I love Mk.Gee, his sound is super nostalgic to me- I couldn't afford a guitar amp so I used to play into a tascam tape recorder when I just started like he does.
Haha, me too. I can't play anything like him, but I think the most important thing is his touch of course and his guitar setup. 11s (flatwounds nowadays?) with a fairly low action and fairly straight neck. So I had to work on a light touch and when you dig in you get the right amount of snarl or growl from a Telecaster without choking out.
THAT'S why those tascam recorders suddenly got so expensive. I've been trying to get my hands on one. Side note: I love that you always take an ideas-first approach with these breakdowns. It's a cut above a lot of other people who go straight to the gear.
Thanks man! Yeah concepts before gear every time, I also the tascams and similar equipment keep going up with the lofi revival from Mac Demarco and stuff too. People want that raunchy tone I guess
I genuinely love that he celebrates the ultra dynamic Aspect of his Tone. In Modern Rock and Metal nothing seems to be anything close to Dynamic anymore. Everything is super compressed and tightly fighting into the correct pocket. Although i would turn the Tape-y Distortion way down. For me the Melody is still King, not the Sound.
Yeah I love that too! And its such a distinct example of how dramatic of an effect dynamics can have, not only in playing but using gates and distortions on your tone as well
You mention Mk.Gee being a modern guitar hero. Nick Reinhart is my modern guitar hero. What's funny is David Rainger said he was inspired from seeing Nick Reinhart do some gated reverb stuff and that's how we now have the Reverb-X.
@@AudioHaze Nick was apart of a RUclips collaboration with Juan Alderete called Pedals and Effects up until a few years ago when Juan got into an accident. If you look up Pedals and Effects:Pedal-X by Rainger Effects in that video Nick tells the story I was referring to. I also recommend checking out “TERA MELOS 40 Rods to the Hog’s Head Live @ The Media Club” just some insane improv and Nick uses like 30 pedals over the 11 minutes of the songs and most “Math Rock” is in alt tunings but it just blows me away with how much Nick is able to do in standard!
@@cadenbenton6235 Love seeing Tera Melos brought up! Nick has had a streak of bad luck yet everything I hear about him, he stays the nicest. Thanks for the reminder to listen to their album!
Another important element of his sound is his use of a roland vg-8 processor and roland gk (hexophone) pickup. This processes each of his strings separately (you can hear him using this practically throughout the new album) and creates these synth-like textures. At concerts, he processes his guitar signal in parallel (mono signal from the tascam, and stereo from the gk pickup)
This was an amazing video! I’ve been on a MkGee tone exploration for a while and this was spot on. The gated reverb thing in a DAW is a game changer here. Great insight! My 2 cents: Hornet Plugins makes de 644 plugin which emulates the Tape Machine preamp perfectly. And it’s a very affordable plugin!
Oh sick, I'll check that out! I've also had a few good recommendations for postastudio pedals as well, seems like there are lots of more affordable options out there
@@maciejrembikowski5415that looks awesome! I have Aberrant's Digitalis, which is the digital version of this (lots of shitty digital artefacts that can be dialled in to taste)...by far the most creative FX plugin I've seen. Will have to check this out!
Love my Rainger. Pretty sure Mike puts at the end of the chain but gonna try it near the start. Worth emphasizing how light his touch is like none of this would work if his clean playing wasn’t so nuanced
Appreciate your breakdowns, they can always be a good way to learn. To people in general tho: Always remember, most of these artists are rarely putting this level of meticulousness into their creative process... they just fool around until stuff sounds and feels good. So while I think chasing sounds like this can be educational and worthwhile, I think most people need to foster their own ear and sense of what sounds good more, and just feel around getting your own awesome sounds.
Killer video my dude! Super cool seeing you use an actual Tascam. I was expecting to see one of the IK Tascam plugins that they put out but excited to see the real deal.
Great stuff. I think you've got the pedal order backwards at 1:20. From the Gear Check video, it looks like it's Hum Debugger -> tuner -> flanger -> delay -> mood -> rainger -> tascam.
There is also a big part of his sound, at least live, that comes from the blending of his amp rig with patches from the VG88. From live pictures you can see both Mike and Andrew using it live with a GK3 going in parallel to their amp rig. This piece of gear can especially be heard on Andrew Aged's tone, which most of the time plays keys/washy guitar parts behind Mike on some songs. As I reckon the GK3 allows you to split the strings into different sounds, allowing Mike to play bass only on lower strings on certain songs. I'm curious if you'd be able to recreate Andrew's tone the same way, which sounds to me like the perfect blend of chorusy guitar with spacious DX7-esque patch
Dude, yes! I've been obsessed with his album since the Rhett Shull vid turned me on to him. I recently ordered the MXNHLT Effects Porta424 pedal for the channel strip sound. Figure it it's smaller and way, way cheaper than what those tape recorders go for now haha. Great vid!
