Welcome to another episode of metal, masterminding metal Mastermind podcast, your host, Jason Stallworth, get co-owner of metal, Mastermind on here, brother, Can-Can, Dallas. And we have a special guest today. Nick Z. And guys, we're gonna talk about guitar, snobbery or guitar? Tone snobbery. Oh Boy. Yeah, did I can I make a suggestion of the podcast? Can I suggest a rating then? Instead, it's free. And even can we mix raining in with Raining Blood and it's raining.
Bloody men. The, Yes Men, it's raining. Bloody Mary, is that got dark real quick and really get dark, dude. Yeah, so look at the left. Turn, guys, what's up into the podcast? Jesus, we have to lighten the load a little bit next year. Too early was about to get really heavy, no pun intended. Well I'm all in the blood right now. It's warm in mice piece. You can can skins background. He's got this reddish, like in Hades background. Print, you know, mall. We need of into it.
But then you have the flower door to the just kind of offsets the whole thing. Yeah, right. I know. You know, you're like fun fact, actually flowers. Fun fact, actually I Lizabeth actually painted that door. She's an artist herself who yeah this is. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So let's talk about, let's talk about this. Yes. And we will what, what about guitar snobbery? What makes somebody a snob on guitar owwww? I don't play anything other than analog. JP, bleed nipple have you?
That's it. Interesting that you're using an E, minor diminished chord there to me. I would have used the F7 blend. That's a snobby ponytail Theory, guy, you know? Yeah, I mean, there's so much in guitar that we have freedom to express ourselves with, right. So I think, at what point Do we get to a point where it's just a little bit too much for what needs to happen?
I think sometimes as musicians we overthink a lot of things and when we're getting to something like guitar tone, this is definitely one of those out of many different things that we can be over thinking about, but how much then Jason maybe this is a perfect question for you is like how much does a guitarist need to really focus? Focus on the perfect tone.
That's a very good question. I mean, from my perspective, I don't want to say, don't worry about tone so much, but I kind of don't there's there's there's like a kind of a static EQ setting. I use on my amps and amp sounds and it seems to be the same across the board. No matter what I'm using, this just what I like to me. If I can't use an amp Sim or a and quickly dial in what I like to hear, I'm not going to use that. Fortunately, there are plenty of amplifiers naive.
Eh for one the el34 to version the amp Sims. I love positive grids bias FX. I use their trip there. Triple tread plate. I believe they're maysa em along with their Celestial speakers. There's several others Nick, I know you use neural dsb on some but I'm not really like I said, if I can't use my typical settings and here something I like I'm on to the next. Fortunately, I've really don't
come across that problem. My quick tip for guitar players, as I record to Rhythm tracks, hardpan them each the second guitar. Sometimes does something a little different so that way you've got, you know, you've got a really a nice mix in there. Nice blend and what I love about and we're kind of getting off tone. What will get back on that? What I love about recording to
guitar tracks in hard panting? Them is that second guitar and no you don't copy the guitar over because that does nothing. But raise volume, you record that second guitar track. You're not going to be perfect, but it's not going to perfectly match. Actual trial of imperfections. Those little nuances will be captured to me my opinion. That makes the music a little bit more lively. You don't want to be like, completely off.
Obviously, you got to re-record it at that point, but you're going to have those slight nuances and in my lead tracks up the middle, anything clean, your ambient, something middle. So I guess I don't focus on tone and as much because I kind of know what I like already. So I just dialed it in and go with it, okay? So I have a follow-up question to that because I think a lot of guitarists identify Their personality, you know, or their Persona with guitar tone, right?
So its just oh, you know, this is my sound right? That's kind of like what a lot of people say. And, and Nick, I want to ask you this when somebody comes to, you know, even a session where even a live show or whatever it might be. How much do we have to deviate from the concept of? Oh, this is like your tone versus this. Is what the song needs. Oh God! Drop the hammer on that one. You know make it painful. Hold on. Cuz here comes the hate mail. I deal with this almost every
session. Almost every session. I do it with us. Like I, you know, talked about last time I was here we you know talks about people wanting to go analog versus want to go d-ii and doing Sims and stuff like that. And I have to have the hard conversations with people about expectations about like what, you know, what you're used to listening to what you think is important. What's what's, you know, mixing wise like what's in the front? What do you actually hearing
sometimes? You know all Azkaban. I'll be like art. What's your favorite song? And then I'll play it for him and I'll show them the guitar player in specific. I'll show them how pushback is guitar is really do. You can you hear how far behind the vocals that is? And he goes, you know, but it's still there. I'm like, I know it's there but it's really you here. All far behind the drums and the vocals it is like you here priority wise, like howdy
prioritize. It is and it gets all butthurt about it and I'm like, dude, it's really important. It's really really important to have that guitar sound that saturated sound, but Like in the grand scheme of things, it's a layer instrument, you know. It's a it's a It takes up space. Oh, a lot of space. It's like a full bandwidth type of instrument. Well, when you're dealing with
distorted guitars. Yeah. It's like it's, it's such a hard conversation to have, but people do get so fucking attached to their tone and like, I don't know. Like I I appreciate that I really do but there's also the the huge conversation which is what is it that you're trying to do. And can we get realistic about what it is that you're trying to do? Like, first of all, you're playing the guitar. Second of all, you're playing it through an amp third of all, you're playing Distortion,
fourth of all. You have drums, bass, guitars vocals, maybe keys. If you're lucky, I'll get it key or whatever. But, this idea that like like, you have to embrace that, you are in a metal band or a rock band or whatever. Everyone wants to think that they're breaking the mold, that they're so outside of me. Don't sound like that, man. It's like so many bands that are here and I'm like, you know, what do you guys sound like in
there? Like, man, we don't like the labor or label ourselves like get anything, you know. I feel like we, you know, we we sell, you know, we have a little bit of like tool influence, but you know then we you know, real heavy, you know, like Meshuggah in the blubber and they start name it off these bands and you listen to him and I'm like, okay so you guys sound like you know, every other band from 12, 2009. He could have just said that, you know what I mean?
