Fletcher-Munson and all that... What's the deal?

[Adam_F]

Ok, so we all know our tones will sound different at different volumes...

But...

 

I created a tone based on Grinder by Judas Priest, at a relatively high volume - it sounded close enough.

 

Then when I turned down the volume - as expected, the tones changed - both my tone and the tone of recorded guitars, but while my tone went from "close enough" to "can of buzz", the sound of the original didn't change THAT much... It was still punchy.

 

So, what's the deal...?

Why does the tone created in helix change so much more than the recorded tone?

 

Cheers!

[qwerty42]

You've just discovered why mixing and mastering are entire skilled professions unto themselves ;)

 

The recorded tone you're comparing against is a polished and produced mix, likely with careful eq cuts and boosts to fit everything into the mix and also make it sound consistent at different volumes.

 

Your Helix tone, on the other hand, probably isn't as close to that recording as it seems. It likely has some frequencies missing or boosted in a number of places, such that at a certain volume, it sounds in the ballpark, but those subtle differences get magnified as you move away from that volume.

 

This isn't because the Helix is doing a bad job, nor you for that matter. This is because crafting final, production-quality album tones is an ability most people don't possess. Also, if you're comparing your tone soloed against the original guitar still in the original mix, that'll also be misleading. Mixed guitar often sounds pretty awful by itself because of what is done to it to make it sit nicely in the mix, but when you add all the parts together it sounds nice and full.

 

If you have a match eq plugin like Izotope Ozone, it can be pretty fascinating to compare your closest matches to original studio stems. In my case, I've gotten things that sounded very close to my ear, but the match eq applied a bunch of tiny tweaks that I never would've keyed into otherwise, and they made all the difference when my tone-matched recordings were dropped into the original mixes.

 

 

[cruisinon2]

4 hours ago, Adam_F said:

Ok, so we all know our tones will sound different at different volumes...

But...

 

I created a tone based on Grinder by Judas Priest, at a relatively high volume - it sounded close enough.

 

Then when I turned down the volume - as expected, the tones changed - both my tone and the tone of recorded guitars, but while my tone went from "close enough" to "can of buzz", the sound of the original didn't change THAT much... It was still punchy.

 

So, what's the deal...?

Why does the tone created in helix change so much more than the recorded tone?

 

Cheers!

 

Inside and outside a mix are two wildly different worlds...a guitar tone that sounds magnificent amidst drums, bass, vocals, etc etc, can easily sound like a wounded moose on its own. Don't even bother comparing them... at any volume. It's a waste of time.

[gunpointmetal]

@qwerty42 pretty much nailed it. A big part of mixing/mastering is making sure that a mix sounds big and full at any volume, guitar on its own it would be very hard to manage that. As @cruisinon2 said, album guitar tones rarely sound as good on their own. There are also lots of little tricks used like side-chain EQ'ing, compression, using different tracks for parts where the guitar is on its own versus in with the rest of the band, that make everything SEEM consistent and "big" without that being the case. Metal and dense music especially. I remember for a long time people would complain they couldn't hear bass in metal, but they could definitely tell it wasn't there when it was removed.

[Dogaral]

2 hours ago, cruisinon2 said:

 

Inside and outside a mix are two wildly different worlds...a guitar tone that sounds magnificent amidst drums, bass, vocals, etc etc, can easily sound like a wounded moose on its own. Don't even bother comparing them... at any volume. It's a waste of time.

 

Ah.  THIS explains why I sound like a wounded moose when I practice!  So, all I need is a great band and amazing recording engineer and mastering engineer, and I'll sound as good as my favorite tracks?

 

LoLz kidding, kidding.

[brue58ski]

5 minutes ago, Dogaral said:

 

Ah.  THIS explains why I sound like a wounded moose when I practice!  So, all I need is a great band and amazing recording engineer and mastering engineer, and I'll sound as good as my favorite tracks?

 

LoLz kidding, kidding.

 

There's more truth to that than I would like to admit to myself. I would refer to my ears as a little above average in regard to hearing how to fix a sound/patch. Sigh.