I literally just heard about the pedal from another commenter that probably would’ve saved me some cash hahahaha, oh well, the tape deck is super fun to play around with
@@AnthonyEvans-wl5ts I've had the Rainger Reverb X and it nails a lot of the gated verb/distortion. But the tape preamp pedal really gets that bite in his tone when settings are near maxed.
This reminds me of how kevin parker got crazy tones out of the boss BR600/864. It’s Always some random piece of gear that explodes in value once people find out about them. Same with the KTG.
Yes dude, been waiting for this one since you first teased it on Instagram! Would love to see your take on some Jack White tones as well, especially since he just released a new album. Maybe some song recreations too, like you did with RATM!
I think 17:02 was my favorite tone in here tbh- fantastic demo of a lot of mk.gee tones but I think this shows that it’s a good idea just to use these ideas as a stepping stone for your own experimentation
I really like the different tiers, as someone who has no money for new gear atm. I'll add that making it mono at the end of the chain for the first 2 tiers might help it sit in the mix similar to the high tier. Excellent vid here will def be referencing :)
@@AudioHaze That could be the bad grounding. I guess I've also had trouble like this when an insufficiently-shielded audio cable was running next to a power cable in such a way that it picked up some hum inductively. Either way it sounds like something is getting into your signal path. FWIW, just something that leaped out to me
The Chase Bliss Gen Loss is a fun pedal to use for a clipped tape preamp sound. Its not the Mk.gee thing exactly but if you want that gritty, tape thing I highly recommend
So the overdriven preamp of the 424 is a thing now.... I guess the holy grail transistor in the gray 424 search is on and we'll see price of these go up to the thousands.
I would LOVE some video editing tutorials from you (or your editor if you have one) those plugin screen effects are awesome! And as always amazing job on the reconstruction of the sound ❤ Love this channel
Thanks Brenda! This one I edited myself, but I do have an editor and we typically split the work :) those are effects in premiere, the glitch is VR digital glitch, and using keyframes to automated the master amplitude, and the 3D effect is called basic 3D, and you just keyframe in the tilt!
Great video! Another very important aspect of his tone is the roland VG-8 that he uses with their midi guitar pickup (the one ductaped to his guitar). It's a guitar/amp emulator (like a pod kinda) but with a really unique synth section for each individual string, and thats where a lot of the synthiness of his sound comes in. I have a roland gr-30 that's pretty close sounding and specifically the "bowed string" preset is i believe what he uses on the more agressive songs like candy and alesis. It also has its own onboard flanger/chorus and reverbs so I believe the flange for his live tone mostly comes out of that as well :)
Btw they are super hard to find anywhere and the ones i've seen are like upwards of 500 bucks so just something to keep in mind, the gr-30 i got gets damn close for a lot cheaper (250-300 bucks) and has a lot of it's own character and other sounds that are pretty inspiring imo
Thanks for the info dude!! Lots of people mentioning the vg8 which is definitely something I missed, the individual strings part is crazy though, had no idea
The magic and distortion you're looking for with devices like the PortaStudio or Tascam 414/424 happens after recording, as the tape adds its own distortion. Right now, you're pushing the signal through the Tascam's preamp and monitoring that, which bypasses the magnetic head and the unique tape characteristics. Essentially, you're just pushing an old preamp. What would be cool is if you could monitor the signal as it’s actually being recorded to the tape, capturing that tape sound live as you listen and as long as I'm aware that is not happening here neither with Mk.gee.
People also don’t seem to realize that mkgee doesn’t really use the gate on the reverb x, he just turns it on and off mostly controlling the gate himself. You can hear the pedal click off and on.
Diud you mention the most important part? Fingers. had fun cranking rubbish old behringer mixers, and fostex 4 tracks for years. you can get those (if the cassette part is not working) basically for free. just try with whatever you have.
My first band, we all pitched in on a Tascam 4 track. I hated it. We all hated it. Remember bumping? Get out. The thing no one told us in the 90s at Monster Music was that your tape deck in the van won't play your new song at the right speed.
The meshing of the guitar tone with the synth tone is one other key aspect. Through those levels, you were definitely zeroing in on his cleaner tones. But, I think the distorted tones are a little different. His distorted tone really only distorts / clips at his hardest attack. So it's like there's something in the chain that has a particular level of headroom, but that fails fast into saturation when he really digs in for snap. A lot of that might be to do with playing with extreme dynamic range.
