ZAKK CERVINI & MATT PAULING: Massive Guitar Tones, Aggressive Bass Compression, and the Evertune Secret Weapon

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by STA Audio. Sta Audio creates zero compromise recording gear that is light on the wallet only. The best components are used and each one goes through a rigorous testing process with one thing in mind, getting the best sound possible. Go to audio com for more info. And now your hosts, Joey Sturges, Joel Wanasek and Eyal Levi.

Speaker 2 (00:28):

Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Tips and Tricks. We have Zach and Matt with us. They work with John Feldman. They're awesome dudes and yeah, welcome guys. Hi, thanks

Speaker 3 (00:40):

For

Speaker 4 (00:40):

Having us. Hey, thanks for having us.

Speaker 3 (00:40):

Yeah. So let's talk about guitars, everything guitars. So the first thing that comes to mind is how heavily do you normally edit guitars and at what point do you go more for performance versus editing?

Speaker 5 (00:56):

We try not to edit guitars as much as possible. So a lot of the riffs we do are really simple and we record a lot more big choruses and simple type leads and not a ton of shredded. So it makes it really easy for someone to play it pretty much and

Speaker 2 (01:13):

Not have to edit it. I have a question about that because whenever somebody comes in and they have simple parts, I see myself naturally gravitating towards layering it. Is that something you guys do?

Speaker 5 (01:25):

Yes, we do a lot of layers.

Speaker 2 (01:26):

Okay, that's good to know. Simple leads are easier to play more than once

Speaker 5 (01:31):

And

Speaker 2 (01:31):

Layer up and get really cool interesting sounds. So I was curious

Speaker 3 (01:35):

By layers you don't mean different parts. You mean the same part played multiple times

Speaker 2 (01:40):

Or maybe accompanying parts too, because the faster you get, the more notes there are. It's hard to line everything up. Yeah,

Speaker 5 (01:47):

Yeah, we'll do different parts. We do a lot of edge style, like dotted eighth, no guitars with a Vox and that is really cool if there's four or six of 'em sometimes in stereo it just sounds like this crazy effect. Or I was just doing a song that was fade to black like Metallica where it's two clean guitars and two acoustics and then we layered some mandolin and some other crazy stuff in there. So we'll layer the same part sometimes and we'll layer a lot of different parts a lot too.

Speaker 3 (02:17):

And as far as guitar arrangements, are you always thinking in terms of a bigger arrangement or are you thinking in terms of riffs? How do you go about that with the layering?

Speaker 4 (02:29):

I think it depends on what record we're doing. We're doing Black Veil Brides right now and it's all about the riff. Like we had in mind that we just wanted it to be classic metal, so obviously the focus is going to be more on guitar riffing. And then other thing, it's like, let's just lay this down real quick. It's a power cord.

Speaker 3 (02:50):

Alright, so let's talk about the metal approach. What you guys are working on right now. What's the first thing that comes to mind for just amping?

Speaker 5 (02:58):

So we're still in the pre-pro writing phase, but we've been using a Kemper for all of it and it sounds amazing. We have this awesome profile. It's a profile of a Freedman Brown Eye amp and it sounds incredible and that's our favorite so far. And as we've been writing, we've been shooting out different amps. Like Jake, the guitar player has this Marshall JVM. That's great. We tried it through a Mesa cab. We're trying it through a Marshall Cab Marshall sending us two amps next week that we're going to try out. We tried out all of John's amps, but honestly the Kemper has taken the cake so far. And what kind of cabs are you running? The cab? We have a, I don't know the model exactly, but I think it's just an old school Marshall 1968 and that's our standard cab that we use for pretty much everything. But for the black fail stuff, Jake has brought in his Mesa, which I think Mesa are the best for metal in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (03:48):

I like the Mesa's on metal. Do you guys find yourself concerned with what the band will do live? The reason why I ask is I know there's a lot of people using the Kempers and the great thing about it's that you can take all your album tones on the road with you. So is that a concern that you guys have over there?

Speaker 5 (04:06):

Honestly, I don't really think about, I'm always thinking about what the band is going to do live, but I honestly think everyone should just use a Kemper Live. I see a lot of bands doing it now and I just think it just sounds incredible and it's just so simple and I just don't think you can beat it. You could just carry it around minimalize your issues. You don't have to deal with tubes and stuff and it sounds good, even if you don't think a Kemper sounds as good as a real thing, it's good enough for live and the convenience and stuff makes it worth

Speaker 4 (04:34):

It I think. And the consistency of a Kemper is just unparallel every day you're setting up the microphone and it could be a little off access or whatnot, a different spot in the cone with the Kemper. It's just the same thing every day.

