Saturday, November 16, 2024
GuitarGuitar Effects

Clean Guitar Tones – Why You Need Drive.


Ive been a music producer for the last 20 years and in all my time recording guitars in the studio, the ones that really cut through the mix are clean tones with an amount of breakup. In this video, I explain and then record a guitar part once clean and one with a certain amount of breakup. The Studio Rats are core band members Paul Drew on guitar/production/mixing, drummer James Ivey and Dan Hawkins on bass. They collaborate with singers and musicians to produce radio-ready songs.

#Clean #Guitar #Tones #Drive

Originally posted by UCW-S0JAM1Rtte4lU0HsD8BA at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y5RmgILnKM

22 thoughts on “Clean Guitar Tones – Why You Need Drive.

  • Totally different aesthetic and emotional choices, IMO. This isn't just a matter of what sits better in a mix, but it's a totally different artistic decision.

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  • I used to hate my compressor pedal (dynacomp) because it sucked all the highs out. That's until I discovered that of I put an OD (Hotcake) after it with next to no drive, plenty of volume and the tone lifted a little,.it brought back the sparkle and then some. I can't believe I'm using my OD as an always on EQ thing now, but it works.

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  • I appreciate your insight, but I have to disagree. Your breakup tone has a time and a place, but clean, it is not. You can't get away with that tone in a funky rhythm guitar for example, and there you throw a bit of clean compression in front to make up for what you perceive as "weakness" in the tone. The edge-of-breakup thing is in fact, doing exactly that, giving you some compression so the sound appears fuller. Many great 80's clean tones are squeaky clean and they work perfectly well in the mix. Compression and a bit of mids will rescue a weak clean tone every time.

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  • What a great demonstration!
    I am an acoustic/classical player and have been learning electric for the past couple of years.
    Hearing that A vs B comparison with and without gain is very helpful. Thanks!!

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  • Nice demo at the end. It seemed like the inherent compression helped as much as the breakup.

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  • I tend to record 2 guitar tracks simultaneously: one direct, dry, no effects and one the way I’d like to hear as a final result in the mix. Sometimes the processed track isn’t exactly what I aimed for, in which case I re-amp and process the dry track until the desired result is obtained… My 2 ç

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  • I remember in Amplitube 2 VST plugin there was a preset "Studio DI" for clean guitar, and it was awesome and clinically clean. And yet it used a tube compressor in the signal chain

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  • Beautiful playing Paul. Yeah like yourself I tend to prefer a slightly dirty clean sound. Like your Amp1 by the way. I got the Mercury edition and it is so versatile! Cheers.

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  • Always use my guitar volume, good example ,use a clean amp channel ,turn your guitar volume down a bit ,it’s gone . Drive channel ,ride the volume and picking attack ,all kinds of tones ????

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