It's like, it's hard to get objectivity. It's really, really difficult. And I think it's, you know, it's like the old adage like, know, thyself, know, thyself. Like, if you can detach yourself and know what kind of band you are, you're going to save yourself so much time. This if you just go. Hey listen man, we're fucking metal band. We want to be heavy, we want to
sound good. Like if you like and like we talked about last time like Micro micro like if you're focusing micro like done on, man, we got to be different. We got to be this thing but it did it on if you pull it way out, like why can't we just be a good metal band? The people enjoy listening to know what I mean. Do we have to be so different because it don't get me started on it because I'll fucking bro if you have all of those things
you're not different. If you have a guitar in your band, you're not different, you know what I mean? If you have drums in your band, you're not different. If you have a set of Wind chimes that you beat another human being with and you Mike that and and Mike the sound of the thumping and the screams and run it through a delay pedal. Like all right, that's different. You're going to get a different sound. You know what I mean? Let's talk about something
really different. This is a real hard, that's why I'm coming up with something that's unique but if you're doing the things that I've described, it's not you. Unique. It's just something that we like to do and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that, you know. It's like if you like it it's a something in sports like basketball or something like that. Like what Jordan did was not unique. He just did it very well but it was still basketball.
You know what I mean? Like you still playing basketball so like it's okay to be in a metal band and to do that in to that end the whole reason I said that is to get to this point. If that's true concede that you're going to have a guitar tone, it's heavy and it's going to sound good and then drop it. Drop the dude lately. I've been on these these fucking Ginsburg and put out the one not pack for the 5150. S, nice! You seeing that one notch Cena it.
I'm looking it up after this Beth to this podcast, though. Well, knob I played one Riff on it and bought it like that. Well, it's, it's one fucking knob. It's there's no tweaking. There's no endless bullshit. You just as a gain knob, you want your game to turn it up it in the mix. Like so I'm a 5150 guy. That's what I Play, I'd like 5150 incident to selections.
Excuse me, that's my rig. And when I play it, you know in the live room and you know record it and then when I come in here and play it there's very very little difference that I could tell in the mix. I can't tell at all and that's good enough for me. Like that's that's great. Like my guitar tone is there? It sounds good, it's heavy. Wow, we don't need to endlessly, pick over this minutiae. It's a waste of time. It's a waste of energy and most
of all you're fooling yourself. Like if it's something that you like to do like design new guitar tones and stuff like that. Like that's cool. But like and if you're if you're tweaking guitar sounds to try to find things that are cool or unique or different, that's also cool. But if you're just trying to find into the ideal distorted tone, But I have a, I have a, I have another question. How about effects?
Because I know a lot of guitarists, also, lets, okay Rhythm guitars are pretty straightforward in this sense when it comes to Distortion, but you know, a lot of guitars also their lead players, they want to have like a spotlight moment, you know, in their song. And they want to add and embellish with different kinds of effects. What how far is too many effects and what how much is made?
Maybe not enough of facts, or should they keep it as no effects and then leave it to post to make it happen? That's, that's interesting. So There's two different schools of thinking on that the first one for me, at least.
And I'm sure JS something to say about this as well is if that riff is already written, it has effects that are doing something to the Riff. Like if you're playing off the delete the delay, if you have a running into delaying chorus and Reverb and stuff, we got like and that riff affects the way, if it affects the way that you play by having that, Effect on print it because I want to hear your hands moving that affects around. You know what I mean.
You've changed the overall sound of the guitar when we start talking about leads and effects and stuff like that, we're basically talking about everything that I just said about Rhythm guitars. Is the polar opposite of experiment until your nuts fall off. You know, if you have the time to sit there and experiment with effects and different things and you know, all of the cool effects that are out. Now like do that until you turn blue in the face like that, that's where I'm at.
So I've done it with guys that you know obviously if it's a more straightforward project or if the guitarist you know already has like pre effects that he wants like stuff already died. Then they got definitely use that but they've done it the other way to where we've denied it and built built stuff backwards as it were and it
seemed to make more sense. I've done that actually, I just finished a shoegaze record and I did a shoegaze record before that or we did it both the same way where we just basically D. I'd kind of a rhythm tone in the web back in it and started tweaking and finding sounds that were incredible, you know? Because I mean now I prefer to do that because like sitting there and having to like play a riff and then, you know, tweak it or whatever like for me like all recorder if and then tweak
it on a loop. You know what I mean? Just so I have both my hands and my full attention on have to sit there and play the thing, you know, make sense. Yeah. Yeah. And Jay so Jay, I know you, you strongly have a lot of opinions on melodic versus shredding solos. Where do you feel like effects play? Into all of that and when is it an appropriate time to use effects as a guitar player? I'm kind of a minimalist when it comes to the fix, like my metal rhythms Rock rhythms.
I feel like if you use too many effects and this probably isn't the case for everyone, this is just me, the things kind of get lost. It can get muddy. So I want because I do play a lot of riffs. I want the clarity to be there above everything else. I feel like too much effects will kind of money that up. So, I might use a hint of Reverb. Now this last album, I recorded. With my EV a champ.
