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Recording Heavy Guitars: How to EQ a tight metal tone
2008-02-22 20:48:00
That’s right, it’s the big one… I can imagine I’m about to stir up a fair few thousand hornet’s nests. If there’s one thing that causes a fuss between metal guitarists and engineers alike, it’s EQ’ing your guitars for a nasty, chuggy, badass recording tone that will take the face off a ten-ton badger, but still leave room for dynamics. Because our tone is precious to us it becomes a subject of defence. Nobody wants to share, and why should they? Some have spent entire careers getting their specific signature tone and they don’t like to see it go for nothing! If you’re starting from scratch then the best advice I can give is thus; be open-minded!! The amount of times I’ve settled on a tone that I think is really ‘me’, and I’ve cemented it in my mind as my sound, only to discover something that would vastly improve it, be it an effect, some EQ adjustment, or even a string gauge change, it becomes a very self-defeating and disheartening affair to say the l...
More About: Metal , Recording , Heavy , Tone , Guitars

Jackson RX10D Guitar Review
2008-02-09 23:00:00
Price new: £340 Neck type: Bolt-on Maple Body: Basswood with Flame Maple Veneer Hardware: Chrome Bridge: Floyd Rose licensed double-locking trem Frets: 22 Jumbo Pickups: 2 Duncan Designed humbuckers. HB-103B (bridge), HB-103N (neck) Price second hand: £170 - £250 Review It’s a privilege to be able to say that this was my first big brand guitar. Not so much for its playability or sound, but for its iconicity and status in the metal world. Despite it being a low-end model of the Randy Rhoads series it was a model of his non-the-less, and for a 16-year-old avid Ozzy fan that was enough for me! Playability One of the flattest Jackson necks I’ve ever felt. It feels right the moment you put finger to wood. Major effortlessness, fast action, and great fret access, which is marginally due to the shape of the body. Speaking of which, this is not a guitar for sitting down! In fact it’s a total pain. The only way I managed to comfortably jam whilst sitting in a chair was to perch...
More About: Guitar

Ibanez RG350DX Review
2008-02-03 17:00:00
Specs Price new: £299 Neck type: Bolt-on 3pc Wizard II Body: Basswood Hardware: Black Bridge: Edge III double locking Frets: 24 Jumbo Pickups: INF3 neck humbucker, INFS3 single coil middle, INF4 bridge humbucker Price second hand: Probably not much less than rrp, because they’re still very much in production. £180 - £210 Review Out of all the 6 string solid body electrics I’ve ever played and/or owned this is most probably the best so far, especially for the price. As soon as I picked It up it just felt right, looked right, played right, and most importantly it sounded right. It was my first Ibanez , and it was this guitar that made me an avid Ibanez player, and I’ve never ventured into other brands since. I wasn’t even intending on buying a guitar that day, I just happened to wander over to the music shop in my lunch break to annoy the staff by requesting to play guitars I couldn’t afford! Playability 9 times out of 10 when I play a guitar that looks like thi...

More articles coming soon
2007-11-06 00:57:00
I’m sorry for the lack of posts of late, but I’ve been busy working on some home recordings! If you’d care to take a listen then please visit: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic .cfm?bandID=762150 If you found this article useful, please buy me a beerCopyright © 2008 My Sound Clinic. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@mysoundclinic.com so we can take legal action immediately.Plugin by TaraganaShare This
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Kick Drum and Snare EQ Settings: For Metal and Hard Rock
2007-10-14 22:33:00
Most drum programs are self explanatory, enabling easy use and creative freedom. But getting them to sound right, or real, is whole other story. Below are a couple of settings that work brilliantly. They work equally as well for real drum setups when recording a live acoustic kit too. Note that these settings are pretty universal for metal and hard-rock sounds, but you may want to adjust to your preference. Provided you have access to the EQ management try something that looks a little like this for your kick drum. Notice the deep ‘V’ shape. This is not too dissimilar to the way most metallers have their guitar tone in the sense that the mids are heavily scooped out. On a guitar this helps accent the percussiveness of the playing, forming an aggressive chug. On a kick drum however it reduces the “boxyness” from the mix, taking away the sound which, to me, sounds like a huge balloon being burst in a concert hall! Scoop out quite a lot from 125-500k, but leave in a few more ...
More About: Metal , Rock , Hard , Hard Rock , Drum

