THE ELECTRIC GUITAR BRIDGES: TREMOLO (PART 1/2)

Hello and welcome to this week's Article!
Today we're going to talk about Tremolo, a classic guitar bridge often seen on Fender Stratocasters, but also featured on a wide variety of other guitars.
Let's start off by clearing what it is: the tremolo bridge is a particular guitar bridge that allows the player to use a lever (called Whammy Bar) to alter the string tension, thus altering temporarily the pitch and producing an effect called "Vibrato", which, according to the particular type of bridge, may be softer or stronger.

The first attempt of building a Tremolo bridge was the Kaufmann Vibrola, built around the '30s and mounted on some Epiphone and Rickenbacker guitar, and thoughout its evolutions the bridge managed to survive until the late '50s, also thanks to an unique invention: an automatic vibrato effect generated by the bridge itself, rhythmically moved by an electric powered circuit.

The Tremolo bridge that became the first to be mainstream though was the Bigsby, created at the beginning of the '50s by Paul Bigsby. This type of bridge was completely outside the body of the guitar and solved the notorious problem of the Kaufmann bridges: it didn't throw the guitar out of tune so easily.
This bridge was featured on many Gibson guitars, and still today it can be found on the most high end hollow body and semi-hollow body guitars on the market, due to its vintage look and classic sound.

To this day, the most famous Tremolo bridge on the market is the Fender Synchronized Tremolo, created by Fender towards the half of the '50s (Click here to see an original picture of the 1954 patent application).
This bridge was revolutionary and it required holes on the guitar body, in order to mount on the back of the guitar three-to-five coil springs, to bring the string tension back to normality once the whammy bar is released.
The bridge is formed by six bridge saddles held against a plate by string tension, and individually adjustable both for height and intonation, and it is anchored to the guitar by six screws, although the most famous bridge version is the "Fender two-point synchronized tremolo", which featured only the two most external ones.

The "Fender two-point synchronized tremolo" is still today the most used (and copied) tremolo bridge on the market, and it has been used by Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townshend, among the others.

The Floating Tremolo was an evolution of the Sinchronized tremolo featured on the Fender Jazzmaster model, it was presented in 1958 and it was much more complex.
The particularity of this kind of Tremolo system is that its mechanics allows the player to retain the strings tuning even better than the other types of bridge, and that it's blockable, so if a string is broken, the player can still keep the other ones in tune.
Unfortunately this bridge didn't have too much success due to some string resonance on some frets, that at higher volumes can cause some problem, and due to its complexity today is featured only on some custom shop model.

Around the half of the '60s Fender presented also another Tremolo bridge: the Dynamic Vibrato, featured on the Mustang model. This kind of bridge combined elements from the previous ones, and it's still today mounted on the Fender Mustang, for its look and because some player still consider it the best Tremolo bridge ever created.
The tremolo system is integrated with the bridge, unlike the Floating Tremolo which is composed by two separated parts, and became popular worldwide because it was mounted on the Jag-Stang (a custom hybrid between a Fender Jaguar and a Mustang) used by Nirvana's Kurt Cobain.

CLICK HERE TO READ PART 2/2

Become fan of this blog on Facebook! Share it and contact us to collaborate!!

MODULATIONS PART 1: CHORUS! (with Free Vst Plugins Inside)

Hello and welcome to This week's article!
Today we're going to talk about Modulation Effects, focusing on the Chorus Effect.
Modulation effects are filters that takes a given signal and creates a copy, with a given delay and pitch modification, to be summed with the original one, creating a wide range of different results.
The Chorus effect is an effect that can enrich remarkably a sound: it doubles the sound creating a slighly delayed (usually around 20ms) copy whose delay will not be stable but will keep on variating, oscillating 5ms more and less, plus the copy's pitch is slighly detuned, giving the impression that the copy is (in case of a Vocal track) another person singing along with the first one: not identical, but very similiar, and this effect is used to make the original sound wider and fatter.
This effect was particularly used in the mid '80s, for Vocals and guitar solos, in order to add more character and make them sound more metallic.

The Chorus' most common controls are:

Depth: This control sets the depth of the effect: the higher the value is, the deeper will be the oscillations. Basically it's the Chorus' intensity. 