Speaker 3 (04:47):

So

Speaker 4 (04:48):

That's definitely convenient.

Speaker 3 (04:49):

So when you get to actual album tones, how often is it the Kemper versus the real amps that you guys are shooting out or do you shoot them out and then make a profile and

Speaker 5 (04:57):

Use that? In general? We use Amps most of the time. John's got this that he used on or John Felman. Yeah, he's got this Hus Ketner that he is used on the old story of the year albums and the old used albums and pretty much every classic John Feldman album. That's what I tend to use on rhythms for almost everything. Just did a good Charlotte album and used it on that. And the Kemper, we use it for a lot of leads and stuff, but we just recently started doing this Black Veil Brides album and we've been using it a lot. So it, it's mostly amps but Kemper sometimes.

Speaker 3 (05:29):

So what do you think is the most important part in getting a badass guitar tone?

Speaker 5 (05:33):

The player honest. Yeah, the player.

Speaker 4 (05:35):

I was just going to say,

Speaker 3 (05:36):

We say that to people all the time. I kind of knew you guys were going to say that because that's the only right answer, but it's hard for people to really understand that. Can you identify what it is about a player that makes all the difference, at least in your mind?

Speaker 4 (05:51):

I mean, honestly I think it's experience having recorded and knowing that if you tilt the pick a little bit and you get a little bit of that string scratch when you're chugging or just little nuances that someone that's been playing guitar and recording for 15, 20 years is going to know over someone who hasn't recorded an album and hasn't only been playing for three. Yeah,

Speaker 5 (06:14):

Bad pick attack, like bad vibrato versus good pick attack and good vibrato.

Speaker 2 (06:20):

Oh man, sometimes vibratos. Well good vibrato is everything.

Speaker 4 (06:25):

Yeah,

Speaker 5 (06:25):

That's what makes

Speaker 4 (06:26):

A good guitar player. One day I just had an epiphany when I was younger and I was just like, do I want to be a Lexie? I don't want to sit in my room and practice to a metronome every day or do I want to have vibrato like Tom Schultz from Boston? So what I did, I just practiced Bens and vibrato and I'm glad I did because I think that's so much more important than be able to play fast. There's always going to be someone out there that's going to be able to play faster than you in my opinion.

Speaker 6 (06:53):

Or you could just be Stein and have both.

Speaker 5 (06:56):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (06:56):

Yeah. And a

Speaker 3 (06:57):

Couple Ferraris and leather pants.

Speaker 5 (07:00):

I think a great example is if you listen to any Colin Richardson album, like for instance Bullet for my Valentine's scream named Fire, the riffs are badass and the tone is badass, but it sounds badass because the rifts are sick and the playing is amazing and even if the tone was terrible, it would still sound sick.

Speaker 3 (07:16):

Well the thing that I think people need to understand about sick rifts that they hear on records is that generally, I mean I know that you can piece 'em together, but generally that's what it sounds like when the guy actually plays it. Yes, that's what it is coming out of the guitar. You don't have to mold it into that generally or you shouldn't have to unless it's just a stylistic choice I think.

Speaker 5 (07:38):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (07:38):

Agreed.

Speaker 5 (07:39):

For sure.

Speaker 3 (07:40):

So how often do you guys end up grabbing the guitar?

Speaker 5 (07:42):

All the time. Quite a bit. Yeah. If we're recording guitars or we're writing or we're coming up with guitar parts, we usually always both have a guitar in our hand and we're just bouncing ideas off the players. Or the player will be like, I love how you just played that idea, just play that in really quick and we're like, you sure you don't want to play it? And usually we make them play it just because I like to have the actual players play it. But yeah, a lot of the times our guitar playing will end up on records and stuff, so all the time. How

Speaker 6 (08:10):

Do you deal with the situation then when the player absolutely sucks and you're forced to play the guitar for them without hurting too many or should say too much of their feelings?

