaker 1 (35:00):

Pick better. It's the best guitar players in the world that I have met and worked with, been around sound the way they sound, no matter what they're plugged into. Now, obviously some rigs sound better than others. If you're playing through a pig nose amplifier, it's not going to sound as cool as some real rig, but regardless, they still sound like themselves and you can still recognize them and that quality, that quality that you associate with them. Kind of like that vog story I was telling you about. I think what Vog hooked up was a line six head, one of the old line six heads, like a real piece of shit with two line six cabinets, really not good stuff, and he still sounded amazing, those players that you associate with that great ass tone. It's not just hands obviously, but it is a big part hands. So speaking of hands versus gear, I feel like there's this gray zone where they overlap

Speaker 2 (36:20):

Because

Speaker 1 (36:20):

We all know that the hands are the most important thing, but we also know that you can really, really fix guitar tones and obviously the gear matters or else you wouldn't have 34 amps and there wouldn't be so many pedals in the world. There wouldn't be so many cabs. There wouldn't be people who really take the time to try different mics and mic combinations. Obviously that part matters, so to say it's all in the hands is bullshit, but to say it's all in the gear also bullshit. So in your opinion, where's the overlap?

Speaker 3 (37:08):

I mean, definitely you need to have a certain level of competence in your playing to get good sound, but also all you really need is a decent amplifier. With a good cabinet, you can basically make any mediocre amp sound pretty damn good with a really good cab and an awesome boost in the front of it, especially if you're a decent player,

Speaker 1 (37:31):

But so you don't need something crazy?

Speaker 3 (37:34):

No, no. You don't need three to $4,000 amps unless you're just an insane person and just like to throw money into boutique stuff like I do

Speaker 1 (37:44):

Tramonti. Have you seen setup His setup up is legendary, but do you think that's why 51 50 block letters are so popular?

Speaker 3 (37:56):

Oh yeah. It's just because you plug into 'em. Even if you said it like shit, it's still going to sound pretty decent. You can literally turn everything up to 10 on a 50, 1 50 and it's not going to sound amazing, but it's not going to sound like the worst amp you've ever heard in your life. I feel like it's the high gain amp with training wheels on it for someone who's never plugged into a high gain amp before, because you can just set the mid-range to zero if you want to crank the fucking trouble and it sounds pretty good.

Speaker 2 (38:24):

So how do you push yourself? Because I think about mixing, all I do all day is mix and I'm always trying to get better and push myself, make myself uncomfortable. Do you ever find a point where you're like, I know this amp, I know that amp, I know this amp. I can't think of any new amps to get. How do you keep pushing yourself to improve your guitar tones and does it get easier or harder for you as you do this for more and more years?

Speaker 3 (38:50):

It's definitely getting easier to dial in. Awesome tones quicker, but I think I still have the same drive I had when I first started, so I'm always trying to get a tone as close to mixed ready as possible to where you almost need to do nothing to it. So that's the whole goal for me all the time is how can I get a guitar tone to where it only needs a high pass and low pass on it. It maybe only needs a little bit of compression or it almost doesn't need anything on it. That's basically where I'm always driving myself every single day when I'm doing this is how close can I get to make this tone to where I don't have to touch it.

Speaker 2 (39:26):

So when you sit down and you're making tones, let's just say it's Friday afternoon, you finished your last gig and you've got some downtime. If you had to recommend a practice regimen, you want to get better at amping guitars, do this at home, do you have something that you could maybe recommend or some type of path to follow

Speaker 3 (39:46):

For guitar tones? Definitely sit with the amp, play through the amp a lot. You really won't know your amplifiers until you actually sit with them. Turn the knobs a lot, find out what the frequency sweeps are on the preamps of all of your amplifiers, just so you have an idea where the sweet spots are on those. Also hit 'em with different overdrive, see what they can handle, what they can't handle. Some amps can take extreme overdrive straight through them without crapping out. Some of them you have to dial it back and kind of juice up the amp a little bit more naturally because it'll just start farting out on you and start squealing. But it's literally just sit with your gear, listen to it, play through it, dial it in a bunch of different ways and just figure out what can I get out of this amp? What can it do? What can it not do?

