Clean solo guitar sounds characterless, how to improve?

[bencuri]

I am helping a guy who is a famous guitarist from Africa with a career of 30 years in the business. I know his past repertoire, they did wonderful things back in the days. He lives in the UK now and he is recording on his own, but I am not satisfied with his recent sound. His guitars have no character. It was not like that back in the days. So I decided I try to improve things. Let me describe what the problem is:

1. This recording is one of his concerts from the 90's, he played the solo, I think it sounds great, it could be okay for me as a target sound:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VnlXwx ... sp=sharing

His guitar was a Vantage VP795 on that concert.

Now compare this to what he recorded recently. It was played by a PRS Custom, a Zoom G2 with delay ON, feeded into Logic directly through the line-in. In this style the soloists mostly play with clean sound with some delay added or not.

This is the input in Logic, untouched:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NpW6lR ... sp=sharing

This is how it was added to the song with some EQ:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VQ1gUZ ... sp=sharing

It sounds very bad to me, something like a chirping. As if it was a mixed acoustic/electric.

I asked him how they did things in the past, but I was surprised to learn that in spite of that he is a very good player, he had never been a "tech" guy, and there was another band mate who was the so called "expert" in the band, and he set up things for everyone. Everyone else could play but depended on that guy for the setup of sound. Moreover it is now untraceable how they did recordings in the studios back then. Most of those places have vanished, the engineers unknown or died. So I have no source to ask that info.

Do you have any suggestion how to get that sound that you can hear in the video I linked? Can you do that with the PRS? By the way, I had a PRS, I play this music, but I found that the most unsuitable for this sound. It exactly sounded like Santana, but that was not what I needed it for.

He had a Vintage V100 in the past, did't make too much difference, maybe was a bit better for this purpose. One day while I was sitting in his room, he played something, I just recorded it with my phone. Interestingly this recording sounds much better than those things that we record through the line-in in Logic. Has much more character, even if it is a bad recording by a phone, the guitar sound is much more pleasant:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uuFa9m ... sp=sharing

That's why recently I am thinking about that when I have them play my own productions, I hire a big rehearsal room, put some mics and record them live, because every time I record them on camera at parties it sounds better than what we record in Logic through the line-in. But that is a bit difficult to arrange.

2. I would like to show a working example but I don't know the trick here either. This is a song that was played by his bandmate in the 80's:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GMOkOi ... sp=sharing

The exact same guy can be seen here with the exact same guitar that has been his guitar since then, and the exact same sound can be heard:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cOg6NT ... sp=sharing

When I heard this I got shocked: how can it sound that good? It is okay that this is an expensive Steinberger, but I heard this guitar in other bands as well and I can tell it can sound bad, too. He is doing here something else as well that creates this great sound. But even regarding the chorus: I had several chorus pedals, had tried a lot in Logic as well, none sounded this professional, and there is that strong, concrete like sustain and presence. How can you get a sound like this, because this type of sound would be okay for me too. Unfortunately I can't ask this guy because he doesn't tell it.

[Sam Spoons]

I can't get your .wavs to play but the first video is ok. To get that sound I would use a single coil guitar* and a Fender valve amp, delay pedal in front and wind the reverb up, stick a '57 in front and that should get you 90% of the way there.

It's certainly possible to do it with plug ins or digital fx but much easier to get the sound right in the room and stick a mic on it IMO.

Does he play live in the UK? If so is he happy with the sound he gets live? If 'yes' you have your answer.

* I know the Vantage is a humbucker guitar but I (deliberately) wrote the above before checking what the guitar was, it should be possible to get a very similar sound from the PRS.

[zenguitar]

One thing to explore...

You say that you're not happy with the guitar sound. What matters is whether he's happy with the guitar sound. If he is unhappy with the sound then use his feedback to focus on what needs improvement.

Andy

[SafeandSound Mastering]

Just to add that not all Steinbergers are the same. The older ones from the 80's are carbon fibre bodied and have different pick ups. They are the expensive ones, Steve Hillage, David Gilmour played them amongst many others.

