What does Ronan have in common with Steve Vai, Frampton, Bonamassa, Eric Johnson, Satriani?

What do I have in common with Steve Vai, Peter Frampton, Joe Bonamassa, Eric Johnson, Bob Bradshaw, Joe Satriani?

We are all subjects of the new book, Tone Wizards: Interviews With Top Guitarists and Gear Gurus On the Quest For The Ultimate Sound, by Curtis Fornadley.

I have to be honest and say that this post is just me being giddy and bragging. I am so honored to be a part of this that I have to pinch myself. To be featured as a tone guru in the same breath as these guys, especially Steve Vai and Eric Johnson, who are not only icons of tone, but musicians whose words and music I spent hours studying when I was learning about guitar recording. Make no mistake; I am not in this book because of my guitar playing chops. It is because of my years in the studio trenches working with the likes of Robert Fripp (King Crimson, David Bowie), Steve Stevens (Billy Idol, BLS), Adrian Belew (Frank Zappa, Talking Heads, Bowie, King Crimson) and Steve Morse (Dixie Dregs, Deep Purple).

The book is massive; 370 pages of really in-depth interviews with an amazing cross section of 17 tone obsessed guitarists and gear builders. Curtis Fornadley was exactly the right guy to make this book. He is a world class guitarist in his own right and also a solid engineer. This book is strongly recommended if you care about getting great tones live or in the studio (even if you are just an engineer and not a guitarist). It only costs $18.99 on Amazon. This is the complete list of people featured in the book:

Joe Bonamassa, Bob Bradshaw, John Carruthers, Cliff Chase, Peter Frampton, David Friedman, Jay Graydon, Scott Henderson, Eric Johnson, Jim Kelley, Jeff Kollman, Ronan Chris Murphy, Joe Satriani, John Suhr, Pete Thorn, Steve Vai and Carl Verheye.

Buy the Print Version of Tone Wizards or the Kindle version

I feel guilty making a post just so I can brag, so I will share one of my favorite tips for mixing rock guitars:

As a guitar player, I love getting giant guitar sounds The bigger the better!!! But, in reality, while giant guitar sounds are fun to play, they do not actually work well on records. A giant guitar sound will eat up all the space in a mix and the end result is usually a final mix that sounds small. One well known trick is to use a high pass filter on the guitar (remember that high pass filter is a fancy name for that EQ that cuts off the low end). By removing or reducing the lowest frequencies of the guitars, we take away some of the frequencies that are covering up the bass and this helps make the low end more articulate. Articulate low end is powerful low end!!!

One thing that is not as commonly known is the benefit of using a low pass filter (fancy name for cuttin’ off the high end). When we distort guitars we are actually creating harmonics or additional higher frequencies above the actual notes played. This is the same for distorting anything, which is why Pro Tools puts all yourdistortion and saturation plugins in a folder called “Harmonic.” Creating all these harmonics is what gives rock guitars their thick sound. We love that!! But even a clean guitar has a really big frequency range. When we strum a distorted chord on a guitar, all the notes, from the lowest to the highest, are creating a series of higher harmonics. Most of these sound really cool, but the higher notes of the guitar are creating some really high frequencies that are downright nasty! This is even more true when using digital amp modelers as opposed to miking a real amp. Don’t take my word for it. Pull up a distorted rock guitar and use a high pass filter on it. Set the filter at around 6-8k (6000 Hz) and take a listen to what is left. Not pretty!!!

So the trick is to now swap that high pass filter for a low pass filter and cut off the high end. I recommend setting your low pass filter at either 6dB or 12dB per octave and experiment with cutting off the stuff somewhere between 5k-10. Start around 10k and gradually lower it until you are starting to lose a little bit of high end excitement but are still getting the character of the guitar part. When you turn the EQ off and on, the guitar might sound a little less exciting in solo mode, but in the mix is where the magic will happen.

1) Getting rid of that nasty fizzy top end of the guitar helps the cymbals and voice become more clear, present and smoother.

2) The energy we get from the cymbals makes us not miss the high end we cut off the guitar.

3) That fizzy high end on the guitar can actually smear articulation of the high-mids on the guitar. As crazy as this sounds, many times the guitar will feel brighter and more forward after we cut off the high end.

I hope that helps a little and if you are into great guitar tone (or even just the creative process of recording guitars) you’ll definitely want to check out Tone Wizards.

Also, the Recording Retreat I am presenting in West Virginia in May, 2016 is already half sold out, 9 months before the event. So if you are thinking of attending you might want to book soon to get a spot (and get the $500 early registration discount).