Great job on the general tone! You probably came across this while researching, but he does utilize a Roland VG8 (which may or may not be harder to get than the Rainger....) that I believe is heavily utilized on both the videos for Alesis and Dream Police. I wanted to add for Dream Police, I think it is closer to a more synth/MIDI sound where lighter notes have a longer attack and digging in gives more bite. I found using Ableton's Gate with a low bar (when you p[lay lightly, it should pass through easily) with an attack anywhere from 75-150ms kind of gives it the sound I was looking for. I think Envelope Follower could get it even better, however, I only have Ableton Lite (which again, LOVE getting more free options, big fan of the BritPre but got a better idea on the Fx chain) Would DEFINITELY love a recreation of any of his live songs! Interested in some of his other sound design elements outside of his guitar
Great stuff man, really cool and useful idea dialing in the tone using hardware and software gear and compare them, I would love to see the same thing as this video but trying to re-create some of Jack White's tones (not the White strips era but the newer one) ... cheers
Love the channel and love the video as always, really helpful info here! I'm confused by the first sentence though. The closest we have to a guitar hero in 2024? There are other modern legends I'd give that to over him who have had monumental influence on the world of guitar (Tosin Abasi for instance) - unless you're just talking about mainstream accessibility?
Actually I cut the second like where I mentioned that Tosin Abasi and Tim Henson could be considered hero’s as well, then talked about how Mk gee’s style is more reminiscent of a less technical era, but I cut it because I thought it was ramble 😂
@@AudioHaze That totally makes sense! 😂 I think there is something to be said about people making guitar cool for a more mainstream audience as opposed to the more progressive music world. Mk.Gee could have a similar effect to when John Mayer was coming up, or John Frusciante inspiring more "pop" audiences to pick the instrument up
McG. Bro is ordering McDonalds. Great vid once again AH. I feel like you’re destined to make a Clairo video soon. One of the four horsewomen of the indie folk scene :)
Most of it would be string tension! Because the baritone is a longer neck, the strings would stay at a comparably similar tension to a regular guitar in standard tuning, whereas my guitar here had super bendy strings :) it may also make tuning a bit more of a pain compared to a baritone. Hope that helps dude!
I got the tascam and rainger a couple months ago before the prices blew up to get this tone, I'm still trying to figure out the rest of his sound so a full breakdown would be great!!
i think you were close, but his rig refinetly has a really clear dry blend or buffer, thats what your tone is missing. it sounds like a fuzz, and phaser clearly instead of that glasslike tone because theres no buffer
Yeah some other commenters have pointed that out, thanks for the info! In Ableton, you could take your guitar track and convert it to midi. It will take a bit of cleaning up more than likely, but you can then use those midi notes as a synth doubling the guitar part then blend it in. Could work!
Would anyone recommend any good third party sound banks people make in the style of artists like mk.gee, james blake, sampha for example? Or a good VST to get? I have Arturia bundle which has a lot of stuff I think works for their sound but I'd love to buy a bank of 100+ sounds (keys, bass, pads etc) specifically in that style so I'm not searching through thousands.
That would be a super cool study! I feel like a lot of the vocal production is similar to Dijon in how they use omni room mics to capture a distant kind of tone
Bass VI is basically a modified Jaguar. You can get one of those and put lighter strings on it, or stick with the bass strings and honestly it sounds super thick.
@@AudioHaze Trust me when I say it sounds great. Now I don't have a lot of real amps. Just a practice amp and a ToneX pedal. If you turn the bass cut switch on, and run it through a guitar amp/sim and not a bass amp/sim, it sounds super good with heavy OD/fuzz
I played through my dad's Sears and Roebuck stereo and shredded the speakers as a kid...they sounded only slightly worse that this. I have a Tascam 424, so I may still experiment an approximation out of curiosity sake...
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
I love Mk.Gee, his sound is super nostalgic to me- I couldn't afford a guitar amp so I used to play into a tascam tape recorder when I just started like he does.
And now those tape recorders are worth more than a lot of guitar amps hahahaha
@@AudioHazestill got my 424 mk iii from ‘99 😎
I played mkgee for my dad and he thought it was the police until he started singing
You nailed it! Also, since no one else is saying it: you're an ace guitarist! Def underrated. Would love to see a full recreation.
Thanks David!! Appreciate it, I usually don't get to jam too much on the channel so it was a cool change of pace :)
I'm chasing Julian Lage and saving money on pedals.
lol yes you definitely don't have to worry about blowing your paycheck, meanwhile tape decks keep going UPPPP
yes but losing pedals on expensive guitars, amps and most important of all: lessons lol
this is correct.
