Arrangement- two guitars- hard rock and metal recording

[fps]

Hi everyone,
My band is heading into the studio soon to do our first recording. We have no budget so we're getting help with tracking, mixing ourselves, then, probably, getting a studio friend we know to do the mastering professionally.
We're not quite sure what to do about rhythm guitars. I want both guitarists, me and the other, on the recording, playing. I was thinking we should have one track for each guitarist on each side, making four tracks of rhythm, with both guitars overlaid on top of each other on each side. The good thing about this would be that when one guitar takes a solo (which will be overdubbed), we can remove that guitarist's rhythm parts, to give the natural sound of one guitar taking a solo, without having the solo in one ear and the rhythm guitar in the other, which would sound awful. We're both decent players, but my concern is that the guitars won't mesh on each side, and we're trying to get this stuff sorted before we record, due to time constraints.
How do you metallers and hard rock players in two guitar bands record your rhythms and solos, and where do you place them in the mix? Solos will be duplicated and sent to each side on top of the rhythm guitars, so will sound up the middle. I expect a fair few to say that only one player puts down the rhythms. This would be tight, but I like the blend of guitar sounds, and I don't want to offend my other guitarist.
Any advice is deeply appreciated, thank you all for reading

 

[Episteme]

The way my band did was to each record 2 layers of rhythm each. Since there are alot of harmonies and counterpoint with our stuff, we panned each of our first layers hard left and hard right. Then we did the second layer of guitars each which has more slightly altered versions of the first layer but with more chords and "chug" panned only slightly left and slightly right. This adds to thicken the mix slightly but still maintains the characteristic of each guitarist.

Solos are put in the middle and should be "louder" than the rhythm mix irregardless, or if your friend's doing the mix they'll know what to do. Your solo tone should be significantly different to your rhythm so as to not get it messed within the mix. In my band, both of us recorded rhythm parts with our normal riffs.

Check out the songs, Cerebral Continuum and The Hermit, on our website below.

 

[fps]

The way my band did was to each record 2 layers of rhythm each. Since there are alot of harmonies and counterpoint with our stuff, we panned each of our first layers hard left and hard right. Then we did the second layer of guitars each which has more slightly altered versions of the first layer but with more chords and "chug" panned only slightly left and slightly right. This adds to thicken the mix slightly but still maintains the characteristic of each guitarist.

Solos are put in the middle and should be "louder" than the rhythm mix irregardless, or if your friend's doing the mix they'll know what to do. Your solo tone should be significantly different to your rhythm so as to not get it messed within the mix. In my band, both of us recorded rhythm parts with our normal riffs.

Check out the songs, Cerebral Continuum and The Hermit, on our website below.

Thanks for your answer, can I ask whether you kept each guitarist to one side of the mix, or recorded both each side twice? Some of our riffs are quite technical, though not all

 

[Episteme]

The first layers for both of us are what we play live, are panned hard left and right of the mix respective of where we wanted to be. The second layers are not that loud and would barely be noticeable when mixed, about only 15% of the volume (just a rough estimate) of the first layers. How we mixed us in was to keep each guitarist about 80% to their respective sides (again just a rough estimate) and 20% in the middle.

p.s Your music's cool. I like the vocals, very Layne Staley and the riffs are a good mixture of technicality and stoner/southern rock.

 

[ExhumedKarcass]

The way we have always done it is each guitarist gets a side. Each guy plays two tracks but one guy gets the left side and one guy gets the right side. Any solos or leads are then overlaid over everything more towards the middle.

 

[fps]

The first layers for both of us are what we play live, are panned hard left and right of the mix respective of where we wanted to be. The second layers are not that loud and would barely be noticeable when mixed, about only 15% of the volume (just a rough estimate) of the first layers. How we mixed us in was to keep each guitarist about 80% to their respective sides (again just a rough estimate) and 20% in the middle.

p.s Your music's cool. I like the vocals, very Layne Staley and the riffs are a good mixture of technicality and stoner/southern rock.

thanks Episteme, that's what we're trying to do, keep the songwriting blocks and occasionally do something a bit weird. a review of your last fm tracks will be forthcoming in thanks.