Speaker 5 (08:19):

Usually it's really weird. A lot of the bands that we deal with that aren't very good musicians, which isn't that many of 'em don't really like to be in the studio that much. So we'll just be like, do you care if we play your guitar? And then they're like, yeah, go for it sounds sick. And we're like, cool. So it's easy and usually if it's a guitar player that really wants to play, then I'll get them to play it. Okay.

Speaker 3 (08:41):

What do you think is the most important part of a badass guitar tone besides the player? What are the or parts? What are the other things that you think are just essential?

Speaker 5 (08:53):

Okay, well for me just getting a tone that's thick and spongy, not too much gain. I always try to use much lower gain. I know that's a common thing, but I just think it sounds way heavier because like any sound, like a vocal or something. I think screaming vocals are way more impactful when you can understand what the person is saying. A guitar is way heavier when you can understand what notes are being played, so less gain. And then in terms of once we have a sick sound and a sick player, my next step is the waves, SSL eq, just messing around with the eight K and just bringing it up until the sizzle is good. Let's

Speaker 6 (09:32):

Talk about miking for a bit. And we had touched on the last episode we had done with you guys about the combination of mics that you guys like, but what do you usually aim for in a speaker cab? Because you have your speaker, some guys are dead center, some are where the center meets the dust cap or whatever the technical, like the ring, that's what I call it. Or the outer part or

Speaker 5 (09:52):

Yep, that's where I am. I'll just grab my phone and take my flashlight and look at the speaker and just find where the cone meets the center, whatever and yeah, I'll just put the mic right there. And that's usually the sweet spot. How

Speaker 6 (10:05):

Close to the cab do you usually place it? Like an inch back two inches, 5, 10, 20? Not at all.

Speaker 5 (10:11):

I've messed with different ones right now I'm right on the cab, but sometimes I like it. An inch or two back. Yeah, I usually like it about an inch back because it just controls the low end a little bit more I find. Yep.

Speaker 6 (10:23):

You guys said that you guys had a very specific mic setup that you used on the last episode, but do you guys ever switch anything out or play around with that stuff?

Speaker 5 (10:30):

Yes we do. I think a sure SM seven sounds really cool on guitar. We've used that on tons of guitars. Yeah, it's generally the mic setup we talked about. We used to use ARO all the time, but it got stolen and we just haven't gotten a new one, so we don't really use that. But yeah, we keep it pretty basic. Sure. Beta 57, KSM 32 on two different speakers, right where the center meets the edge and yeah, sometimes we'll throw an SM seven on there and we used to use aro but not anymore. And we've messed around with room mics and stuff too for certain sounds, but I'm not too big on 'em. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (11:03):

What about Mike pre Mike?

Speaker 5 (11:04):

Pre all of our guitars go through or electric guitars go through a, it's called the True pre. It's like eight pres in one.

Speaker 3 (11:13):

Yeah, I'm familiar with that one.

Speaker 5 (11:14):

Yeah. And that's just what John's used over the years and so that's what I use and it sounds really good to me.

Speaker 3 (11:20):

Do you summit on the way into Pro Tools or Summit in Pro Tools?

Speaker 5 (11:25):

Yes, we summit but not, we make two ox tracks and then we blend it down to one track as we're recording. So it's not summed analog lee or outside of the box, but I do really want one of those Chandler Pres that has this summing switch. I think that would be really cool and save us a step so that we don't have to sum it on the way in,

Speaker 3 (11:45):

But either way, at the end of the day what you end up with that's recorded is one

Speaker 5 (11:50):

Track.

Speaker 4 (11:51):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (11:51):

A blend of both mics.

Speaker 4 (11:52):

Yeah,

Speaker 3 (11:53):

Just keep it simple. Do you ever find that when people send you guitar tracks that have four mics on the same cab, that shit just gets really annoying?

Speaker 5 (12:03):

Yeah, for sure. There's a lot of phase issues. Obviously a lot of people don't know how to work with phase and a lot of people have mics that are out of phase and stuff. Yeah, I don't think it's necessary. I've had my fun and I've tried all the different things and blending multiple amps and using six mics and three cabs and two heads and everything. And at the end of the day just one head, one cab, one to two mics just does it. Sounds really good.

Speaker 3 (12:33):

So that's actually a good thing to touch on is phase when you're layering multiple parts that are doing the same thing or maybe having two amps doing amping the same line or whatnot. I don't know if you guys do that very often, but how do you go about solving phase issues with guitar and amps when you start getting multiple ones happening?