Haha, me too. I can't play anything like him, but I think the most important thing is his touch of course and his guitar setup. 11s (flatwounds nowadays?) with a fairly low action and fairly straight neck. So I had to work on a light touch and when you dig in you get the right amount of snarl or growl from a Telecaster without choking out.
Wait until u see the price of a vintage fender champ 😢😢😢
Man just decided to drop the most comprehensive mkgee tone chaser video!! phenomenal job. it makes up for everytime you said mc jee 😉
hahahaha I seriously thought was correct for like 2 months and now I'm manually deprogramming it from my brain
Hard disagree. This video sucks
THAT'S why those tascam recorders suddenly got so expensive. I've been trying to get my hands on one. Side note: I love that you always take an ideas-first approach with these breakdowns. It's a cut above a lot of other people who go straight to the gear.
Thanks man! Yeah concepts before gear every time, I also the tascams and similar equipment keep going up with the lofi revival from Mac Demarco and stuff too. People want that raunchy tone I guess
The Tascams had already blown up in the synth scene due to Alessandro Cortini’s use of the 414 in his Nine Inch Nails live rig.
I genuinely love that he celebrates the ultra dynamic Aspect of his Tone. In Modern Rock and Metal nothing seems to be anything close to Dynamic anymore. Everything is super compressed and tightly fighting into the correct pocket. Although i would turn the Tape-y Distortion way down. For me the Melody is still King, not the Sound.
Yeah I love that too! And its such a distinct example of how dramatic of an effect dynamics can have, not only in playing but using gates and distortions on your tone as well
Ran into you at 14th street guitar center a couple months ago and recently have been on a hugeee mkgee craze, vid couldn’t have been better timed !!!
Dude great meeting you! Glad this video could help in a tiny way :)
You mention Mk.Gee being a modern guitar hero. Nick Reinhart is my modern guitar hero. What's funny is David Rainger said he was inspired from seeing Nick Reinhart do some gated reverb stuff and that's how we now have the Reverb-X.
Oh sick thanks for sharing! Is that in an interview anywhere I can check out?
Seconding Nick Reinhart being sick af, even just his rig rundown was inspiring
@@AudioHaze Nick was apart of a RUclips collaboration with Juan Alderete called Pedals and Effects up until a few years ago when Juan got into an accident. If you look up Pedals and Effects:Pedal-X by Rainger Effects in that video Nick tells the story I was referring to. I also recommend checking out “TERA MELOS 40 Rods to the Hog’s Head Live @ The Media Club” just some insane improv and Nick uses like 30 pedals over the 11 minutes of the songs and most “Math Rock” is in alt tunings but it just blows me away with how much Nick is able to do in standard!
Agreed nick reinhart is the goat guitarist for me personally. So inspiring
@@cadenbenton6235 Love seeing Tera Melos brought up! Nick has had a streak of bad luck yet everything I hear about him, he stays the nicest. Thanks for the reminder to listen to their album!
Another important element of his sound is his use of a roland vg-8 processor and roland gk (hexophone) pickup. This processes each of his strings separately (you can hear him using this practically throughout the new album) and creates these synth-like textures. At concerts, he processes his guitar signal in parallel (mono signal from the tascam, and stereo from the gk pickup)
Thanks for the info! Appreciate anyone adding info to the vid
I really appreciate you making this video. Just the fact you did your best to replicate a tone at different budget levels is so valuable to people!
Yes! I've been looking forward to this!
Enjoy my friend!!
This was an amazing video! I’ve been on a MkGee tone exploration for a while and this was spot on. The gated reverb thing in a DAW is a game changer here. Great insight!
My 2 cents: Hornet Plugins makes de 644 plugin which emulates the Tape Machine preamp perfectly. And it’s a very affordable plugin!
And IK multimedia has a whole Tascam emulation line too. Not cheap though…
Oh sick, I'll check that out! I've also had a few good recommendations for postastudio pedals as well, seems like there are lots of more affordable options out there
@@AudioHaze another one is sketch cassette, in the manual they have info that they were inspired by the 4-track tascam recorder :)
@@maciejrembikowski5415that looks awesome! I have Aberrant's Digitalis, which is the digital version of this (lots of shitty digital artefacts that can be dialled in to taste)...by far the most creative FX plugin I've seen. Will have to check this out!
I've been enjoying your vids for a while, but the level of detail in this one is one another spectrum, unbelievable work man love it!