Rate: This one sets the effect cycle, which is the speed of the Rhythmic detunings, from very slow (less than a cycle per second), if we set it to 0, to very fast (rarely used), if we crack up the control.

Feedback: This control refers to the process of feeding back a part of the effected sound on the input of the effect itself, therefore we decide how much chorus will be sent a second time through the effecting process: this will lead to a much more effected result, good for creative uses.

Pre-delay: This control lets us choose after how many milliseconds from the original sound the effect will activate. A higher value will make the chorus to intervene after a longer time, allowing the original sound to be heard uneffected before it starts affecting it, while if we set it to 0, the effect will engage immediately.

Level: This one sets the mixing level of the Chorus with the original sound: a higher value will lead to a higher wet-to-dry ratio. 


Most of DAWs already features a Chorus effect, but if you want to try some cool vst downloadable for free here's our suggestions:

OrangeChorus: one of the best free Chorus Vst Around, very simple.

Blue Cat Chorus: versatile Chorus with Spread control

Kjaerhus Classic Chorus: a simple but effective chorus

Gvst Chorus: simple and effective chorus Vst

Tal-Chorus-Lx: an interesting vintage chorus modeled after the Roland Juno 60

Betabugs Monsta Chorus: an interesting vintage chorus effect

Chorus Ch-2: a versatile Hi Quality modulation engine

SimpliChorus: an interesting Stereo Chorus effect

Become fan of this blog on Facebook! Share it and contact us to collaborate!!

HOW TO MIX A GUITAR SOLO (a guide for dummies)

Hello and welcome to this week's article! Today we're goint to talk abot How to Mix a Guitar solo!
Let's start off assuming that we have already recorded our solo, by Microphoning our amplifier, or using a Guitar Amp Simulator plugins, or even a Hardware Processor.
Once that our track is ready for mixing, we must keep in mind that our Lead Guitar track will share the same mid-range frequencies used by our rhythm guitars, so we must find a way to make the solo cut through while remaining "in the mix" at a volume comparable to the other intruments.
Usually the idea is to push the lead guitar part a little bit more on the mid-range than its rhythmic counterpart, just enough to make it cut through: we can treat it on a way similiar to how we mix Vocals, since usually a Solo takes the place of the voice in a song, therefore we can usually Pan it to the centre of the soundstage, unless we're after some particulare effect.

On the Equalization side we can usually use a wide Hi Pass filter, taking out everything from 160hz down, then (after the Compression) we can do a gentle boost on the "vocal area", somewhere between 3khz and 5khz.
It's a good idea also to cut some db on the rhythm guitars, in the same area we're boosting our solo: this will help us to cut through the mix even better (another Interesting way to cut through it's also to use a different guitar or amplifier than the one we have used for the Rhythm guitar Tracks).

On the Compression side we can use very fast attack and release times (even 10ms or less) and a low ratio, from 2:1 to 10:1 according to the amount of dynamic we want to keep, bearing in mind that the dynamic response it's a very important part of a good guitar solo, so we must not over-squash it: let's use less Compression than the amount we have used on the rhythmic side!

On the Effects chapter, it's important to say that a guitar sound is probably the one that accepts effect processing better, so we can use if we want some very subtle Reverb or some Chorus/doubler to give some thickness, but the most commonly used effect on guitar solos nowadays it's the Delay, which helps the sustain and gives to the sound a pleasant "bounce-back" feel. Some Tube Saturation or Harmonic Excitement can help the sound to cut through the mix even more.

Finally, if after all this processing we feel that our solo isn't emerging from the mix yet, our last resort is to Automate the rhythm guitar tracks to lower their volume a bit (half db or a db will usually be more than enough) in order to clear some headroom, to make our solo soar over them.

So Here's our Chain: Signal -> Subtractive Eq -> Compression -> Boosting Eq -> (Tube Saturation / Harmonic Exciter) -> Delay -> (Reverb)

Click Here if you want to learn how to Mix a Hi Gain Guitar!!

Become fan of this blog on Facebook! Share it and contact us to collaborate!!

GUITAR AND BASS: WHAT IS RADIUS?