Speaker 5 (12:56):

To be honest, I don't really run into that too much. I usually just have the two mics on the cab and I flip the phase to go. Yeah, it's usually just works. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (13:04):

I know what you mean.

Speaker 4 (13:06):

It just comes back to keeping it simple like we said, because if you try to get too technical then you can run into those issues, but we mostly just keep it the two mics and print it on the way in and that's that. Alright,

Speaker 6 (13:19):

Let's talk about base. What are you guys usually doing for base? Okay,

Speaker 4 (13:22):

Base,

Speaker 5 (13:23):

We have this pase. I think the only base that has ever beat it to me was this band called Stick to Your Guns. They had this base called a Gibson Grabber. It sounded unbelievable and I want one really bad, but I just haven't bought one, but that sounded amazing. But other than that Fender P Base, four or five string depending on the band sounds killer. It goes through an amp peg head into an amped cab, and then we mic the cab up with a Sennheiser 4 21 right on the center of the speaker and then a blue mouse three feet away with a gobo behind it. And it just gives us really cool low end. And then we blend that on the way in. And so the base goes direct through this MBC multi-band compressor pedal, and then that gets split out into the amp and the, and the two mics on the amp go through these Vintech pres that we EQ on the way in. And then the DI just comes in just in case we need it, but I don't usually use that in the mix. And then I take the amp signal and I run it through that UAD voice of God and then the UAD Harrison EQ and then the waves MV two, which is a multi-band limiter. And yeah, it's just like three plugins and it's super simple and base. I do run into phase issues with

Speaker 3 (14:45):

How do you pre EQ the tracks, the mic base tracks that go in, do you do the high low split or you just blending them full frequency?

Speaker 5 (14:53):

The Vintech? Yeah. Yeah, no, I just blend 'em in. I usually have the mouse lower, like the room mic a little bit lower. But yeah, I just mess with the EQs until it sounds good to me pretty much.

Speaker 3 (15:04):

So where do you run into phase issues? Between the mics or with the

Speaker 5 (15:08):

Kick? Yes, between the mics and the di. So the DI is always way ahead and then the Sennheiser mic, it's right on the cab, on the center is usually a little bit behind the di and then the blue mouse mic, which is a couple feet away is usually pretty delayed. So what I have to do is I have to go in and sometimes I'll use a time adjuster plugin and find the exact amount of samples that the last one is delayed and then I'll just make all the other base tracks delayed just a little bit with the plugin. But I don't print the plugin, but I just keep it on the track and I just make them just delayed perfectly so that they're all starting at the same point and they're all in phase.

Speaker 3 (15:48):

That's one of the biggest problems I've encountered when I listen to people's work, like creating their mixes or whatnot. That's one of the main things that people just get wrong so often. It's so simple and so important to get right. Yeah. What's your approach for getting heavy bass to blend with heavy guitars but not stick out weird yet? Still be there and heard?

Speaker 5 (16:14):

I would say it's the UAD Harrison eq. That thing gives it this crazy, I filter the low end a little bit to clean it up and then I filter a lot of the high off and then I just make the mids pop out pretty much. And I scoop the mids on the guitars. And then also in going into the bass amp for heavier music, I drive it a little bit. It's not distorted, but it's like breaking up kind of gainy. And I think that distortion sometimes I'll throw a decapitate on it, but put the mix at 30 or 40% and just crush it just to give it presence. And yeah, I think just making the bass have an edge and a nice mid range makes it pop through the guitars. You

Speaker 6 (16:57):

Guys do a lot of compressing on your bass? Oh

Speaker 5 (16:59):

Yeah, big time. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. On the way in, on the two mics, the close mic, I run through the slate dragon and I just slam it. And then the far mic I run through an LA two A and I slam that.

Speaker 3 (17:12):

So when you say you slam it, can you go into a little more detail? Yeah,

Speaker 5 (17:16):

The close mic is the 11 76 8 to one ratio attack in the middle, fastest release and just I'll go six to eight DB of gain reduction and then the LA two A, I'll just turn that up until it's pretty much the same. It's just one input knob. Yeah,

Speaker 6 (17:34):

I like optical compressors a lot on base for tracking. They're really, really cool and hard to screw

Speaker 5 (17:38):

Up. Yeah. And yeah, I mentioned before that it goes through a multi-bank compressor pedal on the way in, and then it goes through the 1176 and the LA two A. By the time it hits the computer, it's already pretty slammed and then I slam it again with the MV two at the end of the chain. So it's super compressed.