I'm very happy with the tone. I know, I could probably pass it on to Nick and he would make it sound even better. And actually I need to send those to. You will make a video out of that Nick to see if is this a workable tone? You might say, no, dude, this isn't workable to home. Well, I'll take mix of butter, spin that shit. Now, let's Circle right back to that. But finish we will, we will we absolutely will talk about that real quick.
And but as far as Rhythm goes, I don't really record with a lot of effects if I'm recording with a Sims. Same thing, I might use a touch of Reverb on those just because I like I like I don't know does something to it for me, although you probably can't really tell when you listen to the overall mix. But to next point about the performance, if playing with a certain effects, going to help you perform a little bit better, go with it.
The thing about plugins is I can turn the Reverb off after the fact you know leads real quick. I only like to add a little bit more mids. I might move the mic closer to the cone of the speaker so that it can cut through the mix, you
know? If you've got the same exact tone, as a rhythm sometimes, you know, the lead knows can get lost if you're playing lower lead notes and the other thing I do like delay on my leads but you Nick, you know, we're talking earlier, you know, pre or post, you know, recording within a lot of times I'll put the delay plug-in on the track. So I can hear it in my headphones because that when I'm playing guitar solos that delay does impact the way I play.
So I like to hear and of course plugins I've got the delay on and oftentimes, I'll leave it on ice. I've toyed around with the idea of like, recording with a delay pedal and just you know what, okay, I know it's printed already unless I were to use the DIY of course. But if I just recorded the am, I know it's there and I'll just have to be happy with that or do it over again, you know, I'm always. Okay, doing things open. So but anyway. Yeah, let's listen to you.
You said, put a pin in the one part. We're talking about the Rhythm guitars. Yeah. So as far as fitting your guitar into the mix, it was so it's interesting too because I just had this conversation. With my band. The band I'm in now which is an old man band little bit there isn't work. This you know listen I love it. I'm going to I want to be in bands until my can't play anymore. You know what I mean? Like I enjoy playing music It's my life.
So nothing like it have a little band and we've been writing and stuff like that. And my other guitar players are real guitar had guy. You know like we were talking last time like he came up on Metallica and he he writes one guitar part. I write I write for two guitars, he writes for one guitar so he's very nobody in very shreddy and like there's not a lot of room in what he does. I right one guitar does one thing won't be tired as the
other thing. But anyway We were we were jamming this past weekend and we were talking about tone and he's like I don't know man your tones as fucking it sounds so dark and led me to believe you're black and I'm like right on I'm like what do you get know like what are you missing in it? So I went over to the presence knob on the 5150 and turned it
up and I'm like is it this? And he's like yeah he's like there it is, that's the total and that's that's what the fuck I've been missing, that's what's up and I'm like okay I would immediately cut that. Out of the reason that's not in the mix, now is because that presence region that 3 to 4 K. Is this? Like, you know, the that gets cut pretty quickly and mixing, you know what I mean? Like, I don't, I don't like that in my mixes. That's where the vocals go. So super important Point dude.
Man suit, you know what I mean? Like I like I like mids in my guitar like they don't sound. It doesn't sound you know fantastic. When you're just sitting there playing it by yourself but in a mix it sounds incredible. And I'm a big-picture guy. So he had me turn up the presents and I turned up the presents and blah blah blah and I'm sure it sounds good and I'm sure the next time that we play it's going to sound like a hot mess. But listen, if he's happy then I'm happy like whatever.
But when it comes to that, To that point J of what you're talking about like like it only matters in the context of the mix. So like I would move your shit around so that it retains as much of the signal is as humanly possible. With letting the other stuff be in the place that it's supposed to be in. And it, you know, I there's a guy that I follow. Who's pretty famous? Who was this this famous line that if everything is loud. Nothing is loud. Hmm. Good point and something.
That's that's a huge thing. Like everyone should have everyone. That makes the should have that on a sign in their studio in big bold letters because it's super super important. And I mean when you You start getting into that kind of thing. It's more about like what is this frequency? Sound like, I want to talk a little more about that, man about the frequencies. Like I you you mentioned how this is where the vocals sit? Well I don't want my presence you know sitting in that Arena
from the guitar, right. Same thing with base would you say maybe you don't need as much bass in your tart tongue because that starting to get into the bass guitar frequencies. Maybe the cake like can we talk a little bit more just about frequencies when it comes to dialing in the car?
I made it to pants like it depends on how much your base is doing what your base is doing and I think a lot of people get into bands and they you know, have one guitar player bass player or two guitar players in a bass player and especially in stuff where there's drop two innings. Again like it's important to Know Your Role. It's important to know. Like like if you zoom out and go are I what am I really doing here?
Yeah, you know and if your bass player is just taking up get a little bit of clanking sub information, like that's totally fine and not only not only is that not a wasted Endeavor, it's a very important piece of the band to have, but if you're playing them like, you know, drop a there, drop b or ghetto, like be standard. If you're playing like a baritone, Tuning or extended tuning or even like, I mean, let's not even get into like like eight string.
Tuning is like, f, you don't even need to have a base like periphery has three 8-string guitars. Now, they don't have a bass player. Yeah. Really. I don't know. Also animals is leaders, I think to they're just Animals As Leaders is never on a bass player. Yeah, they're just okay, guys, I'm behind the times 8-string guitars, man. Well, I mean, that's that's a whole different conversation like pumping and stuff like that. Teachers thumping and it's a it's a classical technique.
It's unbelievable. But anyway, it's important to know, you know what I mean? It's important to know where your stuff is sitting. I guess it's really not that important to the Layman to the late musician or whatever. But if your production minded, you might want to think about these things, right? I don't like if you start going okay, I was just going to say, it can really help in a live show. Setting enjoy having that awareness because now you're just How many live shows?