Interview - Ty Oliver
2007-10-06 23:25:00
Ty, thank you for taking a break from your busy schedule, Firstly, how did you get into music, and more specifically the guitar? Well before I actually got my hands on an instrument, I wanted to play drums. One of my friends had just got a Bass, and I remember picking it up having so much fun just making noise with it. I then got the opportunity to sit behind a drum kit at school one day a couple months later and that was it, I knew I needed to get my own set and get myself involved in music. Several weeks later, I got my first kit and started jamming with friends after school. Guitar came later. People would leave their guitars at my house after we’d jam and I’d fool around on them at night. After a couple years of that I could play ok, and decided I wanted to pursue it more. I traded in my drums for a guitar rig. I switched back and forth between drums and guitar for a few years until settling on Guitar exclusively in 2000.     There’s clearly an 80’...
More About: Interview , Oliver

String Gauge: Finding your perfect guitar tone
2007-10-01 02:01:00
In my endless search for that perfect tone I came across another avenue of possibilities. There are so many factors to take into account when approaching tone, depending on how meticulous you are of course, right down to the size of your speakers and the grain of the wood that they are mounted in. String tension is my newest venture and it’s one of great impact. The gauge of string that you use can vary your sound massively. Because the actual mechanical movement of the string varies with its width you can therefore control the range of tones coming from it. Generally it’s quite self explanatory, the thicker the gauge the bassier and rounder the sound. I chase a tone that’s chuggy, percussive, responsive, yet clear with a slightly scooped mid. I tend to use very light strings at the treble end and thicker strings at the bass end (9 – 46 with a 50 for the B string on my 7 strings). I like the way they feel, you can bend with ease and if you have a lot of control then you can ...
More About: Guitar , Perfect , Tone , Gauge

Joe Satriani Video - Lead Guitar Tips
2007-09-24 01:02:00
Here’s a quick lesson I found interesting from the messiah himself, Mr Joe Satriani . Enjoy. If you found this article useful, please buy me a beerCopyright © 2008 My Sound Clinic. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@mysoundclinic.com so we can take legal action immediately.Plugin by TaraganaShare This
More About: Video , Guitar , Tips , Lead

ESP LTD M207 Review
2007-09-16 19:07:00
Specs Price new: £899 (no longer in production) Neck type: Bolt-on Body: Basswood Hardware: Black Bridge: Floyd Rose double locking Frets: 24XJ Pickups: 2 Duncan Designed Humbuckers Price second hand: £250-£400 Review When I’d played ESPs in the past they didn’t click with me, but when a friend offered his 7 string up for grabs I couldn’t put it down. It felt great, weighty, chunky, everything you’d want from a metal axe. You see, manufacturers like Ibanez offer craftsmanship and beauty, masterfully created for elegance and virtuosity. The thing I felt with ESP is that they are designed for beating the utter crap out of!! From the moment you wrap your fingers round the baseball bat of a neck you just want to hammer the shit out of it and play as hard as hell. Playability As I said, it’s chunky. The neck is not for me personally, it’s a little rounded and a tad wide, but that may not be a problem for you as it’s all down to preference. ESP have always modelled...

Guitar Modification: My Jackson RX10D DIY
2007-09-12 21:09:00
Sorry for the lack of postage of late, this one took a while to complete! Its one thing having 6 guitars dotted around, cluttering up your room with minimal space to contain them, but it’s another entirely when one of those is a heap of rubbish that you can’t do a damn thing with! My Jackson RX10D was in dire need of a make-over, so I gave it one, on a £50 budget I might add. Here’s how: Firstly, I needed new pickups. If there’s one piece of advice I can give you about pickups it’s not to buy cheap crap. Even if you’re just doing it as a project guitar, replacing the stock parts with other cheap rubbish is a fruitless task… which is what I’d done on this particular guitar’s previous ‘modification’. This time around however I made sure I did it properly. Having said that, I still didn’t go for anything crazy like EMGs or DiMarzios, because even on the most admirable of auction sites they can still fetch a pretty penny. In the end I opted for some Ibanez pi...
More About: Guitar , Modification