Speaker 3 (17:56):

And what are you trying to accomplish with the multi-band?

Speaker 5 (17:59):

Well, Feldman is a huge police fan and Sting has this really, his picking style is super, it's super picky and it's just super defined sounding and that multi-band just helps to achieve that, I feel like. And it gives it a nice low end too. But yeah, I feel like it helps for the pick attack. So speaking of pick attack, you prefer fingers or pick? Depends on the player. If players are incredible with their fingers, then I can use it. I'd say nine times out of 10 when a bass player is like, oh, I can play with my fingers. And they come in, they usually can't, and I make 'em play with a pick. However, if a bass player just comes in and doesn't tell me that and then starts playing with their fingers and they usually rule. But yeah, we're very felden iss a bass player and we're very, very, no pun intended, but picky about our base picking. And yeah, we get really into that.

Speaker 3 (18:55):

I think it's super important, actually. It's one of the most important things to focus on, honestly. Do you find that a lot of guys can't pick hard enough to get it right?

Speaker 5 (19:05):

Yeah, I like people who pick super hard and if they can't pick hard enough then John will just grab the bass and be like, let me do it.

Speaker 3 (19:13):

How do you handle tuning issues with people that pick really hard? Well,

Speaker 5 (19:19):

For a lot of the sections we, I'll just have them pick as hard as they can and tune the note to the pick attack. So it's going to be like when they pick, it's going to arc and it's going to go slightly sharp obviously. So I'll just make sure that it's in tune when they're picking that hard. And then I also in the mix, I'll run an Auto-Tune plugin on the base too, just to make sure that it's super in tune.

Speaker 3 (19:44):

At what point do you tune to the sustain? Or do you never tune to the Sustain?

Speaker 5 (19:48):

Yeah, I tune to the sustain. If it's a long rung out note, then I'll have 'em pick it differently so that the arc is not as drastic and that it's more even. And not too often we usually get our bass set up before every bass session, but sometimes if it's long sustained notes, I'll have to punch in note by note if the tuning is really an issue.

Speaker 3 (20:09):

Speaking of setups and tuning, let's go back to guitar for a second. I think that a lot of people don't realize how big of a deal this is in getting a finished awesome guitar tone is having this part just meticulous. So I am sure you guys have experienced guys that play guitar and maybe they start death gripping with the left hand and pulling chords out of tune or where they, Palm mute makes it go sharp a little or whatnot. How do you guys handle tuning issues on guitar?

Speaker 5 (20:40):

My secret is one word, Evert tune. Okay. It's a new invention, it's new about

Speaker 2 (20:45):

It. Evert tune. It is amazing.

Speaker 5 (20:48):

I'm sure you guys know what it is, but for people who don't, yeah, it's a new type of bridge on a guitar and for rhythms, I always will use it. I will never probably record it. I mean, for the kind of stuff that I do, I will, nine times out of 10 I will use it. Ever tune. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (21:04):

It's the best thing ever. It's cool because you can tune the pegs on there. It's really weird because when you actually turn the tuning pegs, the string won't change. There's a spring in the actual ever tune that holds it in note for, I dunno, you can turn the peg six or seven times and it'll just stay on the same note. But for better players that want vibrato, you can go to the end of what they call, there's three zones so that you go to the end of zone two and you can vibrato. But then if you have someone that's pulling it out of tune and stuff, you go back on it a little bit and you can't even bend the strings. You can bend the string as hard as you can. That would be like a three note bend and it'll just stay in tune. So it's insane. It looks really weird when you're doing it. Like the note should be changing, but it's not. It's the craziest thing, but it's the best thing ever. It's

Speaker 5 (21:54):

Amazing.

Speaker 6 (21:54):

I need to get one of those

Speaker 5 (21:55):

Science man, and I won't use that for solos and stuff for something that's really expressive, but for rhythms. Yeah, it's incredible.

