Sweet String Guitar - Marc Ahlfs of Skreddy Pedals at Summer NAMM 2013! - How to Mix Acoustic Guitar w/ EQ and Compression

Sweet String Guitar - Marc Ahlfs of Skreddy Pedals at Summer NAMM 2013!


Sweet String Guitar (Normal, IL) Spoke to
Cynthia and Marc Ahlfs of Skreddy Pedals (http://skreddypedals.com/
Sacramento, CA) this week at Summer NAMM 2013!
They told us about some amazing pedals they
have available!
Signal chain=Little Miss Sunshine Lunar Module
Mini Deluxe Hybrid Fuzz Driver P19 Screw Driver
Mini Deluxe Echo Vintage Hi-Watt amp (I believe),
into a 2X12 Jackson
Your volume doesn't change when you engage
it.
I made sure it's compatible with other pedals,
and it doesn't change the tone when I turn
it on and off.
SSG: There's no volume drop.
It doesn't screw up the other pedals, lots
of headroom.
If you put something in front of that, when
you distort it--it would just keep the same
tone.
This one here, (Lunar Module Mini Deluxe)
(It's the) heart of a "Silicon Fuzz Face"
It's got an extra gain stage in front of it,
and...actually five--to control different
aspects of it.
So um, (plays Lunar Module Mini Deluxe)...So
you can set it up like a vintage,..almost
like a "Tone Bender" at this setting with
the extra gain stage in it (plays)
SSG: I like that setting!
You can make it a lot more polite. (changes
tone)
SSG: ...Still creamy.
Nice volume clean up.
This one is (Screw Driver Mini Deluxe)
Still got a lot of modern sounding drive,
still a silky kind of sound.
Got a lot of articulation (plays Hybrid Screwdriver)
SSG: Sounds like it's cutting, but not abrasive.
SSG: The Screwdriver, (nudge) cool!
You get more of like a..you get kind of a
"Tube Screamer-y" sound out of it.
So far and beyond what it's supposed to do
(i think is what he said here)
You can get some blues out of it too.
SSG: That's my favorite pedal so far.
This one is based on a Big Muff--1973, 74
era (plays P19)
It's set up to play like "The Wall" --David
Gilmour is a guitarist and vocalist with British
rock band Pink Floyd
As opposed to like SP. Smashing Pumpkins is
an American alternative rock band from Illinois,
Formed by frontman Billy Corgan (lead vocals,
lead guitar)
SSG: Over saturated?
if you play "Pumpkins", it wouldnt sound very
"Pumpkinsy"
(plays "Today" riff)
SSG: I think it needs, hmm...put this before
it? (adds Hybrid Fuzz Driver)
(continues playing SP riff then blues with Echo Pedal)