Hello and welcome to this week's article! This time we're goint to talk about Radius!
When we use the radius term, talking about guitar or bass, we're not referring to the radioactive chemical, but to how curve or flat the fretboard and the frets are.
Different roundnesses provide different playing feels, and some are better suited to particular styles than others are, but as a general rule, the flatter the radius is, the easier will be to go fast, and shred.

When we see the radius mentioned on a guitar or bass spec sheet, it is usually expressed in inches (ranging from 7.25" to 18", but there are even more extreme versions) and the higher this value gets, the flatter the fretboard will be.
The idea behind a more curvy or flat neck is based on the type of music we need to play: a curved radius (e.g. 7,25" or 9,5") will be more suited for playing chords, since the fretboard will "accept" more easily the shape of our hand, especially when doing Barre Chords, while flatter radiuses (e.g. 15,75" or 18") will let us do easier bendings, and advanced techniques as string skipping or sweep picking.

The ideal middle ground has been introduced by Gibson and is the radius of 12", which is still the most common today (on Bass instead is often used a radius of 10"), but throught the years some manufacturer (such as the same Gibson, or Charvel and Jackson) has introduced also a compound radius that starts from 10" on the nut area (to be more "chord friendly") and progressively becomes flatter, to 16" on the other end of the neck, to let solos to have more sustain (in facts the rounder the neck, the farther the "external" strings will be from the fretboard). 

Hope this was helpful!

Become fan of this blog on Facebook! Share it and contact us to collaborate!!

HOW TO RECORD AND MIX DRUM CYMBALS (PART 2/2)

CLICK HERE FOR THE PART 1/2 OF THIS TUTORIAL!

Once we have seen how to acquire our cymbals sound, we sould now find ourselves with Four mono tracks: two for the Over Heads (Left and Right), one for the Hi Hat and one for the Ride, therefore now it's time to start mixing.

- Overheads: the idea is to Pan those two tracks very wide, often 100% left and 100% right, to give to our Crash Cymbals as much space as possible, then we need to Hi Pass and Low pass them, in order to give to the tracks a proper frequency range that will not make them fight with the others.
First off we should create a Group Channel track where to route the two single tracks, and then we can start off by loading on the Group Channel a Hi-Pass Filter, taking away everything below 100hz to 500hz, until we find the spot where the bulk of the drums disappears (unless we don't want purposely to retain some spill on those tracks too, to beef up the global drum sound), then we can Low-Pass around 10/12khz, to avoid the sound to become too harsh.
Now the only thing left to do is to start manually to pin down the Resonant Frequencies (which are, if we look at the Spectrum of our sound, the frequencies that produces the highest and most annoying peaks), and see if our cymbals are Eq Masking the frequencies of other important tracks (Vocals, for example).
If this happens, it's a good idea to scoop a bit around the 3/4khz area to clear some room for Vocals, and if needed we can also take away something around the 500hz area too, to eliminate a bit of "Room Mud".
The last thing to do, if needed, is to Compress the sound just a little, in order to soften a bit the hardest hits.

- Hi Hat: This cymbal is seen more as a part of the snare sound than an ambient cymbal, and therefore shouldn't be Panned too far from the snare: someone sets it straghit to the centre of the soundstage, someone else pans it slightly to the left (about 12.5 left), as if it's heard from the drummer's perspective.
We can Low-Pass the sound, as for the others cymbals, until most of the snare goes away (300 to 500hz, usually) and then Hi-Pass it at about 10khz, eventually taking out some other frequency if the general sound feels a bit "gongy". To add some brilliance we can boost a little around 6khz.

- Ride Cymbal: this cymbal should be Panned usually somewhere on the right area (like 12,5 right), and its particularity, compared with the Hi Hat, is a usually stronger low end. In order to make the ride sound brighter we can Hi Pass the sound to about 3/500hz, then we can boost a couple of dbs at about 10/12khz to add some air and sparkle. Watch out for resonances on this track too!
Similarly to the Hi Hat, if we feel that there are some frequencies that are fighting with the Vocals ones, we can scoop around 3khz.

We can also route the Hi Hat and the Ride Cymbal on another Group Channel Track to add a little bit of Compression, just to peel off some of the peaks.

Very important: If we're using Compression (and usually it is suggested for hard rock songs, up to the most extreme metal, not for softer genres), we must keep in mind that the settings should be very very low, since it's really easy to create an unnatural effect with cymbals! Same is for Reverb: usually it's not suggested, but in some cases, when the overall drum sound is very dull and lifeless, if we use a Plate Reverb on "homeopathic doses", it can add some body and room to the general sound.