Speaker 3 (22:03):

So I've heard, and I don't know, I haven't really messed with the Never tuneup, I've heard that it does have that there is a trade off. It hurts the tone a little bit or the sustain a little bit. Is that true? Do you find that We

Speaker 5 (22:16):

Have ours on a Les Paul or we have a couple of them, but the main one that we use is on a Les Paul and that's a super heavy guitar anyway, super lot of wood really thick. They cut a sizable chunk out of the back of the guitar, but I haven't really noticed the tone change and honestly for the tuning and the convenience, it's so worth it to me.

Speaker 3 (22:38):

Yeah, the benefits far outweigh like 2% difference in the tone.

Speaker 2 (22:43):

Did you guys see that guitar made out of cardboard? No.

Speaker 4 (22:46):

Yeah. Yeah. The Stratocaster?

Speaker 2 (22:48):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (22:50):

I just saw it. I didn't watch the video though, so I didn't hear it, but it looked pretty nuts. Watch

Speaker 2 (22:54):

That video, man. I can't hear any difference.

Speaker 3 (22:58):

Okay. I'm going to look. I got to check that out. I think I saw it in passing and was like, okay, I'm not looking this okay, but I guess I will. So as far as getting guitars and bass set up, I know we always tell people that it's super important and not just that it's super important, but it's super important to work with a tech that and trust and who will sit there and get the job done for you. Because if you just take it to Guitar Center or something, it's just going to be some guy who's going to do a job kind of half-assed and then you're going to pick up the guitar and go to the studio or go home and that's it. That's the end of it. And I find that oftentimes guitars have to be set up for a certain purpose and sometimes it takes a little bit of tweaking. So what are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 5 (23:49):

Yeah, we have an awesome guy named Willie in LA that we use all the time, and he's just super reliable and if we ever have an issue, we can go back to him and yeah, there's nothing worse than getting your guitar set up and then setting down to track and everyone's ready and then it's, or the base and the intonation's out. That's just the biggest buzzkill. And so yeah, I think it's just crucial to find a tech that you can develop a relationship with and that knows you and knows what you do and just that you can trust that it's just they're just going to do it right every time because you don't want to put bumps in the road for your sessions.

Speaker 3 (24:25):

Yeah, I think it's just going to make your tracks UNM mixable basically. Or much harder to mix if you let this stuff go at the beginning.

Speaker 5 (24:33):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (24:35):

So how often, you said that before every base session, do you mean per album or per song or just literally per time that you're going to go track bass per album. Okay.

Speaker 5 (24:45):

Yeah, we'll get it set up per album. We do a lot of one-off songs and stuff, and for those we just get, because a lot of 'em just don't get used, and so we just get away with doing what we have so we don't have to spend the money and get it set up every time. But definitely every album we'll get the bass set up. We like to get the guitars set up and everything at least once every six weeks or so, just because, yeah, we have a guy for bass and we have a guy for guitar too, actually two separate guys and they both are killer. And if I could get it set up every day I would, but I don't.

Speaker 3 (25:20):

So every six weeks, no matter what's going on.

Speaker 5 (25:23):

Yeah, pretty much. It's just a good feeling to just get the guitar back and just have it be new again, pretty much.

Speaker 3 (25:28):

Yeah. And how big of a deal is the guitar itself to you? Huge deal. So if the guitarist has a guitar that he is all emotional about and you don't think the guitar is very good, how do you approach that? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Speaker 5 (25:45):

So yeah, so there's two different things. So sometimes a player will have an instrument that doesn't sound good. For instance, I was recording Mikey way from my Chemical romance two weeks ago and he brought this bass that sounded like pretty bad. And I was tracking with him and I was like, this doesn't sound very good. But then halfway through the song I was like, but it has a certain sound and it sounds like him. So I was like, okay, cool. So we're going to keep using this. If the instrument gives the player an identity, then I'll use it, but if not, I'll just be like, stick to your guns. Had a bunch of guitars that they brought in and R Les Paul just crushed all of them clearly. So we just used that and they were okay with it. It clearly sounded

Speaker 3 (26:23):

Better. I think that that's a great way to go about it. I find that sometimes people get attached to instruments for no good reason. Yeah,

Speaker 5 (26:31):

For sure.

Speaker 3 (26:32):

What about strings? How often do you change those with guitar and bass and what are your go-tos?