Speaker 2 (40:31):

One thing I think is kind of interesting is I think people that are really good at a skill like that, it's almost like becoming an encyclopedia of gear. Just like for example, if you're mixing, maybe you know what 1176 sounds like or a two-way or a Fairchild or every one of these pieces of equipment including plugins and amp sims, everything has a sonic signature to it, and really it's learning how to combine learning the sonic profile of something where it's good or not good or might be good, where it has a high probability of being good maybe is a better way to say it, and learning what to combine it with that really brings it to life to create something interesting or something unique or something that really brings a characteristic out of it that's desirable. So it's almost like part of the skill is becoming an encyclopedia of knowledge, of knowing what things to put together, what raw materials create excellence when there's so many different types of raw materials.

Speaker 3 (41:26):

It's basically becoming a tone chef and you know how to make the gumbo different ways.

Speaker 2 (41:32):

That's a great analogy actually. I like that a lot, but it's very, very true. I mean, again, mixing, it's the same thing. It's like what piece of equipment? Because sometimes people will be like, oh, I've got this new compressor. It's the best compressor ever. It's like, well, it's the only compressor we've ever used that's ever hardware. You see this all the time with vocals. This is a great example. Everybody's like CL one B into a 10 73 into a 2 51 or a seed hundred or whatever, or a manly, and I'm like, okay, that's a great chain, but I'm the wrong singer. That's the worst possible chain in the entire world. You know why? Because a CL one B is really bright and brittle on the top end. If you have a very S singer and if you use a bright mic like a manly, like a reference cardio or a 2 51 and you put that into a 10 73 which has a brittle top end, guess what?

(42:17):

That is a recipe for the worst you have ever done in your entire career. Your low end will sound amazing in your mid-range, but your top end, good luck. I've gotten murdered by that chain a hundred times in my, and everybody's like, oh, it's the best chain. You're like, you read on the internet, it's the best chain. Have you ever tried an RS six 60 or have you ever tried one of 500 other compressors on vocals and how do you know the CL one B is the best vocal compressor of all time? It's not. It's a flavor. Just like a 15, 1 50.

Speaker 3 (42:46):

They're all tools.

Speaker 2 (42:48):

Absolutely

Speaker 3 (42:49):

Can't use the same hammer for every nail job.

Speaker 2 (42:52):

Yes,

Speaker 3 (42:54):

But people do.

Speaker 1 (42:55):

Some people do. Alright, so speaking of something where you might need to adjust how you work, stuff's getting lower and lower. I mean guitar tunings are getting lower and lower and lower. How do you deal with that

Speaker 3 (43:12):

Using overdrives that cut out a lot of low end or have an actual filter on them to kind of help get rid of that boomy low end that you can get out of some extended range guitars? A lot of the newer ones definitely have pickups in them that kind of counterbalance the bad low end of an extended scale guitar that's tuned super, super low, but also a lot of the newer modern amps don't have nearly as much low end as a rectifier or a 51 50, so using more modern amps actually helps a lot with the lower tuned guitars just because you're not dealing with as much low end information already from the amplifier itself.

Speaker 1 (43:51):

So the gear has already begun to compensate for it.

Speaker 3 (43:55):

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (43:58):

I actually did notice that I just got some of the fishermen, the open cores, and I put them in my seven and one of my sevens, and I noticed that when I compare it to certain other pickups in other guitars, they're not nearly as boomy. They don't sound as huge, but in the context of a mix or the context of putting it with everything else, it doesn't have all that garbage flub that you got to get rid of already straight out the gate right out of the guitar.

Speaker 3 (44:41):

A lot of pickup manufacturers and amp manufacturers have definitely been voicing things more in a modern sense to where a lot of the things that we've been normally cut out are already gone, which can be awesome, but sometimes it can suck because then you're missing something that you might have to try to add in later that might not sound as good as it would've been if you would've already had that information to begin with.

Speaker 1 (45:02):

Yeah, so I guess there's never a perfect never solution

Speaker 3 (45:08):

To anything. Always compromises somewhere.

Speaker 1 (45:11):

Yeah. How low are you getting stuff now? You're getting stuff like D or C?

Speaker 3 (45:17):

Yeah, I've gotten double drop C. I've even gotten a double drop E, which is it sounds like flub, but somehow with some of the stuff I have, I was able to actually get it. Its tone that you could hear what was going on, but the di itself just sounded like floppy rubber bands.

Speaker 2 (45:34):

It reminds me of, you ever see that? I think it was Jared Dines, he did this dueling video on the rocks next to the scene. He had this guitar with a million strings on it. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (45:43):

Yeah. It's like that 27 string guitar.

Speaker 2 (45:46):

Yeah, it was shit like that. I just randomly saw that on YouTube one day and I was just laughing my ass off and I'm just like,

Speaker 3 (45:53):

God. I was like that Sby guitar that they custom made for him just for that video, I think.