Appreciate it Jamie!!
absolutely loved this video - PLEASE grace us with a full breakdown of Mk.gee
Noted!
i speak for every guitar player when i say, thank you for this
Happy to help my friend :)
You forgot one crucial thing about his sound, THE ROLAND VG-8
i was thinking the same... thats like the most important element
He doesn’t use it on every song tho… does he?
@@brandopozzino no but live he does use it a lot
Gah, big thanks for introducing me to this guy. Jaw dropped. Let the binge begin
A+ vid as always
Thanks man glad you enjoyed it!
Love my Rainger. Pretty sure Mike puts at the end of the chain but gonna try it near the start. Worth emphasizing how light his touch is like none of this would work if his clean playing wasn’t so nuanced
Most of the stuff I saw showed it at the beginning of the chain! But I'm sure it changes depending on the night. His clean playing is amazing :)
Appreciate your breakdowns, they can always be a good way to learn. To people in general tho: Always remember, most of these artists are rarely putting this level of meticulousness into their creative process... they just fool around until stuff sounds and feels good. So while I think chasing sounds like this can be educational and worthwhile, I think most people need to foster their own ear and sense of what sounds good more, and just feel around getting your own awesome sounds.
Killer video my dude! Super cool seeing you use an actual Tascam. I was expecting to see one of the IK Tascam plugins that they put out but excited to see the real deal.
To be honest I didn’t even know there WAS a Tascam pedal 😂 this things sick tho! Been using it on lots of stuff since I got it
I admire the production quality and effort you put into every single video. Creatively and intellectually! Thanks so much for sharing this one :)
Appreciate the kind words my friend!
JHS better start working on making that preamp a pedal
For this use case I think the Tark Audio 144 should be close enough
LOL I think a brand did make a similar thing! Another commenter mentioned that
Check out the porta424 by mxnhlt effects! Exact recreation of the preamp circuit from the 424
You could already get pretty similar results with the JHS Colour Box, its a similar kind of distortion
@@yeeb3132 GAS ACTIVATED! Yeeeeessss
Great stuff. I think you've got the pedal order backwards at 1:20. From the Gear Check video, it looks like it's Hum Debugger -> tuner -> flanger -> delay -> mood -> rainger -> tascam.
Yes! Was waiting for a breakdown like this
Glad I could provide my friend!
Full recreation of that ish!!!! Sounds amazing and wonderful vid 🫡
was so hyped for this video since you teased it in a short :)
Enjoy my friend!
Yoo, the editing is improving! really loving it.
Appreciate it dude! This was one of the simpler edits but I guess it was effective :)
@@AudioHaze I used to get bothered how you use chromatic aberration in some of your old videos haha.
@@AudioHaze simple is good. No need to overdo it. I really dug the 3D'd Ableton FX chain though, that was neat :)
There is also a big part of his sound, at least live, that comes from the blending of his amp rig with patches from the VG88. From live pictures you can see both Mike and Andrew using it live with a GK3 going in parallel to their amp rig. This piece of gear can especially be heard on Andrew Aged's tone, which most of the time plays keys/washy guitar parts behind Mike on some songs.
As I reckon the GK3 allows you to split the strings into different sounds, allowing Mike to play bass only on lower strings on certain songs. I'm curious if you'd be able to recreate Andrew's tone the same way, which sounds to me like the perfect blend of chorusy guitar with spacious DX7-esque patch
Great info thank you! I’ve heard the Vg8 is a huge part of the tone but this is a good description of how it may be implemented :)
Check out a live version of Dnm for an example of this - all of the low end is coming from the jaguar
I would love a full recreation!! great video!!!
Thanks my friend! Noted on the full recreation :)
This helps a lot! Ive watched the videos youve mention as well. This is a great summary of his tone. Please give us more. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it!
i found a new artist to follow, and a new channel to follow, i love it, this made my night
Dude, yes! I've been obsessed with his album since the Rhett Shull vid turned me on to him. I recently ordered the MXNHLT Effects Porta424 pedal for the channel strip sound. Figure it
it's smaller and way, way cheaper than what those tape recorders go for now haha. Great vid!
I literally just heard about the pedal from another commenter that probably would’ve saved me some cash hahahaha, oh well, the tape deck is super fun to play around with
@@AudioHaze It’s sick, by the way! Absolutely nails it
@@MustafaShaheen you reckon it's spot on hey? Have you bought other pedals to try nail his sound?
@@AnthonyEvans-wl5ts I've had the Rainger Reverb X and it nails a lot of the gated verb/distortion. But the tape preamp pedal really gets that bite in his tone when settings are near maxed.