Do we go to right? And the sound sucks, right? And it's like, part of that can be. Also something that can be contributed by the musician to make it easier. Because sometimes, you know, you get to a venue, let's say they don't have a lot, but they have maybe just like am a keyboard and a Mac, you can do something, but it's not like it's powerful as a digital board where they can do surgical moves. And on top of that, you have like limited time to do, things like that.
So if you are come in with a little bit more of a okay, let me make this a little A bit easier for a mixer to make my live show sound better now, you're getting off to a better head start, right? You're already cutting down some time on what it takes to get your mix in the live room to sound great. So I just want to thank you learn to make sure yourself. Yeah. If you can learn to mix yourself in the room.
Holy shit and Stage volume. Like I miss it another huge conversation week and I'd love to talk also about that because there's there's always been an argument about oh, you know, well we need to have the guitar cabinet super loud because that's how we get all this saturation tone, which, you know, definitely is a thing, you know, Drive expression from from the woofer itself. But that you all you have to do is get the The tone loud enough to drive the speaker, anything
beyond that is nonsense? Wow. Okay. So tell me more about that. Yeah, let's talk about that man. Yeah, because if you want Peak guitar tone, if you want to know where your guitar tone hits, the Apex, it's when it starts driving the speaker just loud enough to drive the speaker and you're done after that. All you're hearing is like it's the same concept of like when you're mixing. And you make something louder. Does it sound better? You know what I mean?
Like if you have mix a and it's a one-volume and mixed be is a louder volume. He say all right, which one sounds better to the lame ending. You play the louder one, they're going to go that one because it's louder. You know what I mean? Or if it has a more trouble in it, it's the same exact thing. Like it's you're fooling yourself by increasing perceived volume when you turn up the amplitude, that's what happens. So you have to do is go to drive the speaker.
The speaker is Moving without woofer is moving. Like you said. Yeah, my caught more, my thought process on this is coming a little bit more from let's say microphones because at a certain point microphones will distort and there's actually four for the amount of flex that a microphone can do. There's also like a limit to how accurate that representation ends up being inside the Which I think they call intermodulation Distortion.
So, I'm wondering if it's the same thing with when it comes to like a speaker. So, we have that, let's say it's pushing too much, right? Does it start acting more like, it's being Ultra Limited in that case, and it's not even a good tone to even try and go for because now you're that that's more of a gain thing. That a volume thing like, You know, once you have your gay and dialed in, like once you have your tone dial, then, whatever like turning it up.
The point, I'm making, is it turning it up past a certain point? Is it going to do anything to your tone? Yeah. Now, if you're playing the VFW, And they have a very small PA turn your amps up. You know what I mean? If you're playing some venue that that's get a thousand, you know, 5,000 seat venue or whatever, turn your amp down, We have to know, like what the pa is doing. Like what? The job of the PA is. The job of the PA is to throw your, you know what I mean?
Like, the front of house is gonna mix that and bring that to the the audience. Like, that's not the job of your amp, like, your stage volume, and all of that will come through your monitor. A lot of people don't know that especially people that are used to playing smaller venues, when they go to play big thing, it was early. What is this bullshit? And it's like, no, dude, you don't need your hands to be that loud. It ruins the mix. Right?
And that's a difference Age. We that's the difference. We call, I think back line reinforcement to actual full on sound reinforcement, right? So when you're in a smaller venue, right? It's easier for your, you know, equipment to kind of take a little bit more of its own. I, you know, place in sound and just having the system just kind of back that up a little bit versus. Now you have full on know, we're using the system as the primary Sound Source here. So, Yeah, that's a good point.
I did a show Once where I was, I was doing a band downstairs and a band upstairs and the room downstairs was really small and really shitty, it was, it was kind of like a tunnel, you don't? I mean, it's like an old hardcore venue and I had the PA there, I had the kick and snare. From the drums and the vocals going through the pa. The rest of my was I told the guys in the band was like, turn your ramps up until I tell you not to they did.
Sounded amazing upstairs was a full probably 1500 person venue the digital board. Literally the exact opposite, literally the exact opposite and I was running up and down the stairs, all night doing this board, and this board or whatever. But I mean, yeah, knowing that stuff. ask someone that that's creative and whatever in and, you know, having that it, as part of your skill set, it just puts you so far ahead of the Curve, You know?
It's my and again my their guitar player I'm in a band with this guy now. And he's like, he has this, this board this line 6 or whatever that, you know, healings doing digital. He what's that the Helix right? The land sakes Helix he's playing well, I don't know, I don't know what it is. He's, it's, it's something where he can like dial in the stage on his iPad, like, you know, he can, he can dial it all in and then send it to the sound guy.
They just have the sound guy, turn it up, and I'm like, bro, the sound guy has a job to do. Because he knows that room. Like, why are you doing his job for him? Look what like I'm like, are you out of your mind? You're going to, you're going to mix our band and then just leave it statically and make no adjustments as we're playing like Yeah, I can't think of a worse idea. How much let the sound guy. Be the salaries we were going to go to shitty song? I'm like, no, you're not.
Not if you have like a good solid tone and uuo in there, knowing what you have to do, like, they'll dial the room and you know what I mean? It's easy peasy. Yeah, the moral of the story here is, is as a guitar player, and I know that's guitar players we can be as little snobby sometimes with the tone, but it's a good idea to just, listen and trust and work with your sound engineer. Not against the sound engineer. Always, always, it's so hard.
I remember when I was a kid and the Egos and Just the way I was when I was young versus the way, I am now knowing what I know. Now, you know, again, if I had known, then what I know now and just like disrespecting their gear and just shitting all over their opinions like they would somebody would try to tell me something I'm like you can't tell me shit the fuck out of my face you know, looking back to it now I'm just like ah what a fucking idiot piece of shit. I was a punk rock about it.
