Rock band, mostly punk-adjacent, two guitars. I'm the rhythm guitarist and soloist and the other player is lead and backs up some of the riffs for songs where I have difficulty playing while singing.

I'm currently tracking our first album and I play Mesa Mark series amps (my #1 is a MkIV but I'm known to slip in a IIC+ sometimes) and he has historically played a Laney 120W Ironheart.

It works alright live since his amp kinda sits where my amp is a little quieter and my bottom end and and top end harmonics still come through great. In the studio, the Laney is just a bit squanky and we can't really get it to naturally sit on the edge of feedback in a few spots where we want that effect. It has just proven really hard to mix.

I borrowed a JCM900 which worked great for a few songs, and I've also tried the JTM/JCM800ish channel on my Mesa TA30 which has more vintage voicing but not enough gain. I've played a bit with an H&K TM18 since it has that kinda mid focused vintage metal vibe he seems to like. So far nothing really sits where we want it to other than the Marshall.

Any ideas? I've got some amps I can trade around or sell to bankroll something but I don't wanna go crazy.

Here's the thing.

If your sound makes sense live, meaning the guitars occupy different spaces nice enough to compliment each other and compliment the vox, then your job should be to simply capture with the mic what you do live.

Seems like if when you record you aren't getting a mixable sound that makes sense, then your live sound is the problem. Like the arrangement needs to be thought out better. I've never matched amps in a band. We just made sure we played different styles of sounds adjacent to the other player, not on top of them or copying them. Unless a matched sound is what you are after.

The other thing I've seen is that guitars players use WAY too much gain/distortion when recording. It compresses the signal so much that the WAV turns into a tumorous mass in the mix. I played Mesa amps that are like this on the hi-gain settings. Just a suggestion, but you might try backing off the grit and see if it gives you more dynamics to work with. Use reference tracks so you don't force the guitars to the front. Guitar players will do this, because we tend to think that every song is a guitar-driven song. And you have a voting majority of two guitar players in your band! Let the bass player mix.

Those are real answers but the OP probably doesn't want a real answer.

This is GearSpace and most people asking for suggestions to solve an issue expect a "gear fix" answer even though often or even most of the time that isn't what is actually needed.

If the arrangements are good and the guitars actually work together well a bit of eq during mixing can make it even better. This of course assumes someone is actually experienced in mixing a song and knows how to use eq to benefit the production.

No need to be snarky I've got thirty years of this under my belt, and I appreciate his well thought out response.

I'm looking for something that will help the other guitarist turn in a great performance and will sit well on top of my guitars that maybe I haven't heard of, that's all.

Just because something works live doesn't mean it sounds good on tape.

Worst case he is amenable to retracking on the Marshall but it doesn't feel (to me) like it excites him.

And being excited is what makes great music.

From what I hear, seeking perfection in the studio, is bloody hard work.
Only a handful of the very best, can pull it off quickly.
Excitement isn't the first sentiment that comes to most peoples mind.
I suspect that @ Gruner has given you the best answer you are going to get.

RF,

This makes the picture a bit more clear, but when you say "thirty years of this under my belt," do you mean playing live or recording? I've recorded with a couple bands where we had two electric guitars. In one, it only made me dislike the other guy more because he seemed completely deaf to the song and only interested in himself.

Assume the opposite with your situation. Assume you are all one mind, happy with arrangement and play well off each other and serve the song. I would experiment with the category of amp and mic choice. You said punkish, which most people associate with Marshall. I used to dig my Super Reverb with spanky punky stuff. Didn't Sex Pistols record with a SR? A Marshall style sound on one side with a dirty/Fender on the other could pair well. Maybe 57 and a M160 would draw out these differences too. Get me? Try different approaches to the amp sound, different style guitars, different mics and different cab.