The more modern ones are wooden bodied, the Spirit model which I own.

The old ones covetted, the new ones less so. I find it a perfect guitar for myself for many reasons, size, nice feel (body weight/balance and fretboard) rock solid stay in tune ability, good enough sound for what I can play. Looks amazing and unique. (subjective of course).

As I gather they were a $2,000 guitar and now cost about $400.00

Vids but no clean tones.

David Gilmour live with Kate Bush :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk7AVm0 ... DPinkFloyd

Steve Hillage band live :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSxk4YL ... l=steveh77

(Don't underestimate EQ for warmth/character, easily overlooked IMO for so many aspects of audio, then maybe some quality saturators, probably well oversampled ones to make them analogue-esque to add a little harmonics without obvious overdrive if you want to keep it clean. Reverb choice, early reflections, almost imperceptible delay with low feedback, all character inducing. 95pct of the job is done if the performance is good.)

[tea for two]

It could just take sitting down with him, starting with as clear tone as possible, then a bit of EQ some Reverb this could make him happy.

::

Just a side note I couldn't figure out how they got the Guitar to play the way it did until I read
they replaced standard D string with another D gauged same as the top E, thereafter raising tuning by an octave the replacement D.

First thyme I heard African inspired Guitar was Johnny Marr on This Charming Man, I didn't know it was African inspired until the mid90s when I started listening to African Guitar tunes on the Beeb Andy Kershaw's programme.

[bencuri]

I can't get your .wavs to play but the first video is ok. To get that sound I would use a single coil guitar* and a Fender valve amp, delay pedal in front and wind the reverb up, stick a '57 in front and that should get you 90% of the way there.

It's certainly possible to do it with plug ins or digital fx but much easier to get the sound right in the room and stick a mic on it IMO.

Does he play live in the UK? If so is he happy with the sound he gets live? If 'yes' you have your answer.

* I know the Vantage is a humbucker guitar but I (deliberately) wrote the above before checking what the guitar was, it should be possible to get a very similar sound from the PRS.

I reuploaded them here, but I think you just need to wait longer on Google Drive for them to start to play:
https://files.fm/u/5jycz3xny9

He is playing live every week somewhere, but he doesn't have his own gear, only his guitar and Zoom G2 effect, everything else is provided by the venue or the one who organizes the show. If something sounds good it is not obvious what.

[bencuri]

One thing to explore...

You say that you're not happy with the guitar sound. What matters is whether he's happy with the guitar sound. If he is unhappy with the sound then use his feedback to focus on what needs improvement.

Andy

There are 2 problems with this: if he had a feedback, I wouldn't know how to help him reach his expectations, he doesn't know either. We don't have the experience. That is why I started this topic.

I have no idea whether he himself is satisfied, but I do have quite much experience about this music, and I am not satisfied with the recent sound, and it is a problem in case of my productions. So even if he can do things the way he does for himself, I need it to be recorded different for my stuff. That's why I cannot rely on him all the time. And the other problem is: this characterless sound is not just a problem of his, with many others I experienced this. I guess this is a lack of knowledge and the fact that instead of using amps to record, they plug everything right into the line-in, maybe the guitar is not that good as well, compared to the top ones they played back in the days. I don't know, I just guess...

[bencuri]

Just to add that not all Steinbergers are the same. The older ones from the 80's are carbon fibre bodied and have different pick ups. They are the expensive ones, Steve Hillage, David Gilmour played them amongst many others.

The more modern ones are wooden bodied, the Spirit model which I own.

The old ones covetted, the new ones less so. I find it a perfect guitar for myself for many reasons, size, nice feel (body weight/balance and fretboard) rock solid stay in tune ability, good enough sound for what I can play. Looks amazing and unique. (subjective of course).

As I gather they were a $2,000 guitar and now cost about $400.00

Vids but no clean tones.