Speaker 5 (26:37):

As often as possible, if we use Ernie Balls, we're endorsed by Ernie Ball, and so yeah, that's what we use on everything. Yeah, we will just, whenever they get dead, we change 'em pretty much Try to do it once every week or two, assuming we're not doing intense guitar tracking, if we're in the middle of an album, we'll change the strings a few times throughout the course of the album.

Speaker 6 (26:56):

I change mine every hour and a half because I feel like there's a certain point where that new string thing kind of goes away by 20% and it's usually around right there

Speaker 5 (27:06):

When we're doing albums and stuff, we'll definitely change 'em a lot, but if we're not, and we're just kind of writing and playing and stuff, we'll try to change 'em once every week or two. But yeah, new string sound. The other's, nothing better than feeling or hearing new strings. It just has certain nuances that you can't really get with dead strings.

Speaker 3 (27:26):

So do you guys use any amp sims besides the Kemper?

Speaker 5 (27:29):

Yes. So when we write, we use, yeah, lately I just bought a Kemper recently and so I've been using it and I'll probably keep using it a lot, but some awesome Amps sims. I think our soft tube metal amp room is great for writing and stuff, and we've used it on a ton of records too that you probably can't even tell. And then Soft Tube vintage amp room is incredible. I use that on tons of records as well. It's really good for, it gets a really good Vox tone. I think it's really good for Edge U2 style type things and stuff like that. I

Speaker 4 (28:02):

Think it sounds really cool. The vintage rum, soft tube, if you turn that, it's like the green, what is it, Zach, the green distortion or whatever. It's the Fender model, right? Yeah, it sounds just like George Harrison's guitar in O Darling

Speaker 5 (28:18):

Nice

Speaker 4 (28:19):

On the Beatles. So it's really cool for that vintage stuff. But for me, I like to use, I think Amplitude is really cool for writing. You can just pull up pretty much anyone, and it's like the only amps Im that got the endorsements from the companies to use the actual names. So I mean, I guess I trust in that. And they have a lot of cool pedal selections as well. There's this one really cool Phasey pedal on there that I use all the time, and then it has slashes signature stuff. I like his WPP pedal. So yeah, the Amplitude is a really cool guitar sim for me.

Speaker 3 (28:55):

How do you guys change your approach when you're working with those, not in the pre-pro phase of if you're going to actually use one of those tones on a record, clearly it's a different process than using a real amp. What are the main differences in your approach? Yeah,

Speaker 4 (29:09):

I mean, if we're doing something in the demo stage and it just sounds fucking cool and we're like, we usually just keep it because I mean, what's the point in trying to change it if we're stoked on it?

Speaker 5 (29:22):

And a lot of the times we try change to beat it and we just can't. So I

Speaker 2 (29:26):

Kind of think the demo stage is just, it's kind of more like a vibe. It's kind of like there really isn't a demo stage, but if you say that it kind of helps you accept things that you would normally put up on a pedestal. And then in retrospect, you look back and you're like, oh, that was actually really awesome. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (29:49):

For sure. Agreed.

Speaker 3 (29:50):

Cool. Well, what's your favorite mic on an acoustic?

Speaker 5 (29:53):

A flea

Speaker 3 (29:54):

47 mixed with a tele funken pencil mic. And how do you go about blending acoustics in with super dense, heavy arrangements

Speaker 5 (30:02):

Using multi-bank compression or just a filter to filter out the low end. And here's an interesting fact actually. John has this old Martin that we use for every acoustic thing ever, and we've never changed his strings on it ever. And in turn changes strings one time and John made 'em take the old strings out of the garbage and put it back on it because John hates the sound of new strings on an acoustic woo. Wow.

Speaker 4 (30:22):

Yeah, we'll just change out one string at a time as they break. That's how they get changed. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (30:29):

We

Speaker 5 (30:29):

Don't change the strings on it and it sounds really good.

Speaker 3 (30:31):

Fair enough. Cool. Is there any other guitar bass tidbits that you think people should really pay attention to or

Speaker 5 (30:39):

Buy an evert tune, buy a Less Paul, buy a Kemper boom. That's pretty much what I have to say. And buy a pase.

Speaker 3 (30:46):

Yeah, I think a pase and a jazz base are just essential.

Speaker 5 (30:50):

Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. All

Speaker 2 (30:51):

Right. Thanks guys for being on. Thanks for sharing your tips and tricks and talk to you next time. Awesome. Sounds good. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (30:57):

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