As you know, lots of great chunky sounds were recorded with little ass amps. No need for big landscape in the studio. I've been using a shitbox little Peavey Classic 20 plugged into a 2 x 12" Mesa cab (V30 top, Celestion Blue bottom), with just a touch of distortion, a touch of fuzz and the amp about half way up. Sounds plenty big recorded. Push the snot out of a 10-15watt amp into a cab and it'll come alive nicely, without making such a racket that it shakes the walls (I don't play better if I know the neighbors two houses down can hear). Get your guy a great tone and he'll give you a good performance.

If you and the other guitar player can set up some different scenarios with different gear, you might stumble on something. That's what I would do, experiment and play around, especially if you can pinpoint some characteristic difference in your playing style and match that with gear. Mics and placement are a whole other way to make a huge difference too. Add a room mic to the clean/pointy guitar track and then blend it with reverb and you'll create dimension between that guitar and the other (say it's more dry). Et cetera. Anthony is right though: do as much homework as you can before you hit the studio. You can do a lot in the studio via reamping and all that, but time is money. The studio isn't the place to "explore" unless it's your studio.

* @ JLast knows way more about this stuff than me (probably Anthony too). I bet he could help steer you.

Well... my middle name is Snarky so I'll assume this post was directed towards me.

My first post wasn't intended to mock or troll you, I was just attempting to support Gruner's post which I think pointed out some very key points about the topic here.

As a huge generality if something "works live" then it probably should be able to be made into something good on a recording but as Anthony pointed out "seeking perfection in the studio is indeed bloody hard work and having experience at doing it is pretty much a requirement for not only getting there but is even necessary in even the beginning of the discussion of how to get there.

I would say retrack if you either aren't satisfied with the performance or the actual sound of the guitar.

Getting instruments to "fit in a mix" of course requires a good sound to begin with but making it work in a mix is VERY much about level, eq, and panning.

Also as Gruner sort of touched on too much distortion along with not enough dynamics on one guitar track can certainly get in the way of another guitar. Assessing the sound quality of a track and deciding how or if the tracks will or can be made to work together well is tricky business that isn't easily explained in a brief forum post, this is something a well experienced mix engineer understands but would require hearing the tracks and even working with them.

Thinking that simply swapping amps out and hoping that one magic amp will be the solution to all of this may just be rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic as there are so many factors that affect the final sound of a track and whether it "works" or not.

If you were happy with the sounds of the 900 then maybe go back to that but that other guy playing guitar has to be happy with the amp he uses or you just won't get good tracks out of him.

I'm guessing here that maybe you are doing all the recording and mixing yourself? This is a really tough route to go if you don't have a bunch of skills and experience in tracking and mixing.

You like the vintage voicing on the Mesa you already have alright.

Consider using a compressor pedal in front of it. Turn the compression almost all off and the output on full. It will give him just a wee bit of smooth while basically acting like adding a gain stage to the Mesa channel.

You can really use anything you have laying around. Overdrive pedal with almost no drive and all output. Anything that will send a hotter signal to the Mesa.

Worth trying before going amp shopping.

This is assuming the basics have already been covered. And by that, I mean the arrangement, instrument, mic, placement, room, player.

^^^This.

Way back in the very early 1980s I played bass in The VacuumHeads, a Boston area punk(-ish) band*
One guitarist played a Gibson SG (humbuckers) into a Marshall 50-watt Plexi half-stack. The other guitarist played a Gibson non-reverse Firebird (P-90s) into a Fender Super Reverb.

Nobody ever had difficultly differentiating one guy from the other, either live or in the studio. Their sounds were as different as chalk from cheese, but they blended so well because there was nearly no overlap/similarity between the two tones.


*Shameless Name-Dropping: The previous bassist in The VacuumHeads who I replaced was Lou Giordano, who went on to be a pretty successful producer/engineer.

...but another thought I had: Rather than get your other guitarist a Fender, try getting a Fender-esque sound from your Boogie Mark IV (or IIC+) and let your bandmate keep his crunchy Laney.

It's way easier to get a Fender-esque sound from a Boogie Mark series than practically any other non-Fender amp

...which is not to say that it won't take you an hour or four twiddling knobs on the amp, but that always seems to be the case with the Mark-series amps.