@@MustafaShaheen sweet so definitely buy a porta424?
man, you're so great at this stuff. Appreciate all your work. Thanks for leading through this so comprehensively.
Thanks Josiah! This one was tough, such a specific tone to try and match
This reminds me of how kevin parker got crazy tones out of the boss BR600/864. It’s Always some random piece of gear that explodes in value once people find out about them. Same with the KTG.
thank you so much man. really appreciate someone going so in depth
I’m happy to man, it was super fun :)
Hey, keep the videos coming. We always learn something.
Thanks guys!!!
This channel is incredible
Yes dude, been waiting for this one since you first teased it on Instagram! Would love to see your take on some Jack White tones as well, especially since he just released a new album. Maybe some song recreations too, like you did with RATM!
That would be sick!! Would love to interview him at Third Man too like literal dream material right there
@@AudioHaze yessir, third man is a literal wonka factory for musicians hahaha
I think 17:02 was my favorite tone in here tbh- fantastic demo of a lot of mk.gee tones but I think this shows that it’s a good idea just to use these ideas as a stepping stone for your own experimentation
Its a MONSTER of a sound for sure, looking on an EQ it literally fills out the entire frequency spectrum equally its crazy
@@AudioHaze sickk
I really like the different tiers, as someone who has no money for new gear atm. I'll add that making it mono at the end of the chain for the first 2 tiers might help it sit in the mix similar to the high tier. Excellent vid here will def be referencing :)
You should do a breakdown on Hazlett, he is SOOOO underrated and I feel like you either already or will love all of his songs!! ♥️
Dude I have been waiting for this video ever since you started teasing it. You absolutely killed it man.
Thanks man glad you liked it!
15:58 In addition to whatever is happening with the audio compression you're also getting some kind of 60Hz hum here. (Bad grounding? Bad cable?)
It may just be my old crappy apartment electricity :/
@@AudioHaze That could be the bad grounding. I guess I've also had trouble like this when an insufficiently-shielded audio cable was running next to a power cable in such a way that it picked up some hum inductively. Either way it sounds like something is getting into your signal path. FWIW, just something that leaped out to me
Have you ever looked into Buckethead and how he had an INSANE output?
I have!! Buckethead is ridiculous, idk how he does that with that mask on its unreal
The Chase Bliss Gen Loss is a fun pedal to use for a clipped tape preamp sound. Its not the Mk.gee thing exactly but if you want that gritty, tape thing I highly recommend
So the overdriven preamp of the 424 is a thing now.... I guess the holy grail transistor in the gray 424 search is on and we'll see price of these go up to the thousands.
A full recation would be dope; I'm super interested in Mk.gee's drum sound.
Yeah haven’t even looked into his drum sound!
@@AudioHaze you gotta check his previous album drum sounds then, museum of contradiction 😳
good shit bro - will def try this - would love your take on the Strokes sound :)
Yeah a Strokes recreation would be sick!
@@AudioHazeyeah definitely, pls make it happen
Great video. Unless I missed it why did we not discuss his added pickup that is taped on his jag? I’d like to learn more about that.
I would LOVE some video editing tutorials from you (or your editor if you have one) those plugin screen effects are awesome! And as always amazing job on the reconstruction of the sound ❤ Love this channel
Thanks Brenda! This one I edited myself, but I do have an editor and we typically split the work :) those are effects in premiere, the glitch is VR digital glitch, and using keyframes to automated the master amplitude, and the 3D effect is called basic 3D, and you just keyframe in the tilt!
Great video! Another very important aspect of his tone is the roland VG-8 that he uses with their midi guitar pickup (the one ductaped to his guitar). It's a guitar/amp emulator (like a pod kinda) but with a really unique synth section for each individual string, and thats where a lot of the synthiness of his sound comes in. I have a roland gr-30 that's pretty close sounding and specifically the "bowed string" preset is i believe what he uses on the more agressive songs like candy and alesis. It also has its own onboard flanger/chorus and reverbs so I believe the flange for his live tone mostly comes out of that as well :)
Btw they are super hard to find anywhere and the ones i've seen are like upwards of 500 bucks so just something to keep in mind, the gr-30 i got gets damn close for a lot cheaper (250-300 bucks) and has a lot of it's own character and other sounds that are pretty inspiring imo
Thanks for the info dude!! Lots of people mentioning the vg8 which is definitely something I missed, the individual strings part is crazy though, had no idea
@@AudioHaze yeah its pretty wild stuff, crazy that they came out with it back in the 90s haha
that highly dynamic playing is very much complimented by the flat wound strings
The magic and distortion you're looking for with devices like the PortaStudio or Tascam 414/424 happens after recording, as the tape adds its own distortion. Right now, you're pushing the signal through the Tascam's preamp and monitoring that, which bypasses the magnetic head and the unique tape characteristics. Essentially, you're just pushing an old preamp. What would be cool is if you could monitor the signal as it’s actually being recorded to the tape, capturing that tape sound live as you listen and as long as I'm aware that is not happening here neither with Mk.gee.
would love a video delving into his recording techniques for the latest record, amazing stuff man
Good to know, and thanks!