You just ruined your sound. So great job, Tech. That's you know what I mean is important. But I mean personally I'd rather focus more first. We're talking about recording, going back to the studio, my core focus is more on the song itself and it's this song resonating with me, is it you know, in my bringing something out that's within me, you know? And that's important to me. So definitely like vocals and lyrics are probably more important than anything than the guitar.
You know tone and playing live. Well, I'd rather be playing, you know, I don't want to. I feel like we're bashing the shit out of guitar players right now and I don't want to pretend. It wasn't what you say a little bit you know it's okay. Now this is the thing is that like guitar players are super super super fucking important and I mean obviously it's the most talked-about thing-- for a reason.
Sure it's not to say that what you're doing is an important or that tone isn't Horton. It's just, it's only important up to a point to a certain point. Write to me, at least, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not going to sit here and pretend like tone isn't King. Like tone is King. Dude, we gotta the better your tone, you know? But there's a fucking, there's a, there's a cut-off to that is the point. I'm trying to make like, get your tone good and then, all right, good.
You know what I mean? Like, let's keep it moving like that, that One DB of trouble that you add. It is. Not, you know, and in a studio setting it's totally moot but live, it's almost just as movie, you know what I mean? Like, yeah. Now also, analyze, don't overanalyze, don't overthink your tone, get it to a good point. And okay, let's go with that. My final question to both of you as you are both guitars, right? I want to know at what point in
your career. Did you disassociate from being too focused on? On something like that to seeing the bigger picture. Maybe we'll start with Jason in this case first. Give me a five played in a live setting. Pretty much my entire life at some capacity since I was 15 years old or 16. I'll say a started playing at 15, played with bands, played a lot of churches, played a lot of solo acts all that good stuff back in the day. I was dead set on playing through my DigiTech her P10 processor.
I ran it through a PV Bandit amp to 12 and then later I got a crate. Full stack. I believe it wasn't remember the model, but is 120 watt solid-state stack. But I ran my DigiTech through those clean channels. So, it might even be safe to say my tone may have not been that great back then. I don't quite remember when I record it. I recorded direct with that processor, and that's what I primarily use. But it was the sound that I like. So, I was pretty picky about
that. But I'd say over the past because nowadays, I record with my life and my evh 5150, Him and some plugins. I got specific set of plugins, I use and that's just my go-to. I've gone back and forth on things a few times. But I'd say probably about three or four years ago. I'm like, you know what, I have, what I like I'm going to stop going down this Rabbit Hole of like, gotta find a nest next best amps in. Do this new product just came out the quad cortex, this that
and the other. And we're, you know, we got all these new things coming out like every week. It seems like and I just don't care so much anymore. I like the sound. I have, I might switch. To something else. I won't necessarily call that an upgrade. Oh, just me be doing something different, for the sake of doing something different. You know, if, if you know, I'm playing solo acts right now.
I played those selects acoustic a little bit electric mainly through the Pod go Line, 6 Pod go, is it the absolute best tone or guitar player is going to come out? It's like oh I love your tone. Probably not quite a few compliments on it here and there, you know but it fits it just works and it's to me in some things in life.
You get to the point where, you know, good enough is that Perfection. Because as we talked about once you get to that point and go beyond that, you're just tweaking and doesn't really sound better after the two hours. You spent tweaking? I don't know. So anyway, I'd say it happened about three, four years ago for me. Wow Nick you want to, you want to tag onto that? I don't even remember what the question was. I was so what Jay, so intently and what like, what AJ, what do
you mean? What a, what a, what point did you go from focusing much on tone to focusing on the bigger picture? It's hard. That's a hard question, I guess. Maybe around like 20 years ago
or so. about 20 years ago or so when I was in my 20s was around the time that I could start to afford the gear that I always wanted, it started to wind up with like half sacks and you know, and Marshalls and all sorts of good tones and stuff like that, and You know, it was that was the Step Up from the old like playing with combo amps and stuff like that. Like shit that you really didn't want to be playing with, you know what I mean? But I mean it's important to say
to that. I'm not really a guitar player like I'm not exclusively a guitar player, I don't like like my man. Dina was a guitar player, you know what I mean? He'll fucking Play like the Berkeley kids. You know what I mean? Eight hours a day for years and years and years like that kids a fucking guitar player. I'm not. I'm a Pianist, you know. I just like playing the guitar which is a huge distinction so I don't want you to get it
twisted. But yeah, around 20 years ago or so. Like when we started to be able to use those, you know, that high end gear, that quality gear was around the time where I really started to stop mattering because I would see people do this thing that I'm explaining this this the forever switching out, amps and forever, fucking chasing down this, this You know, elusive tone that's always over the next Horizon, not all, it's just over the next Horizon.
It's just over the next Horizon and like, like I'm all for like, you know, bettering your sound and making things sound cooler and stuff like that. But like again, you know, like I said last podcast, they do it in a vacuum, they sit in and play in front of the ramp Ad nauseam, too close to the ramp because they have to go back and forth to the I'll attend. It's just And to me like back them, like once I got something that sounded really good. I was like, okay, that's the
sound I was looking for. You know what I mean and it's changed over the years, it hasn't stayed static but I mean in 20 years it's probably moved from you know Gibson through Marshall to PRS through 5150, you know what I mean. Like there's there's huge differences in those tones and you got to know which one of those tones you want to use but Like the the tweaking of the tone is an endless, like it get
a tone that sounds good. And like our here, we go, let's go. Let's fucking go, you know what I mean? It's not You know what I'm saying? Yes, so one, final question, I think just to kind of round off our conversation of all of this, which one's more important, a higher quality guitar, or a higher quality amplifier, or are they both or? Is it? None of them? Wow, man. That's a, I think.