CLICK HERE FOR THE PART 1/2 OF THIS TUTORIAL!

Become fan of this blog on Facebook! Share it and contact us to collaborate!!

HOW TO RECORD AND MIX DRUM CYMBALS (PART 1/2)

Pic. 1

Hello and welcome to this week's article! Today we will talk about How to Record Cymbals!

There are many ways to record Cymbals, and the technique has evolved greatly throughout the time: from the early recordings, at the beginning of the 20th century, with nothing but a condenser microphone in the middle of the room to catch the sound produced by the whole band, to the most complex combinations of close miking of any single drum piece with other microphones to take care of the global room sound. 

The technique we're going to show you today it's a compromise between the need to capture the life of the recording room and the flexibility of having two single tracks for Hi Hat and Ride.

This technique can be successfully used with a natural drumset as well as with a triggered one (or a drum with its signal Replaced), although with a triggered drumset, if properly muted, is even better: we will have "clean" cymbal tracks, reducing to the minimum any unwanted mic bleed from other drum parts, and this will help us greatly during the Editing Phase.

Some musician even prefer to record cymbals without using the drumset at all, using just the cymbals and their stands, microphoned: the drummer plays the cymbals as he would do using a drumset, following the song on his headphones. This method may feel a bit unnatural, but it's the "cleanest" way to record the cymbals signal with zero bleed from the drumset :)

Let's start talking about Overhead Cymbals (Crash, China, Splash...): these are the cymbals that are positioned above the drumset, and their sound can be captured with a couple of overhead microphones (Pic. 1), which can be dynamic, but it's very suggested to use Condenser Microphones (e.g. for our recording we have used a pair of Akg C1000), since they can capture many more details. They can be positioned with the X/Y method, as shown in Pic. 1, creating a 90° angle to one another, at around 3 or 4 feet of height (1-1.20 meter) from the drumset. This setup is good to record the whole drumset / cymbals area providing phase coherence (therefore less frequency cancellation). 

There are other methods too, if you want to try, as for example positioning the two microphones at the same height but on the left and right side of the drumset, pointing towards the center of the set, and this method is used to add a sense of width to the recording.

Pic. 2

Now let's talk about the Hi-Hat (also known as "Charleston"): this cymbal actually consists of two cymbals that are mounted on a stand, one on top of the other, and a pedal which can be used to clash and hold the cymbals together. This cymbal can be close-microphoned, since it's a very important part of a drum sound, complementary to the snare. We need to process it alone, if possible, so the Hi-Hat can be microphoned with a dynamic microphone, such a Shure Sm57 as shown on Pic 2, on the upper side of the Cymbal, at a distance of a couple of inches, at the opposite side of the Snare, in order to catch as less snare sound as possible. 

Pic. 3

The Ride cymbal is another important drum part, with a function similiar and alternative to the Hi-Hat, so it's suggested to record it with another dedicated microphone, which can be a dynamic one as well, but this time the right positioning is Below it, at about 2 inches of distance (Pic. 3), in order  to catch less bleed from the other drum parts.

These four microphones must be connected to four Microphone Preamplifiers, therefore we will need an Audio Interface with at least four Mic Preamps, or an external Mic Preamp / Mixer to be connected to our Audio Interface on a way that lets us stream the sound of each single microphone on a different track.

Ps. Thanks to Francesco Paoli and Cristiano Trionfera from Fleshgod Apocalypse for their help on recording the drums of my band! ;)

CLICK HERE FOR THE PART 2/2 OF THIS TUTORIAL!

Become fan of this blog on Facebook! Share it and contact us to collaborate!!

HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT AUDIO INTERFACE (a guide for dummies) PART 3/3

CLICK HERE FOR THE PART 1/3 OF THIS TUTORIAL!!

CLICK HERE FOR THE PART 2/3 OF THIS TUTORIAL!!


