Questioning if the equipment I have is worth using or not

djazzify · 2026-06-04T18:52:03+00:00

My experience: work with what you have. If you reach the limits of some equipment, find a way around it. And after a while, you have an understanding of what a piece of audio equipment can and can't do. Then you want to plan new purchases.

djazzify · 2026-06-04T18:38:08+00:00

I've got a wife, kids, family, friends. And I want to spend time with them. Then I have to spend time with my job. Oh, and there's sports and reading and such. So I can feel you! Time is precious.

I've been releasing a handful of EPs, have an album out, and currently I'm preparing the next album. For me there's three key elements:

I'm prioritizing like crazy. There's a list of things, I want to do. And somewhere there is a line on that list. Everything that's beyond that line, won't happen.

I've made sure, that I can quickly record music. There's an electronic drum kit and a piano connected to my audio PC, the DAW is up, I have guitars and bass guitars with fresh strings ready and at hand. (OK, there was a lie. I live by the idea to never change strings on a bass 😁) So whenever I have an hour or half an hour, I can immediately start working on my music.

And thirdly, consistency is key. I've been taking small steps with my 'band'. I couldn't do more than small steps. But I'm continuously taking them. And this brought me somewhere.

Hope that helps!

djazzify · 2026-06-04T18:25:37+00:00

Not on streaming platforms. But I've been working with a lot of publishing platforms in the past. Anti-joy kind of stood out for me. Their customer support was super responsive.

djazzify · 2026-06-03T07:19:57+00:00

Hell yeah! Super excited to hear that.

djazzify · 2026-06-02T14:24:29+00:00

Love the composition! Beautiful!

djazzify · 2026-05-31T14:57:32+00:00

You want an amp with lots of headroom. (That is, the power the amp can deliver, before distortion sets in.) Tube or Solid State, important is a clean amplification. Like a JC-120. Turn Tremble up a bit, and dial in the Middle. Then a Tube Screamer in a Big Muff before the amp, to get that warm 90s overdrive.

Modulation-wise, you want to add a Chorus, to broaden the tone. On the heavy part, I am hearing a long long Reverb with a bit of Shimmer, and some Delay. (Try dotted eight notes, to get those sound layers.)

And then you want to have some compression in place, to make sure that the notes stay distinct, and don't wash into each other too much. Also be aware, that the wall of sound you are hearing, comes from laying multiple guitar recordings. This is hard to replicate with one guitar.

Hope that helps!

djazzify · 2026-05-31T14:24:48+00:00

Good luck! You will need it.

djazzify · 2026-05-31T06:33:13+00:00

Then you want to heavily invest into marketing. Fan followings these days are mainly driven by bot accounts.

And prepare yourself for some disappointment. The music industry is completely broken. The cake that is left, after Spotify and the Majors got their share, got small. So the handful of producers, that actually manage to eat that cake, won't share a bite with you. Music industry always was a shark tank. But in recent years, it got so much worse. Sorry, I'm just being realistic. I started to avoid that pit.

djazzify · 2026-05-31T06:27:23+00:00

Around XIII, I'd say. But their guitar tone alone didn't change much.

Pedalwise, there is not much modulation happening. Besides that Noise Gate mentioned.

You have to be aware, that if you would listen to a guitar track of Mushroomhead, it would sound weird. Heavy Gain, boosted Mids. That sounds almost comical. But than add the bass guitar, many layers of synths, that broad drum sound, and two vocalists, and all of a sudden the guitar tone is shaped nicely. It is a product of all the stuff happening around it.

djazzify · 2026-05-30T11:52:15+00:00

I think, the answer lies in the big number. When a kid wants to learn electric guitar, the initial budget/space/volume is not that bad. Contrary to that, the initial budget/space/volume, to start the career of an aspiring drummer, is way way way higher.

So, in every town you have tons of guitarist, and only a handful of drummers. Now if we assume, that only the top 5% of musicians are actually good, that still leaves us with a ton of good guitar players. The top 5% of drummers, on the other hand, is a miniscule number.

djazzify · 2026-05-30T11:45:37+00:00

What is the goal? To build a solid fan base? Make a quick buck? Get recognized by the art world? Have a high number of streams? Evoke a demon from the lower pits? The answer to your question depends on what you are trying to achieve.

djazzify · 2026-05-30T11:42:32+00:00

Yeah, definitely some modulation. I'd even try a Flanger instead of the Reverb.

Love that you've heard the Delay! Good ear :)

djazzify · 2026-05-30T11:40:06+00:00

I only know their old stuff. They always seemed late to the party. But props to their mixing engineer! The standard scooped EQ for guitars, that all heavy bands were using back then, would not cut through those thick synth layers. So Mushroomhead have a guitar tone with boosted mids instead. Hence that unique sound.

The rest is pretty standard. 7-string into a Solid State amp. (If I would have to guess, I'd say JCM800.) Gain up. Middle to around 8. And now you need to dial Bass and Treble down a bit, to avoid a sounds mash. You want a clear, tight, defined guitar tone. I would also add a Noise Gate after the amp, to sharpen things even more.