I mean, me, personally, I might would choose the higher quality guitar, and now, let me preface by Saying that doesn't mean it has to be some, you know, 2,000 or 5,000 dollar guitar. What I would say is like I do most of the middle of the road guitars in my opinion that are anywhere between like 900 and maybe 1,500, maybe a little more these days, like an Ibanez Prestige, like a the ESP LTD models there there m-1000. I'd rather have the guitar only because that's going to impact
my performance. If I have a crappy guitar and it doesn't play, Well, and it just is just crap. Well, I could be playing through the most awesome rig ever, but I'm not going to get my typical performance out of it, you know. So I mean, I don't want to play through a crappy amp but if you're giving me a choice which one you know, I'll make the best with the hiring guitar as opposed to a crappy guitar. Okay. Nick I have so much to say about this so much to say Why must eat?
Here we go. Alright so first of all, when it comes to guitars I don't think price matters that much I think once you so in my experience there's a tear of guitar which is like $50 to about $250 where you're going to get a similar playing instrument and then there's 250 to about 600 where you're going to get a similar playing instrument and then dollars and up in my experience. And that means, six hundred dollars all the way to 18 thousand dollars.
There's not going to be a huge amount of difference, dude, the guitar behind me, the PRS. It sitting on the wall is $1300. It's got a plastic nut. It's plastic. I mean it it's a joke. Like does it play good? Yeah, it's it plays. Okay, you know what I mean? But I had a PRS, it was $600. It doesn't play better than that. The So did the extra you know, 700 hours that I spent on that guitar did not change the
playability of the guitar. So first if you can get a guitar in the six hundred dollar range, I think you'll be set forever. And I think, what's more important than getting? It's a guitar that's expensive is a guitar that you can play well. Yeah, that you can play well specifically the one, because that's your interface. You know what I mean, man. Like if you can find one that your hands love you, Cool. The other huge consideration is, are you playing what kind of music are you playing?
Like are if you're playing shreddy 80s metal you better have a high-end guitar because the cheaper their guitar, the more you're going to lose intonation. You know what I mean? The wood is going to be cheaper, you're going to get compressed particle. Would your truss rods? Aren't going to be as good if they're just they're not going to be as well.
Built, if you're playing Rhythm guitars and your way down at the bottom of the neck and you know, you're barely getting up past the fifth fret, you can have a two hundred dollar, Jackson the fucking rips for that. I put a laundromat in it that motherfucker got about it, but I mean, and again, I have to tune it, you know, every time that I play a song. Yeah, because it's not well built in that way.
So I'm, you know, I would lose that. and as far as amps go like, If you like the way the tone sounds, that's all that matters, you know what I mean? Like, if you're happy with it, like I said, like, once you get to that level of gear where you can get like a good Half Stack with selections or Sheffield some like by an app that you like, like a nice head or whatever. Or even now looking nice processor, like the quad cortex are like the helix or something
like that. Like if you can get something like that and get a good sounding Tony you like that's all that. Otters. So like, I, you know, I skirted the question by trying to explain away my answer and the answer. Good answer Nick. Well, the answer is what's your priority, okay? If you're doing something like Jays doing where you, you know, you need to be in the upper parts of the fretboard. Buy more expensive guitar, because you're going to lose that.
If you're a rhythm guy, you can get away with a cheaper guitar and maybe spend more money on an amp. That would be my answer for that. Great You talk about a real quick though. We were talking about because I know they're making really great solid state like the orange. They have a new solid state a out and I haven't played through one yet. I'm hope play through one at the local guitar store. Replay, Guitar, Exchange coming up. When I go there next week or actually, it's this week, will
you is there a huge difference? Nick? And it's the whole probably different conversation but tubes versus solid state, when we're talking about amplifiers, Of course, of course, it's huge. Huge huge. I mean, with tubes, you get that really, you get a warmer tone. Okay. A my opinion, you know what, I made you get a round. It out lower mid, there's a reason why when that technology was invented that people have been chasing that tube amp sense.
You know what I mean? And that's been a standard. Does that mean that there's not a place for solid-state? No, no there for sure is and I made Especially like, if you're doing something that's colder sounding, or if you have some kind of modeling, like I saw a band, right? A couple of years ago and they all had real high-end, a modelers running through solid state amps. And you can't tell the difference, you know what I mean? Because the technology is there
now. So, that would be my answer for that. Like, what I record? A solid-state. Sure contextually if the context was right, you know what I mean? But again, like I don't even I don't even really go into the analog world anymore. You know, as far as guitar goes because what's going on in digital is is you know I can't remember if we talked about this last time or not, but like this idea of like the old analog guy is like having a mica cab and get that sounded blah, blah,
blah, blah. The sound that they were looking for all along that they're eventually going to come to is the one that My DIY now. So you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. The fucking the default sounds that come with. Like most of these plugins are what these analog guys were looking for all the time and if they could hear they would lose their mind, would you say these plugins are kind of like you just said, I think you just said decision, that's the end result what we plug into when we plug
the guitar and are face. Pull up. Our favorite amp Sim and play through that Mesa sem or whatever it is 5150. That's the end result at the That we were looking for recording that tube amp, right? Just like if you were to zoom out enough than that's it, like I all I care about is the record and how does it sound, right? Right. You know what I mean? Like if you can get a good sound doing what you're doing, great.