People also don’t seem to realize that mkgee doesn’t really use the gate on the reverb x, he just turns it on and off mostly controlling the gate himself. You can hear the pedal click off and on.
Oh no way! Do you have an example of where you can hear the click in one of the tracks? Would love to check it out
@@AudioHaze ya clipped his rig rundown at about 3 minutes, in that clip you can hear and see his leg click it on and off
I KNEW YOU WOULD PULL THROUGH WITH THIS
AYYYE Thanks man!!
Love this. How did you run the tascam to your interface? Just headphones out?
Yo thanks for the shoutout dude! Means a lot :)
Ofc dude, wonderful vid!
Diud you mention the most important part? Fingers. had fun cranking rubbish old behringer mixers, and fostex 4 tracks for years. you can get those (if the cassette part is not working) basically for free. just try with whatever you have.
Yeah I had an old Foster once upon a time! I wish I played with it more than I did, its still lying around my folks house somewhere...
My first band, we all pitched in on a Tascam 4 track. I hated it. We all hated it. Remember bumping? Get out. The thing no one told us in the 90s at Monster Music was that your tape deck in the van won't play your new song at the right speed.
This video is great!! If you like her, would you consider doing ML Buch yet? I have so many questions about her guitar tone...
Great video man! Killin' it!
Thanks Russ!
The meshing of the guitar tone with the synth tone is one other key aspect. Through those levels, you were definitely zeroing in on his cleaner tones. But, I think the distorted tones are a little different. His distorted tone really only distorts / clips at his hardest attack. So it's like there's something in the chain that has a particular level of headroom, but that fails fast into saturation when he really digs in for snap. A lot of that might be to do with playing with extreme dynamic range.
Great job on the general tone! You probably came across this while researching, but he does utilize a Roland VG8 (which may or may not be harder to get than the Rainger....) that I believe is heavily utilized on both the videos for Alesis and Dream Police.
I wanted to add for Dream Police, I think it is closer to a more synth/MIDI sound where lighter notes have a longer attack and digging in gives more bite. I found using Ableton's Gate with a low bar (when you p[lay lightly, it should pass through easily) with an attack anywhere from 75-150ms kind of gives it the sound I was looking for. I think Envelope Follower could get it even better, however, I only have Ableton Lite (which again, LOVE getting more free options, big fan of the BritPre but got a better idea on the Fx chain)
Would DEFINITELY love a recreation of any of his live songs! Interested in some of his other sound design elements outside of his guitar
Thanks for the info!! Yeah I may have to grab a VG8 for a full recreation some day :) I'll have to check out envelope follower!
Great stuff man, really cool and useful idea dialing in the tone using hardware and software gear and compare them, I would love to see the same thing as this video but trying to re-create some of Jack White's tones (not the White strips era but the newer one) ... cheers
Jack Whites tone would be sick!! That's a great example of a really complex and specific tone that only uses a tiny amount of gear to achieve it
Love the channel and love the video as always, really helpful info here!
I'm confused by the first sentence though. The closest we have to a guitar hero in 2024? There are other modern legends I'd give that to over him who have had monumental influence on the world of guitar (Tosin Abasi for instance) - unless you're just talking about mainstream accessibility?
Actually I cut the second like where I mentioned that Tosin Abasi and Tim Henson could be considered hero’s as well, then talked about how Mk gee’s style is more reminiscent of a less technical era, but I cut it because I thought it was ramble 😂
@@AudioHaze That totally makes sense! 😂 I think there is something to be said about people making guitar cool for a more mainstream audience as opposed to the more progressive music world. Mk.Gee could have a similar effect to when John Mayer was coming up, or John Frusciante inspiring more "pop" audiences to pick the instrument up
Bro your video work is fantastic. What you use for editing?
Mk.gee is amazing. You should check out Jai Paul. It would be cool to see a video from you on his recording style and techniques. Great work!
I’ll check him out!
McG. Bro is ordering McDonalds. Great vid once again AH. I feel like you’re destined to make a Clairo video soon. One of the four horsewomen of the indie folk scene :)
Clairo would be sick!! Been on the radar for a while :)
Who are the other three?