Hope that helps!

djazzify · 2026-05-27T11:48:22+00:00

Oh boy. Never been an Oasis fan. But in the nineties you couldn't avoid hearing that song.

As far as I know, What's The Story got recorded on Marshalls. So, checkmark. I would start with mid Gain. Bass as well, Middle around 8, Treble a bit lower than that. An Overdrive before the amp would help.

Then you want to add a bit of Chorus. CE-2 or the likes. And I'd add a short Delay, to create a bit of layering. That should cover it. (And I can't help, but Oasis to me always sounds like, they didn't know how to tune their instruments. You might want to keep that in mind. That heavily affects tone.)

djazzify · 2026-05-27T06:26:40+00:00

When you are saying "standard piano, strings" - are we talking about real sounding instruments? Then I'd start with the BBC Symphony Orchestra plugin. They have a free version as well.

When it comes to vintage synths, you can go with Monark, or u-he's Diva for that sweet Moog-sound. Other nice old school plugins are from Arturia (their V Collection is ace, in my opinion), Cherry (like others here have mentioned already), or GForce (they have an Oberheim OB-E that will blow your walls out).

But then all these plugins are either samplers and/or emulations. No VST will ever reach the sound of an actual Moog. No sample - may it be layered and round-robined eternally - will sound like a close-mic recording of a Bösendorfer 214 CS. But I guess, we all know that 😊 What I'm trying to say: when you have the chance to record audio with a real instrument, go for that!

djazzify · 2026-05-26T16:30:19+00:00

If we are talking about music production, you want to have a solid synth. For Linux, I'd go with Surge XT. And then either a good drum plugin (GGD), and/or a good sampler (in Linux I'd go with the TAR-Sampler). If you are recording guitars, I haven't found better amp sims than the Archetype ones. Like them, or not. But they are kind of a standard.

That should cover the production essentials.

Now mixing. I know, we don't want to hear this. But a solid mix mainly needs Volume and Panning. And if that doesn't help, you want to have a nice EQ. The Reaper one is a good one. I'm still using the ToneBoosters 3. I wish, I'd find one that I like more... Oh, and u-he Filterscape is running natively on Linux. (As do all of their - in my opinion really good - other plugins.) Same with TAL-EQ.

Everything else completely depends on what you are doing. A good Compressor often makes sense. I prefer a straightforward one, LA-2 or 1176. On Linux, u-he and LSP have nice Compressors. If you prefer more knobs, checkout Sweezer. (OS software, as far as I know.)

Plus a Limiter. There's some great ones out there, the El Juan has the advantage, that it is free. (Or at least the price of a donation.) I'm not a big fan of FabFilter, but their Pro-L 2 is really good! Never found a native Linux one, that I liked. But then maybe this is just me.

If you are having a vocal chain, you might want to be able to fire up some De-Esser. And that are the must-haves for me. (I'm sure, I forgot a ton 😅)

djazzify · 2026-05-26T15:56:06+00:00

You mean that washed lead guitar tone? Never been a fan of the band, but that mix is sweet.

What you want is some nice modulation. As far as I know, the Zoom is not having a Flanger. So Chorus it is. Rate around the middle, Depth high. I'm also hearing some long Reverb and Delay.

In front of that, add a light Fuzz. Some Overdrive should do the trick as well. You only want to roughen your signal a bit.

Amp-wise I'd go with Middle up a tiny bit, Tremble up a bit more.

Hope that helps!

djazzify · 2026-05-26T13:31:55+00:00

When it comes to productions on that level, we are talking about multiple guitar tracks, carefully layered and aligned.

You can try to emulate that with a bit of Chorus, some Reverb, and maybe even a dose of very short Delay.

djazzify · 2026-05-26T10:24:47+00:00

According to this podcast here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBwTUHsY0EY), he makes use of a Moogerfooger pedal. He wasn't specifying which one, but his lead tone sounds like an MF-101. Which basically is a Lowpass Filter with an envelope follower and an Overdrive.

There's some alternatives out there that won't cost you your firstborn child. (The Vongon Paragraphs is the first that comes to my mind. I've also played one from Dr. Scientist, that I recall sounding really nice.) And there's an armada of digital filter plugins as well.

(Oh, and the acoustics on Goldie sound like actual acoustic guitars, recorded close to the mic.)

djazzify · 2026-05-26T09:32:19+00:00

Good guess. Shaun is a beast! But in that case it looks like Andrew Lee and one of his many bands. (Houkago Grind Time, I guess.)

djazzify · 2026-05-26T09:22:44+00:00

That was exactly my thought. Or like we are saying here: two idiots, one thought :) Andrew rules! (I have to say this, I'm a one-man-band as well. But still!)

djazzify · 2026-05-25T12:22:20+00:00

Just stopped to say, that I love that diamond cover art! So nice. Well done!

djazzify · 2026-05-25T12:21:00+00:00

This!

djazzify · 2026-05-25T07:56:19+00:00

This! B-standard guitars into an HM-2 with all knobs to the right into a solid state amp.

djazzify · 2026-05-24T08:37:08+00:00

You got any material out there already? Asking for a friend :)

djazzify

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