Are you transcribing everything?

[Doctor Gay]

i'm having trouble trying to complete songs and my main prep problem is recording the second guitar! i doubt there's a shortcut, but what have you guys found that helps you with the second take! i want to jam because writing the part out is so tedious. do you guys transcribe your riffs more or write them?

 

[Terminus]

I've only done it when another guitarist or bassist needed it, and then only the riffs, not the entire structure of a song. Never used guitar pro or the like. I'm not quite sure if I understand what you mean by second take (as in L/R hard panned riffs that are the same thing or harmonies) but what I d o when trackin the second guitar is mute the first one and make your brain think it's still the first take. Once you get tight enough and get used to playing to drums/click track then try it with the guitars together, see what you like. There are no shortcuts except for the keyboard shortcuts in your daw.

 

[Shturmovik]

These days I do complete arrangements in Guitar Pro for the new songs I'm working on, mainly because we have so little time available to practice together as a band, and we're working towards a full-length release this year - and I've had some bad experiences with the parts people come up with when they're just jamming along to the basic riffs I come up with.

Would love to be able to jam more as a band, though... :-(

 

[StefTD]

guitar players in my new band write everything in guitar pro, I really suck at this so I do it this way:
play guitar until I come up with a nice riff, record it, loop it and play random notes over it until I come
up with something that sounds good
sounds like it takes years but as soon as you get used to it and know what you like it's pretty easy
and I have no clue about music theory and my brain fucks me up on this all the time because I am one
of the worst guitar players on earth, still the shit I write isn't that bad