Speaker 2 (45:58):

Yeah. I mean when the strings are that floppy, right? It's like sometimes people are like, oh, where do you put bass when you mix it? I'm like an octave up and they're like, why would you do that if the guitar is a telephone pole just flopping around, it's like, you might as well try to hear the bass. I don't know,

Speaker 3 (46:15):

It just could be some sort of foundation.

Speaker 2 (46:17):

Yeah, we need a note everybody, please. It's not necessarily heavier just because it's a lower, but I mean low is cool. I remember when seven strings were controversial. Remember that in the nineties when it was like a seven string, like, oh, that's so low to go down to B, and now it's like, that's so high B geez.

Speaker 1 (46:39):

It's like boomer stuff right there. I know.

Speaker 2 (46:41):

It's kind of funny to think about though. I just go back to seven string do org,

Speaker 1 (46:45):

Man, do you remember when we had the Hell's his name Mastering guy? Why am I blanking on his name?

Speaker 2 (46:52):

Who was he not Cian

Speaker 1 (46:55):

Back in 2000? No, no, no. The episode that the fuck the dude was mean to us in 2015.

Speaker 2 (47:02):

Oh, Bobcats.

Speaker 1 (47:03):

Bobcat. Yeah, Kaz, that's right. Yes. Kaz where he was talking about working with crazy low tune bands that go to drop D. I still remember that. The Wild and Crazy Kids tuning to Drop D. So yeah,

Speaker 3 (47:25):

Drop C is now the new dad tuning.

Speaker 1 (47:27):

I know. Seriously, drop C is like standard. Yeah, it really is. I consider drop C like standard at this point. So we're almost out of time. Do you want to do a rapid fire round?

Speaker 2 (47:37):

Yeah. Okay, so I'm going to drill you with some questions here and you tell me the first thing that comes to your mind and if you can, why? If you had to pick a non-conventional spot on the cab to put the mic, where would you put it?

Speaker 3 (47:51):

I would put it very, very close to where the darkest part of the speaker is, mostly because depending on what microphone you're using, you can actually do a high shelf on it to get all of your top end back without it sounding fizzy and sizzly.

Speaker 2 (48:06):

If you had to pick one guitar head that nobody's most likely ever heard of that you think is on par with the greats, like a dual rack and a 51 50, what would it be?

Speaker 3 (48:17):

I'd probably say the ML cvo. It's getting known, but it's still such an underground company that I think that AMP over time should be a classic. Basically the best 51, 53. Blend it with an angle you've ever heard in your life.

Speaker 2 (48:34):

Cool. What is the best guitar tone that you've heard come out in the last three years?

Speaker 3 (48:41):

In the last three years? That's a good one because a lot of guitar tones lately have not been that great.

Speaker 2 (48:49):

I couldn't agree more. I mean, they're getting a lot of solid C pluses. It's like people are doing passable,

Speaker 3 (48:57):

They're getting C pluses, but there hasn't been a lot of records lately that make me want to go, Hey, what did they use on that record? I want to know what they use on that record. It's not like back in the two thousands where almost every record had an amazing tone on it.

Speaker 2 (49:10):

Yeah. Now you can tell you're like, oh, that was this. You just kind of know by what it is and what preset almost somebody used.

Speaker 3 (49:16):

Yeah, it has that stiff midrange. I'm not interested anymore.

Speaker 2 (49:21):

Alright, so then we'll increase the timeframe if it not in the last, what's your favorite guitar tone of all time? How about that

Speaker 3 (49:29):

Beauty and the breakdown from Bear Your Dead?

Speaker 2 (49:31):

Okay.

Speaker 3 (49:32):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (49:33):

That's

Speaker 3 (49:33):

One of the best guitar tone. Oh yes.

Speaker 2 (49:36):

If you could give one guitar mixing tip, what would it be?

Speaker 3 (49:41):

Don't be afraid of boosting four to six K in your guitars

Speaker 2 (49:46):

Guitar. Ooh, I like that. That's controversial. No, I'm kidding. Great. Okay, and the last rapid fire question, what's your favorite mic pre for recording guitars and why?

Speaker 3 (49:59):

Chandler TG two all the way. It just has specific mid-range grind you cannot get from anything else that just fits perfectly with guitars. It makes guitars sound perfect when you throw it through a TG two.

Speaker 2 (50:10):

I feel like I could go on a 30 minute rant about how good anything Chandler sounds. The TG two is such a great preamp and it's like it always gets overshadowed by the Neves and the APIs because it hasn't been around as long.