SSG: Big fat "Echoplex"
SSG: Sounds good!
http://skreddypedals.com/


How to Mix Acoustic Guitar w/ EQ and Compression


Hey, Matt Weiss â€" theproaudiofiles.com,
weiss-sound.com. And today we’re going to
be looking at some acoustic guitars. Now,
I have a record here, it is called Borrowed
Hearts. it is by Hezekiah Jones and it was
part of the weathervane project, which is
run and managed by my friend Brian Mctier,
over at Miner Street Studios. Amazing studio,
particularly for indie rock, or really any
kind of acoustic sound. Fantastic studio,
I really recommend it. We have this:
[unmixed song]
Sounds pretty nice, but we want to get it
to here:
[mixed song]
Okay, so how do we do that? Well, there’s
a lot that goes into a mix. And for this little
tutorial, I’m just gonna show you what I’m
doing with the guitar. The acoustic guitar
in this is extremely important. It is the
backbeat of the entire song. It plays throughout.
And in parts, it’s really the arrangement
is as stripped down as vocals, acoustic guitar,
drums. That’s it. And then a bass comes
in. And then there’s some ear candy stuff
that comes in later. But if we don’t get
the acoustic guitars right, the whole record
is just not going to work.
So before even treating anything, I have to
make a decision. What kind of sound am I going
for? Am I going for something that’s bright
and poppy? Am I going for something that’s
dirty and vintagey? Am I going for something
in the middle? Am I reconciling both? I kind
of feel like in this song I’m reconciling
both. I want it to sound modern, but I want
to have the qualities of analog recordings
to still be in there. The things that we like
about the analog recordings let’s keep.
The things that we don’t like let’s try
not to have.
So bearing that in mind, we have to use a
little bit of judgement. Let’s start with
this acoustic.
[acoustic guitar playing]
That’s a good sounding acoustic. I don’t
know how John tracked it, I have a few methods
that I like, but whatever he did, he did it
right. There are a couple of things that stick
out to me as things to consider. The first
is that in terms of a modern recording, it’s
a little bit on the duller side. But not much.
Then there’s also sort of a ringy kind of
tone that’s in there, and the low end is
a little bit loose maybe.
[acoustic guitar playing]
Let’s loop this up. You hear that “ahhh”
kind of tone that’s coming out. If we were
going for an earthy organic feel we might
leave that in. If we’re going for a more
polished type of sound we’re probably going
to want to take that out. And here’s why.
Our ear can only hear so much at the same
time. If we can take that out it’s going
to enhance both the strum and the body and
fundamental tone of the guitar. So I think
I am going to do that. And here’s what I
do with it.
[guitar]
Okay so first let’s find the tone. It sounds
pretty close to a test tone to me, so I’m
thinking it’s gonna be somewhere around
1k, but by boosting this narrow frequency,
and kind of knowing what I want to hear, you
gotta know what you want to hear. By knowing
that I know when it jumps out at me, that’s
what I want to get rid of.
[acoustic guitar]
So with taking out a tone like that, you generally
want as narrow of a frequency as possible
to get rid of the whole tone. This is a little
wider than some resonances, but it’s not
as wide as I’ve got the Q set right now.
[acoustic guitar]
Nice. Alright, so next step fairly easy.
[guitar playing]
All I’m doing is I’m boosting up a little
bit of that strum. The attack of this is going
to become very important because not only
is the acoustic guitar providing the melody
and melodic bed, but it’s also providing
the rhythmic bed “dum dum, dum dum dum.”
If we don’t have that rhythm, we’re gonna
lose the drive of the sound. So through all
of this we’re going to be trying to bring
that up in as nice of a way as possible.
[acoustic guitar playing]
And just tighten up some low end.
[acoustic guitar playing]
I’m just rolling out, there’s a little
bit of extra rumble down there, and there’s
a little bit â€" like I don’t really need
all of the bass in this acoustic guitar, I
mean it’s nice to have that very rounded
sound, but there’s gonna be a bass in there,
there’s a kick drum in there. I can take
a little bit of the bass down and it’s okay.
Especially if it’ll help focus in on that
body and that stum.
Alright, next step: compression. This is the
Kush Audio UBK-1. Compression and acoustic
guitars are kind of like rats and rabbits
on the Chinese zodiac. They’re not enemies
but they’re not necessarily friends. So
let’s go over my process for doing this.
Now you’re going to hear a huge volume different,
and it’s because that’s what compression
kind of does. It makes things appear louder.
Okay so there’s a trade off there. If I
was going for a natural sound, that would
be too much. Like I screwed the pooch on that
one. But I’m not necessarily going for a
natural sound. What I want to do is I want
to enhance the musically of what’s happening.
Which means I need to bring up both the color
of the acoustic guitar and the body of the
acoustic guitar, and retain as much of the
strum of the acoustic guitar as possible.
[acoustic guitar strumming]
So the UBK-1 is divided into three separate
plugins basically. A saturation section, a
compression section and a density section.
Saturation is basically going to add color.
[acoustic guitar strum]
So what I’m doing â€" everything has a parallel
knob. So I’m actually blending in the amount
of color that I want. Let’s turn it down
just a touch.
[acoustic guitar strum]
I still want it to feel like the original
recording, but I don’t want it to â€" I
want it to come a little bit more alive, a
little more colored.
[acoustic guitar strum]
Alright so in the compression section â€" what’s
tough about this is there’s a number of
curves to the compressions: splat, smooth,
glue, squish and crush. And it’s really
hard to tell which one is going to be best.
In this particular instance I’m using the
crush one, which I think was designed for
making drums really sound like super pumpy
and choppy. It’s a really cool and very
colored setting. What’s happening is there’s
a very short kind of release that has some
â€" because of the release timing, there’s
a little bit of this kind of distortion effect.
And also the length of the attack actually
brings the strumming out. And that’s what
I really liked about this.
[acoustic guitar strum]
You get a little bit of extra bite on the
attack of the guitar. Which is good because
I want to bring up the sustain but I also
want the attack to be really present. And
those are almost conflicting ideas. So the
crush setting really worked here.
[acoustic guitar]
The density setting I think is the coolest
setting on this thing. It either works or
it doesn’t. And I love it when things either
work or don’t because then I don’t have
to think too hard. In this particular case,
it’s really bringing the top end of the
guitar to life. It’s sort of like a multiband
compressor. The treble range â€" because of
how it’s set â€" is just becoming a lot
more dense as the density knob would indicate.
[music]
Now the body â€" the color of the sustain
in particular â€" has really come to life
using this. And that’s what I wanted to
do with this. I do think that just because
this is a rhythmic driving element, a little
bit of transient enhancement â€" and I’m
not really doing much â€" I’m doing about
3 decibels here. And that’s fairly moderate
duration: about 30 milliseconds on how long
it stay active and about 40 milliseconds on
how long it takes to decay.
[music]
And that is how I get my acoustic guitar sound
for this record.