If I can get a good say like at the end of the day, like if I record a record and I go through this and, you know, I've talked to Ken about this a bunch. I think we even talked about it last time we were talking about like analog versus in the Box. Poor people are always talking about how good their five thousand dollar compressor Rose and I'm like, that's cool. Yeah, it does. Anyone notice it on the record Or people like holy shit, man. That's incredible.
Like, how did you get that sound? He's like can only get to sound with this compressor versus the guy that works in the Box. It hasn't you know and equally good sounding record. Look, nobody gives a fuck outside of us, right? It's just a cell gear, dude. At the end of the day, like if it sounds good, it is good. So that means up another point, you know, and maybe this is for our, You guitar players, listening out there and it's hard for us to adapt new things and change.
Sometimes I get that totally get that I've had many flaws. So in my thinking, over the years as a musician in other areas too but you have to ask yourself at the end of day, am I writing a record for just musicians and guitar player so they can say, oh, what a great tone. How did you get that tone? Or are you writing a record for people that like that style of music? I think there's a little bit different mindset that goes on
there. That's a whole Rabbit Hole of a conversations and musicians playing the musicians, right? Yeah. Some great memes about that when I That's not a thing. We've been playing for other musicians, our whole lives but you know it's so funny. When another musician walks in the room, the way you're playing
changes. Oh man, you know, but I did that we get over like like we were we were talking about before the podcast Jay about get all expectations and you know managing before you even go into the situation that you're going into having a vanishing point, that's way way down. You know, obviously in the distance of again, know, thyself, what are you writing quote? What's the, what's the purpose? What's the purpose of this record be running? Is it music inside you?
That's just needs to come out. You've always wanted to write like there's that's the best, you know, that's the shit if you're writing it to go on the radio that's fine. But you know what I mean, we have to have a conversation. All right, you know what I mean? Like all those things are really, really important to consider. I think everything with intention. Yes, I like that. Yes. I like that. At least, you know, some forethought into it whether or not it executes that way is
another story. But you know what I mean? They get it. You might, you could have all the best intentions in the world and have it turn out like dog shit. And vice versa, you can go into it, totally blind. And come up with the most amazing thing ever, but you know, Back to the conversation of, you know, working with your engineer and other professionals rather than working against them. You know, I always tell myself, I don't want to be my own
weakest link. So we're in the studio and no Nick were to say to me. Hey man, I'm going to, I would say hey you know what, Nick just change the tone to whatever you think fits best. I'm just going to play the music and I'm going to trust your judgment on that, you know, unless it's something I just completely don't like but I really can't imagine that being the case with You because you
makes Rock and metal music. So, you know, and I think there's are not saying you have to take all of that, right? I mean, maybe there's something I might want to change but again we're working with your sound engineer and a producer versus working, you know, against them. I think that's important and important. Takeaway sure. And and again, it's the same concept as ghetto getting that initial tone and and then leaving it alone.
Know what I mean? Like, I think and having the conversation of like, look, is this tone going to sound good in the mix? Like what are we, what are we searching for in the mix and like there's all different levels at that? But yeah, I that's one of the reasons that you try to find a producer whose like-minded. Like I made a few come into dual metal record with me, any genres, a metal like a guarantee. You it's not going to sound like shit.
Same thing with the rock record and stuff like that, you know? I mean if you describe your vision to me like we'll get it done, but I'm all about healthy. Back. I'm not about nitpicking feedback. Yeah, the nonsense like to like shut the fuck up. You know what I mean? Like, if you want to talk about the difference between like the sound of a marshal or an orange, or a 5150, or a Randall, you know what I mean?
If you want to have those conversations and try a couple of those different amps, out contextually, I am all fucking for that if we're going to endlessly tweak knobs for 5 hours like, no, we're not doing that. Yeah, Target our zone, five hours ago, man. Fucking ruled and what are you doing? You know, yeah. Learn to trust the process because the whole point of a sound engineer in that situation is to try to make it fit into the bigger picture.
And, you know, sometimes you have to just learn to let go. And I mean, let's go, let's Circle it all the way back to the beginning of this this podcast and just know thyself.
You know what I mean? If you because, in everyone, Plays metal and every one of his punk rock thinks that what they're doing is the most unique thing and they have blinders on and stuff like that and even get to this just take a step back and go. Nah man, I'm just a metal band, you know, I mean we're just a metal band, we're just a punk band, we're just a rock band, you know what I mean?
And if you do that, then you can then understand that there's an entire Army of people that understand what you're trying to do and are there to help you like the sound guy that guy. He's not an idiot, he's not going to fuck your shit up. You know what I mean? Like with with some I'm
exceptions. I'm sure but like, that guy knows the room and if he's used to dial in a metal like let him die in, I'll take care of you, you know, I mean, if you go to a producer, who knows how to do these things like, Chris. Mm. Yeah, and like you mentioned what bands? Like you mentioned asking will what bands do you sound like? And I'm like, whoa no no we don't sound like anyone rear original. I think it's important to in your music. Sam be original because you wrote it.
But I think it is important to say, well I'm I am kind of going for this Vibe here in here. Maybe a mixture of that, that even goes in, this is another conversation for another day, but that even goes back to marketing. Can you? And I were taught this in marketing that you know? Well what do you sound like this? This is how you develop your audience my last record Masterpiece.
I said, hey if you like him on a Mars and you like Megadeth because those those are two different styles and that's kind of what this record sounded like. Well those are the people that are probably going to like my album, right? That's, that's kind of what I
was what I was going for. So I think it's important maybe too kind of associate yourself with, you know, some bands that you're similar to because you want to get the Right audience listening as well because it is certainly Not an insult to your creativity. Right? It's just a way to make your sound clear, its communication? Yeah. It's, it's a communicative
device. Like, if you're if you say, you know what we're Heavy band and I really like the vibe, the UK, see strains putting out That's communicate you. You've just communicated something huge to me. Like, I know that band, I love that band. Like I know what you're looking for a nautical after it, I know what to do. If you come in to me and say, you know, I'm a heavy band and we're just, I don't know, man. We're just kind of just kind of doing our own thing.