I’d say it’s Clairo, Phoebe, beabaadoobee and maybe Adrianne Lenker. Honourable mention to Laufey, mitski and the other boygenuis members.
Reel dealuxe pedal + fx pedal is imo a way to achieve same tone easier routing !
Yeah I’ve actually just recently been introduced to that pedal, looks sick!
New video! Awesome will watch soon!
Appreciate it dude, hope you like it :)
@@AudioHaze sure will! this type of video you make is my fav on your channel, i try to leave a comment every time to be sure to help the algorithm 🫶
Very much enjoyed this, great work as usual and I’d also enjoy a full breakdown. I much prefer real AudioHaze.
Believe me I do too lol
I don't even play guitar but I was mystified to how he was getting that sound. Really interesting video
Thanks for working hard on these videos AH ❤ is there any advantage to having baritone guitar instead of tuning down normal one?
Most of it would be string tension! Because the baritone is a longer neck, the strings would stay at a comparably similar tension to a regular guitar in standard tuning, whereas my guitar here had super bendy strings :) it may also make tuning a bit more of a pain compared to a baritone. Hope that helps dude!
I got the tascam and rainger a couple months ago before the prices blew up to get this tone, I'm still trying to figure out the rest of his sound so a full breakdown would be great!!
Lucky you! And noted :)
I love his sound.
He is an incredibly skilled and musical guitarist. Would sound great on an acoustic.
Would love to hear that too!
What strings are you using for the baritone tuning on the strat?
Oh shit, cosmodio and the pet yeti kick ass! Bunch of very nice people and the pedal is great I highly recommend checking it out
I LOVE THE YETI
i use my BF-2 as a de tuned chorus in to my DOD fx63 i think chorus and like 6 drives
Whatever gets the job done :)
I thought baritone tuning was B standard?
More wonderful work thank you
Appreciate you watching!
i think you were close, but his rig refinetly has a really clear dry blend or buffer, thats what your tone is missing. it sounds like a fuzz, and phaser clearly instead of that glasslike tone because theres no buffer
Do you think you could make this happen with a boss sy200
Such an in depth video, thank you very much man, new fan! And I agree, not a fan of Abletons Flanger either lol
He also use a roland vg8 for guitar synth I think, I been trying to think of a easy or free way to do that guitar to midi to synth sound.
Yeah some other commenters have pointed that out, thanks for the info! In Ableton, you could take your guitar track and convert it to midi. It will take a bit of cleaning up more than likely, but you can then use those midi notes as a synth doubling the guitar part then blend it in. Could work!
I wouldn’t be surprised if Mk.gee got the idea to experiment with baritone tuning after hearing Madison Cunningham
Can you make a video on Brandon Ellis tone ?
Would anyone recommend any good third party sound banks people make in the style of artists like mk.gee, james blake, sampha for example?
Or a good VST to get?
I have Arturia bundle which has a lot of stuff I think works for their sound but I'd love to buy a bank of 100+ sounds (keys, bass, pads etc) specifically in that style so I'm not searching through thousands.
Noob here, how can do this in Logic instead of Ableton?
For what it's worth, I Approximate the reverb by using an EHX attack decay, with a rv-5 and a distortion in its fx loop.
amazing video, but the true expensive way adds the roland vg-8 for the synth sounds
Would love to hear a full breakdown of his sound!
Great to know!
great video thaanks
You should check out the new game changer audio eurorack style pedals. They have a dynamic reverb which would do some of the ranger stuff
Looks sick but it also is more expensive than the Rainger!
Begging you to do his vocals/ vocal chain too!
That would be a super cool study! I feel like a lot of the vocal production is similar to Dijon in how they use omni room mics to capture a distant kind of tone
Bass VI is basically a modified Jaguar. You can get one of those and put lighter strings on it, or stick with the bass strings and honestly it sounds super thick.
I’ve always wanted to try a Bass VI, I have a theory they sound absolutely ridiculous with a massive fuzz :)
@@AudioHaze Trust me when I say it sounds great.
Now I don't have a lot of real amps. Just a practice amp and a ToneX pedal.
If you turn the bass cut switch on, and run it through a guitar amp/sim and not a bass amp/sim, it sounds super good with heavy OD/fuzz
Great video
I played through my dad's Sears and Roebuck stereo and shredded the speakers as a kid...they sounded only slightly worse that this.
I have a Tascam 424, so I may still experiment an approximation out of curiosity sake...
Why did you graphic for the pedals go backwards
Idk just how I thought about it in the edit screen 🤷🏻♂️