David Gilmour live with Kate Bush :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk7AVm0 ... DPinkFloyd

Steve Hillage band live :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSxk4YL ... l=steveh77

(Don't underestimate EQ for warmth/character, easily overlooked IMO for so many aspects of audio, then maybe some quality saturators, probably well oversampled ones to make them analogue-esque to add a little harmonics without obvious overdrive if you want to keep it clean. Reverb choice, early reflections, almost imperceptible delay with low feedback, all character inducing. 95pct of the job is done if the performance is good.)

I did mean the old, original, expensive Steinberger when I meant is can sound bad, too. well, maybe not exactly bad, but not that satisfying as in the clip I linked, but more like a normal, uninteresting guitar. I heard others playing it, the sound was very very far from that what I linked. And that was an original 80's expensive Steinberger as well. Not the reissues etc. With this I just wanted to refer to that to solve my problem I guess it is not only the guitar I need to focus on but the rest of the gear as well.

[Drew Stephenson]

Whereabouts are you / he based? It might be that someone can come down to a gig to hear directly and make some suggestions.

[Watchmaker]

It's hard to answer with the guitar isolated. The lines he's playing are pretty enough. It'd be helpful to hear a mix so we can judge it in context. Maybe something else is masking it.

I got the files to play by advancing them about halfway through the clip and waiting for google to load...

[Chet Leeway]

It sounds as if the amp modeling stage is bypassed completely in the recording. Maybe try (different) amp models in the G2? It's called "EXTRA EQ/CABI&MIC" in the manual. Apparently there's only 2 cabs and 2 mic types and 3 mic positions to choose from, so it's easy enough to try out all of them. There's also 2 clean drive stages, which should give the sound a bit more body without straying from the typical highlife tone.

EDIT: Looking around a bit, apparently the Roland JC-120 combo is something of a holy grail for highlife guitar players. One of the clean drives in the Zoom is modelled on this: JC CLEAN.

[James Perrett]

You need to use an amp - I've no idea how good the amp models are that you have available but when we supported the Bhundu Boys, they used our guitarist's Mesa Boogie 1x12 amp and it sounded great.

[PedroTheThird]

First I would be to check if the new sound is what your guitarist actually prefers. If that's not the case I would try to get a clean record from him (only DI) and feed it through different amp/mic (sim) configurations all by myself (depending on how much equipment is available of course) to get something that sounds closer to the video (Keep in mind that the PA system also shapes the sound by a great amount, using the same guitar and amp wouldn't be enough). If that wouldn't be an option then I would send his records through a carefully tuned multiband waveshaper/dynamic EQ combo.

There is something you can't simulate though: His performance which (at least in my opinion) contributes the most to a sound that seems to be too smooth/relaxed/technical (or lifeless)...

[Sam Spoons]

You need to use an amp - I've no idea how good the amp models are that you have available but when we supported the Bhundu Boys, they used our guitarist's Mesa Boogie 1x12 amp and it sounded great.

Yup... Just use an amp, digital fx are much harder to use that people think, too many choices...

[bencuri]

It's hard to answer with the guitar isolated. The lines he's playing are pretty enough. It'd be helpful to hear a mix so we can judge it in context. Maybe something else is masking it.

I got the files to play by advancing them about halfway through the clip and waiting for google to load...

Here is something they played with their band back in Africa in the 90's:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Smxxab ... sp=sharing

This is what he recorded recently:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17Swrow ... sp=sharing

My problem with his recent sound is that it is quite thin. As if it had no body. Like listening to sounds from a cheap kid synth, and comparing that to an expensive Roland or Korg.

And this is what my target would be:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VnlXwx ... sp=sharing

Here is another example from somebody else, this is a different situation: this might have been recorded with a Stratocaster with 0.12 string set on it based on the information I got. When I mean "character", I refer to something like this:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vSwS9F ... sp=sharing

This guitar sound has strength and presence.

[bencuri]

Whereabouts are you / he based? It might be that someone can come down to a gig to hear directly and make some suggestions.