Like I'm lost. You haven't communicated shit to me. You know what I mean? I appreciate I'm an artist, I appreciate the need to be unique for the want to be unique, but I mean, again, zoom out. Like, do you have Verse Chorus Verse going on? Because you're not, that's not unique, answer, pop, music minutes is pop music and there's nothing wrong with fucking pop music. I love pop music. Yeah, but know what it is. The for Magical chords, right?
You know in one other thing to guys you guys listening, if you're not sure what you sound like and you really like, you know, I really don't know. Know if you have a following any type of following on social media or wherever you know, post a clip a short clip of one of your songs out there and ask your audience, they will tell you your audience loves to be a part of that process. Can I this is something you and I learned as well put a song out there.
Put just a short clip out there something that you put together and just ask them. Hey, can you guys name? Three bands? This reminds you of and they will tell you and that's something you can take back to your produced through your recording engineer.
And just get a better, you need more clarity on what you're trying to do. And, you know, every once in a while, something rolls around, that's really, really hard to define, or put into a box, you know, a new genre gets created or like a really new sounding sound, like I said, The Acacia Strain like in the early days of Deathcore.
Like you know that was a kind of a new sound like that's that's really hard to explain and if that's the case that's fine like if you're if you don't have a band to explain it like if there's like Spirit Box Like who the fuck sounds like Spirit Box? You know what I mean? Like you're going to be going to go into the studio and be like, you know, oh yeah, we want to sound like ex white. Like no dude. That's a brand new sound. Like that's brand-new, like, I
didn't sound like anything. That's mental, you know, like that's okay. But be aware. And if you are in a situation where you're doing something really avant-garde and unique click, that's what the fuck is up. Like that's, that's the Apex, that's the cream of the crop. But if you're not, that's okay too. If you're just a guy that likes
to play metal, that's fine. You know like I know what my band sounds like and it makes me really happy to play the music and I think it's Unique sounding or whatever. Does that mean? I can't give you a couple references of what I want it to sound. Like no sir, I have all the references. If I was gonna send it out to a mixer right now, fucking forget about it, but a list of mixer, a list of references. you know, I
mean, yeah. And on that note, let's take it away because this is all about what we're trying to put out there, right about creating your own sound and knowing yourself is a big part of that, right? Jason, this is a huge part of that you know, I want you guys listening to focus on creating your own sound, you focus on being original. In other words, you know, don't necessarily go into it, trying
to sound like another band. That's not the goal but understand it your influences you've had over the years, you will naturally. Really come out of them. You know, it's natural for my wrist to kind of mimic not as a really sound like, but be similar to what you would hear from the older Metallica Megadeth stuff like that. I love bands, like I'm on a Martha. I love Nightwish, you know, there's a hint of that in some songs bands, like Evergreen, you know, there.
Another finished band, like, you'd left the European metal. They just had this just different vibe but you know, go into it. Yeah, you're going to write your original music, it's going to be original because you wrote it right? But Next Point, you're still going to have a version of course and so forth. Right? You're going to have those elements in there. There's nothing wrong with that and there's nothing wrong. I'm about being able to give references to what you sound like.
That's okay. That's actually a good thing. That means you have an audience because at the end of the day, you can make all the records you want and spend hours, tweaking Tom, but if no one's listening to your music, well it goes back to that conversation. Nick about you talking about. Are you making this just to have? Nothing out there. So yeah, I did it for my
friends. My five friends listen to, or do you want to create something that's going to have some sort of movement, in the market so well, and, and I think it's a really important thing to say. And I maybe should have said this before we even started. But I mean, being this harsh about guitars being this, get this, this super dickish about guitars. Is about trying to maximize creativity. Not minimize it.
It's not about shutting people down, it's about focusing on what matters and does guitar tone matter. Yes. But it only matters to a point. That's that's the point that I'm trying to make. And I mean I don't want anyone to think like what the fuck is this guy talking about? Like he told me not to be creative. No, be creative, but be creative. Where it matters? You know, don't let your tone hinder, you don't let the hours
of tweaking his? Under you from being creative so that don't let it restricted you decide to write that man until the right. How many guitars do I know that waste hours and hours and hours of their life trying to fucking dial in distorted guitar and I'm like, bro you have three knobs on that amp. You fucking kidding me thought within a let's go like you you know what I mean? Like, endlessly tweaking frequencies has. Come on, man. Well of it, dude.
Nick, it has been a pleasure. Pleasure having you on man? I love the wisdom that you're sharing with this dude. And all of you folks listening right now. I know that you got some valuable gold nuggets. They go back and listen to this again and I encourage you guys break out a notepad, get an old-school notepad or you take some notes, man. A lot of things will just Lodge in your head and, and you'll retain it a lot better because Nick brought up some extremely valid points.
I think will help you guys, guys want, thank you once again for listening, Nick. Thank you again for being on here, man, priest. Brother pleasure service, real quick plug guys. Free in the show. Go over to metal Mastermind.com. Nick actually has a complete course. We just made a major upgrade to that course there's four completely different mixing scenarios, it's called metal producer Overlord, the mixing Series. So look for that on metal Mastermind.com guys. Grab a copy of that.
That's going to help you tremendously. Give you a lot of value there. So guys, thank you once again for listening. As always create your Your own sound.