"So what has been done with the guitar sounds? If not Rectifier or Marshall, what then, you might ask. And the answer would be ("None. None more black."): Line6 PODxt Pro. (Pause...) Beating Rectifier? Seriously? Well, according to Daniel and Johan, the trick is to do everything from scratch. "All factory sounds suck so much I don't even know where to start." says Daniel. When it comes to distortion, they both want close guitar sounds, having the cabinet and power-amp working harder than the pre-amp and drive. "Johan made a very good starting point for the distorted sounds - a Spinal Puppet with very little drive, with the cab simulation completely shut off and the room at 0%."
"I actually bought all the Line6 bundles, but they didn't add much that could be used - especially the Metal bundle proved completely useless, they simply added more drive to an amp that is already far too much about drive." Strangly enough, the bass bundle proved the most useful for the guitar sounds on this album, because of its cab simulations for clean sounds and the Bender effect. So, that's the secret? "Well, it's how to get started on how to make the Line6 distortion come alive. And you need to run it through a cabinet to warm it up."
But that's still just the beginning.
Daniel mixingDaniel runs the guitars through an Avalon pre-amp into the computer (recording the clean signal to be able to re-amp if necessary) and taps the signal from there into the PODxt Pro. From there the signal runs through a mosfet Velocity 500 power-amp and a Laney 4x12 cabinet into one very close Shure SM-57 on axis and one Neumann TLM-103 at a distance. These go through a Focusrite Liquid Channel pre-amp with an emulated Fairchild compressor before going back into the computer, where work with EQs and compressors is proceeded if necessary. "The Liquid Channel really works great" says Daniel, "but heavy gauge strings also works wonders with the clarity".
Both Johan and Daniel have used Daniel's signature strings from Firewire, with a gauge of 010-065 (for the 7-strings) with a wound 018 G string. Daniel looks amused. "I hate to sound like a commercial, but normally during the recording of an album, I'll change all strings between every song, and then again between every solo, since strings have a tendency to go stale, become a bit dead if you wish. For this album, so far, I have changed strings once. Once. And I have only one song to go, all solos done. I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone at points."
AmpheadApart from this setup, Daniel also has a Laney amp head and an old angled Marshall cabinet that they use sometimes. "This is actually the first real cabinet that I ever owned, and it sounds amazing! I have had other cabinets, but they can't compare to this one when it comes to warm and dense rock'n'roll!"
The guitars used have been Johan's Mayones Regius and Daniel's Mayones Elements Proto. Daniel has used several of them to decide on pickups for the final Elements. In the end, the pickups used have been the Seymour Duncan SH-2 Jazz and SH-4 JB and DiMarzio Air Norton and D-Sonic. I had really high hopes for the D-Sonic. Usually I don't like DiMarzio pickups, but when I first tried the D-Sonic I was amazed by its clarity. In the end, I still don't like its DiMarzio specific high end - it's virtually impossible to tweak a nice full and warm distortion that will just sit down in the mix in a nice organic way as with the Duncans. Still they have a nice scratchy roar that can be almost crucial for certain situations."
Originally Posted by Evarian