I appreciate all the replies.

When I say 30 years I mean mixing live, playing, and recording, though I have only had a studio myself for the last ten years or so. I am recording/mixing this myself, though I do have an absolute industry pro on board for some help (when he is not on the road, which is 8+ months out of the year). He can hear things I simply can't so his feedback is invaluable, however he thinks surgically and isn't fitting a producer role as well as I'd hoped meaning I've got to make the decisions that best serve the song even if sonically they are not to his liking.

Coming from live sound my preference is always to capture something that sounds great rather than having to throw a bunch of processing at it afterwards (which is where we are now).

I guess I'm looking for something that is mid focused like old school metal guitars (70s stuff) that is a bit more polished than the Laney. It refuses to musically feedback in a few spots where it needs to (it just squeals) and has this upper mid bite we just can't seem to get out with EQ (dynamic or otherwise).

I'm just tired of fighting that amp! I'll just keep experimenting as suggested (sometimes you know the answer but need to hear it from others LOL). Time to make some calls and see what I can find to borrow for the weekend while I have some availability...

Mesa Mark series and Marshall’s play very nice together. “Metallica.” Not saying you’re trying to sound like them, but you should be able to dial in something good with that combo.

don't overlook the guitars used, for example a telecaster + les paul or a strat and SG blend well together, yes amps matter as well, something like an orange AD30 would blend well with the mesa amp mkIV because they are quite different sounding, also speakers matter, greenbacks sound very different to alnico speakers, a V30 sounds different again, it all comes back to songwriting and arrangement.

Since you’re specifically asking Akos and you sort of liked a jcm900, I don’t know which version you tried but the SL-X is amazing and would probably do what you want

Love my SL-X 50 watter. Weezer, Sunny Day Real Estate, Offspring and others chose it for some excellent album recordings. As with most Marshalls, it needs to be nice and loud to get the sweetest tone. I use a Neo Creamback 1 x 12 cab.

I love all the 800s/900s. I was working at a Marshall dealership in the 90s and actually bought one of the first few JCM2000s imported to the US when they came out. If I had money just laying around and had the room I'd probably own a fleet of them just because.

After going back and forth a bit and trying some stuff we're looking for something in the 5150/6505 world or similar.

Right now we are considering picking up a Revv G20TS or if I can find a Victory MkII Kraken we are thinking those will fit in nicely and all those options with have a sound he is into and a bunch of knobs and settings for him to play with.

Other than him also not wanting to use any pedals other than a tuner, he's about my polar opposite for amp taste. I tweaked my Mark series sound decades ago and my amp tech yells at me for never moving the knobs since he has to clean them LOL. The other guitarist loves to play with knobs and settings and with an IR loader he'll be in heaven.

Whatever we settle on I'll make sure to pop back and post some A/B samples and such.

Funny story I had a Beato video on in the background while I was doing some paperwork at my shop and he mentioned Dave Rogers and I was like "oh, yeah, he's got a shop in Milwaukee now." So I ran down there, liquidated the amps I wanted to get out of my studio, and ended up picking up the Revv G20TS (from Sweetwater; unfortunately, they don't have a retailer anywhere in Wisconsin). It 100% does what we needed. It has that upper mid focus without getting shrill or quacky and while not as articulate as a Mark or something like a Fryette, it is much less squishy than the other stuff I've been trying out.

Even funnier is I found out that the other guitarist actually has a Synergy preamp setup with a IICP and a Pitbull module LMAO. We could have been using the Fryette through a buddy's 2/ninety or 9100 the whole time. Oh, well, this is gonna be a really nice live show setup while he finds a power amp for that. And now I've got a lunchbox sized head instead of a bunch of 1x12 combos laying around.

I'll post some A/B stuff after we get the last song or two written for this album and get the drums tracked for those.

Again, I appreciate the feedback. It is always nice to get a fresh perspective.