My friend is based in London. But it is no use going to the concert to draw any conclusions from the live sound, as there is even a bigger chaos with the sound at the bar they play. When they play at a concert where the engineer is good, the sound is usually okay, and then the setup could be studied. But I am rarely with them, and without my presence they wouldn't understand what we are talking about here. The problem is I was present at certain concerts in the past where the sound was very good, but I didn't expect there can be issues during recordings, because I had no idea they know so little about the corresponding tech, so I paid no attention to what amps were used, what effects, if compressor was added, etc. The musicians themselves don't know these because they only have their guitars, the multieffects and the computers but nothing else. And in the bar where they usually play, they just plug everything directly into the mixer. When I need to record a video of them, I travel there, set the mixer the way I want and I try to achieve the best possible from the circumstances.

[bencuri]

It sounds as if the amp modeling stage is bypassed completely in the recording. Maybe try (different) amp models in the G2? It's called "EXTRA EQ/CABI&MIC" in the manual. Apparently there's only 2 cabs and 2 mic types and 3 mic positions to choose from, so it's easy enough to try out all of them. There's also 2 clean drive stages, which should give the sound a bit more body without straying from the typical highlife tone.

EDIT: Looking around a bit, apparently the Roland JC-120 combo is something of a holy grail for highlife guitar players. One of the clean drives in the Zoom is modelled on this: JC CLEAN.

You are right: no amp simulation. Only the guitar -> delay from the Zoom -> Logic, where an EQ setting is added. That is all my friend uses for his solo guitar.

I got this suggestion from others, too, to use the Roland JC.120. So very likely that could be one useful addition to the gear list.

[awjoe]

You need to use an amp - I've no idea how good the amp models are that you have available but when we supported the Bhundu Boys, they used our guitarist's Mesa Boogie 1x12 amp and it sounded great.

Yup... Just use an amp, digital fx are much harder to use that people think, too many choices...

Do you include impulse responses in the category of digital fx? If so, I say yup too. It's not the choices, though, I just can't get it to sound as good as through an amp.

However, it's the clean sounds that I prefer through my amp. Point is, it's quicker getting a sound you like through an amp.

[Chet Leeway]

It sounds as if the amp modeling stage is bypassed completely in the recording. Maybe try (different) amp models in the G2? It's called "EXTRA EQ/CABI&MIC" in the manual. Apparently there's only 2 cabs and 2 mic types and 3 mic positions to choose from, so it's easy enough to try out all of them. There's also 2 clean drive stages, which should give the sound a bit more body without straying from the typical highlife tone.

EDIT: Looking around a bit, apparently the Roland JC-120 combo is something of a holy grail for highlife guitar players. One of the clean drives in the Zoom is modelled on this: JC CLEAN.

You are right: no amp simulation. Only the guitar -> delay from the Zoom -> Logic, where an EQ setting is added. That is all my friend uses for his solo guitar.

I got this suggestion from others, too, to use the Roland JC.120. So very likely that could be one useful addition to the gear list.

I was under the impression that you didn't want to add new gear, but if that's an option, maybe go to a shop and try out a couple of amps.

However, if live sound isn't really the problem, only recordings, then an obvious thing to try would be to run the recordings through amp simulators. Plenty of free ones available.

[Arpangel]

This music is amazing, it sounds good anyway!
I like all of the sounds, I listened to the Logic one first, they are just different.
Playing live through amps, and loads of other variables in play, trying to replicate that is a bit of a wasted journey IMO.

[ajay_m]

Take a recording of just him playing. Import into the DAW and insert Guitar Rig and work through some of the presets. (Other modelling stacks are available but GR is pretty comprehensive).
When you find a sound you like, have a look at the virtual pedals that GR stacked up to make the sound. This gives you an idea of what you would need live.
Also the amazing music labs guitar vsts come with a very good effect stack similar to GR but - in a brilliant piece of marketing - a whole bunch of famous guitarists like Clapton and Gilmour have helped to create presets which are freely downloadable to customers. This is a great idea since you can experiment even as a non guitar player to get the sound you want.
If you're just buying one guitar, it would depend on the sound you're trying to get but I'd guess in this case possibly RealLPC.