- Something about Microphone Preamplifiers: As we have already seen, the quality of the microphone preamp components and the quality of the ADC - DAC converters is where most of the price of an audio interface lies. The more an interface is expensive, the better probably those crucial sections are, in terms of construction and electrical components quality.
Which are the characteristics of a Mic Preamp, beside its intrinsic quality? The presence of a 48V Phantom Power switch, that is used to transmit electricity through the cable to a Condenser Microphone, a kind of microphone that features an active electronic circuitry and cannot work without this function; beware not to turn the Phantom Power on when plugging a dynamic microphone, otherwise you may damage it!
Another interesting feature often found on Mic Preamplifiers is the 20db Pad, a function that drops the input signal 20db lower, and this function is useful when plugging to the interface some instrument that has a signal too high, so high that it cannot be compensated just by turning down the input knob.
Beware when recording of avoid clipping at any cost! If the "clip" led (or meter, according to the type of interface) turns red, the input level is too high, this means that some part of the signal gets lost and it's interpreted by the DAW as plain noise. In this case, is very suggested to record again the part at lower settings, because it's practically impossible to restore.

- Something about the Dsp Processors: The most high end interfaces on the market sometimes features an additional processor, created to provide effects (such as Compression and Reverb, for example) without consuming the computer's CPU.
This is particularly useful when recording Vocals, since singers often need some real time processing on their headphones, at the lowest latency rate possible, in order to hear themselves "in the mix" while performing.
We can find a Dsp on the top-range Interfaces of many manufacturers: Motu, M-Audio, Focusrite, among the others.
Another use for Dsp processors is not only to monitor the sound with the effects on, but also to record the sound itself with the effects applied, and under this point of view there's plenty of interfaces, especially for Guitar and Bass, such as the Line 6 Pod (click here for a dedicated article) and many other devices, that will apply to your sound an emulation of Amplifiers, Cabinets, Effects and so on, all without burdening on the computer's resources: let's not forget that some of these effect devices can be used as an Usb Audio Interface too!

- The Right Interface for The Right Job: When choosing an audio interface it's important to have clear in mind the main use we intend to do with it.
Recording: If we need to use our audio interface mainly for recording, we need to choose the one with the right amount of inputs for our instrument, for example if we need to record drums, we will need an interface with many mic preamps (possibly at least eight inputs, for kick, snare, hihat, 3 toms, and 2 overhead). Another interesting choice is a mixer that sends all the channels into separate channels of our DAW.

Then we need a good quality ADC (analog to digital converter) with a high dynamic range, at least 96 dB. A high dynamic range for the DAC (digital to analog converter) isn’t needed, because the audio interface is only used for recording.

Mixing and Mastering: For these tasks we will need instead a good quality DAC (digital to analog converter), at least 110dB of dynamic range: this is necessary since we want the result of our mixing to have the same headroom it had when we recorded it, plus a good mixing quality will help us in the Mastering Phase too.
Another thing we may need for mixing is the correct number of inputs and outputs, as we've already seen in the second part of this tutorial: if we have some hardware processor such as an equalizer or a compressor, we will need at least two inputs and outputs, and maybe some S/pdif connection will help too.
If we use it just for mixing or mastering, our audio interface for mixing won’t need a high dynamic range of ADC (analog to digital converter).

- Happy First Birthday Guitar Nerding Blog!!: With the conclusion of this three weeks long article we're celebrating the First Atoragon's Guitar Nerding Blog's Birthday!! Thank you to all the viewers, keep on supporting us, becoming fan on Facebook and sharing our links, commenting articles and videos and collaborating with your articles! We need your help us to becoming the no.1 resource site on Home Recording Tutorials around!

Btw: ATTENTION, Facebook Fans! Facebook now requires page owners to pay to promote updates if we want our content to be seen by more of our fans. If we don't pay to promote our posts, only about 10% of our fans receive updates on their Facebook homepage feed.
To keep RECEIVING ALL POSTS FROM US you have to open our page, hover the mouse on the "Like" button near the gear symbol. In the pop-up select "ADD TO THE INTEREST LISTS". Then create an interest list (Make a Name for your sites). Then when you select that interest list you will see ALL of our posts.
Rock On!

Atoragon.

CLICK HERE FOR THE PART 1/3 OF THIS TUTORIAL!!

CLICK HERE FOR THE PART 2/3 OF THIS TUTORIAL!!

Become fan of this blog on Facebook! Share it and contact us to collaborate!!