Speaker 3 (50:23):

There's so much more exciting sounding than Neve.

Speaker 2 (50:25):

Oh, I know. I mean, I have a lot of Chandler stuff and I've had a lot of stuff in and out. My favorite vocal compressor is an RS six 60. I think that thing is, if people heard that they would never use anything else because it's just that good

Speaker 3 (50:38):

Pretty much everything. Chandler is great. You can just run shit through Chandler stuff and it already sounds great.

Speaker 2 (50:42):

Really. I mean, my buddy's got a curve bender upstairs and it's just turning it on. You're just like, oh my God. Yeah, that sounds, it just does a thing and

Speaker 3 (50:52):

Yeah, and that eq, you can literally just do half DB bumps and everything. Sound incredible.

Speaker 2 (50:59):

Yeah, TG two now, the price of them use has just gone up by 500%. Thanks, Phil.

Speaker 1 (51:05):

Real quick before we end, I want to hear more about this four to six K thing.

Speaker 3 (51:11):

So basically what I like to do nowadays is when I cut around that three and a half to 5K area, I'll kind of sweep around four to six K and just do a two to three DB bump to get back the presence of the guitars, which also helps a lot with note clarity as well. So if you do a really, really high low pass to kind of cut around seven K, if you boost around six K, it brightens the guitars back up, but you get rid of all the fizz, so

Speaker 1 (51:40):

You're basically also compensating for getting rid of some of the painful annoying stuff.

Speaker 3 (51:46):

So get rid of a little bit of the bees and just bring up a lot of the actual high mid clarity.

Speaker 1 (51:50):

You can definitely neuter a guitar tone by cutting too much.

Speaker 3 (51:53):

Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (51:56):

The hard part with guitars is you got to put the top in somewhere and all of it sounds annoying. It's all a whistle, right? So it's like if you put it at two to three, there are certain things that are going to live in that range. If you go from three to four, four to five, five to six, seven to eight, there are different trade-offs for each frequency and sometimes redistributing your frequencies, like you said, from two to three K to four to six, or four to six down to two to three or two to three up to eight can really change how a guitar feels and sounds and sit against everything.

Speaker 3 (52:26):

Yeah, because depending on the high gain amp, all of those frequency ranges are going to differ where you're boosting or cutting, especially on dual rectifier, those are kind of darkish amps with a lot of high fizz to them. So finding the right frequency points to actually boost on a dual wreck would definitely make it sound a lot better.

Speaker 2 (52:44):

Man, that limp Bizkit break stuff. Tone. Speaking of dual wrecks, like God

Speaker 3 (52:50):

Dual wrecks for life,

Speaker 2 (52:51):

Just go listen to that guitar tone and just be like, why is that so good? It's

Speaker 3 (52:57):

That whole significant other record. The guitar tones on every song. Amazing.

Speaker 2 (53:01):

Yeah, just unbelievable. I mean, I dunno, I want people to put that much effort into their tones in 2025 going forward. I want to wake up to that world and it make me very happy.

Speaker 3 (53:13):

We need more budget though.

Speaker 2 (53:15):

We do. That's just an excuse. We need passion. That's what we need.

Speaker 3 (53:18):

We do need a lot more passion, a lot more people just hit a preset and then go to town.

Speaker 2 (53:22):

Dude, when you were starting out, I mean I get the incentive caused bias. If you're doing this for a living and you got bills to pay, but when you were starting out, it's like you would sit in your room and just play for hours, not worry about the clock or how much you're getting paid or whatever. It was all about trying to get the best damn sound. I dunno, I missed that drive.

Speaker 3 (53:44):

And that's basically me. Every time I'm making a record or making any guitar tones is I just sit there and I just want to make it sound as good as possible. I put in the effort every single time

Speaker 2 (53:56):

I'm hiring you next time. My assistant's not here, so he's not going to put a gun to my head for saying that.

Speaker 3 (54:01):

Well, anytime he good guitar tones, I can get 'em done very quickly and send 'em back off to you.

Speaker 1 (54:07):

Hire Phil. He's the legend. I can vouch and you can hear them on the Slipknot cover. That's already out. This is coming out after it comes out, even though it's not out yet. Alright, Phil, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on again.

Speaker 3 (54:26):

Absolutely. Thank you guys. Thanks Phil.

Speaker 1 (54:28):

Yeah, man, anytime. Have a good one.

Speaker 3 (54:31):

You too, guys.