[Sam Spoons]

You need to use an amp - I've no idea how good the amp models are that you have available but when we supported the Bhundu Boys, they used our guitarist's Mesa Boogie 1x12 amp and it sounded great.

Yup... Just use an amp, digital fx are much harder to use that people think, too many choices...

Do you include impulse responses in the category of digital fx? If so, I say yup too. It's not the choices, though, I just can't get it to sound as good as through an amp.

However, it's the clean sounds that I prefer through my amp. Point is, it's quicker getting a sound you like through an amp.

Yes, impulse responses are dfx but maybe a special case? Like you I find it much easier to get a sound I like using an amp. But it's the basic amp sounds that I find so hard to recreate, anything super distorted or heavily effected is pretty easy but clean and 'just breaking up clean' sounds are hard.

TBF I don't use plug-ins, I use hardware dfx in the form of a Headrush Gigboard, stick it in front of the amp and use it like a pedalboard and it sounds great, indistinguishable from my analogue pedals, but the amp models don't quite make it. I know it's just a matter of spending time with it but I play mostly acoustic now and for the odd electric gig I just stick with what I know.

FWIW, many years ago I borrowed a JC120 for a gig and was pretty unimpressed, it didn't seem to get that 'chime' that a Fender amp does (and which I hear in the OP's video).

[ManFromGlass]

If you have access to multiple good amps then perhaps a reamp of what you recorded? Not ideal but you get to experiment on your own time. Maybe you will find that elusive sound you want.

[bencuri]

It sounds as if the amp modeling stage is bypassed completely in the recording. Maybe try (different) amp models in the G2? It's called "EXTRA EQ/CABI&MIC" in the manual. Apparently there's only 2 cabs and 2 mic types and 3 mic positions to choose from, so it's easy enough to try out all of them. There's also 2 clean drive stages, which should give the sound a bit more body without straying from the typical highlife tone.

EDIT: Looking around a bit, apparently the Roland JC-120 combo is something of a holy grail for highlife guitar players. One of the clean drives in the Zoom is modelled on this: JC CLEAN.

You are right: no amp simulation. Only the guitar -> delay from the Zoom -> Logic, where an EQ setting is added. That is all my friend uses for his solo guitar.

I got this suggestion from others, too, to use the Roland JC.120. So very likely that could be one useful addition to the gear list.

I was under the impression that you didn't want to add new gear, but if that's an option, maybe go to a shop and try out a couple of amps.

However, if live sound isn't really the problem, only recordings, then an obvious thing to try would be to run the recordings through amp simulators. Plenty of free ones available.

Adding amps is a problem due to lack of space, but if that is the only way to do it, we do it. It would be better to avoid it, but if not possible, I don't mind. We can solve it somehow, at least for the time of my own productions.

Live sound is a problem sometimes, sometimes not. Depends on who is setting up the equipment on an event. If I need a video of them, I go myself and set things. The interesting however, is that many times there is no guitar amp just everything plugged into the mixer. And then the sound goes to the PA. But even so if I set the mixer the way I want, and record them by camera, the resulting sound is better than plugging the guitar into the line-in on the computer and record that way. That's why I posted that video recorded by the telephone. Don't know the answer for this, maybe the room adds a certain character or the PA, I don't know. But even the recordings I make myself: I record the keyboard that I play sometimes, either on video with my iPad or plugging it into the line-in on my computer. In spite of that the quality of the recording on the iPad is lower bitrate, I prefer listening to my tunes much more from the iPad videos than from the Logic exports. In the future I am planning to release my own stuff to, but at the moment I am seriously thingking about just recording with my iPad and upload the audio from that.

[bencuri]

If you have access to multiple good amps then perhaps a reamp of what you recorded? Not ideal but you get to experiment on your own time. Maybe you will find that elusive sound you want.

I have heard about such practices earlier, not a bad idea.