arranging guitars question

[colonel_claypoo]

hey all.

I've got a black/death metal band coming up in which the two guitarists almost never play the same part.

I find myself having troubles imagining how to pan their parts.
the all too common hard left/right would result in stereo imbalances because one guitar might play a melody whereas the other guitar plays the rhythm.

the guitars parts consist of:

a) melody (not really leads that would go in the middle) plus rhythm
b) both melody
c) both rhythm but even here the don't play the same. one guitarist might play power chords, the other only root notes
d) different rhythms plus solo

I tried to rearrange their parts so that everything that resembles lead parts (i.e. their melody riffs) can go in the middle and the rhythm parts can be doubled to be panned.

however, that way I seem to end up with way too many lead parts in the middle that clutter up the vocals and bass.

any suggestions on how to track that band's guitars?

thanks a lot.

 

[DanLights]

I think everything that is not a lead/solo should be double tracked and panned, for example if they're both playing rhythms but differently, track each guitarist twice and mix them up (Guitarist 1 100L - 100R and guitarist 2 80L - 80R e.g.), that is in the case you don't want to just leave one rhythm on each side, which can also work fine depending on the song/arrangements

If they're both playing leads at the same time, pan them with each lead single tracked, if it's only one lead, up middle or panned, your call.

If you're doing like I suggested, in moments when both guitarists play the same rhythm parts, you should track each guitarist twice unless you really desire the "effect" of losing the two extra tracks for that part.

Just my thoughts based on my limited experience, others might advise differently so take it with a grain of salt

 

[colonel_claypoo]

thanks dan,

I figured out a way to make it work.

 

[DanLights]

thanks dan,

I figured out a way to make it work.

Care to share?

 

[colonel_claypoo]

Care to share?

of course.

well,

first of all I had to consider the bands budget. unfortunately this doesn't allow to track each guitarist twice the way you suggested.

the band sent me guitar pro files of all their songs tabbed how the guitarists would play their stuff live.

so I went through every song and rearranged their guitar parts.

everything that I considered rhythm parts I doubled and panned them hard L&R.

everything that was a solo went into the middle, obviously.

the problem however was that most of their parts consisted of leads (for the lack of a better word) that you would find in black metal songs à la "mother north" from satyricon.

the twist with that tough is that the guitarists almost never play the same notes which make sound a little unbalanced. but that's the way they wrote so I let it be that way whenever both guitarists play "leads" at the same time.

in the case in which one guitar plays a riff and the other plays a lead, well that was what was bugging me the most.
so most of the time I ended up doubling the rhythm part and putting the "lead" in the middle to make it more balanced. will be a challenge in the mix though to get the center image uncluttered.

yeah so that's basically how I deceided to arrange things with this particular production.

 

[Leon--]

if you want to keep a more "live" feeling into this then just boost the guitar that plays the melody a litle bit.
as for panning i never mind 100% L&R.
im recording a death metal band right now and there are parts that the one is playing the rythm and the other the melody(not a solo)so i kept them L&R,of course i had the ability to record the rythmic part twice and put the melody in the center something that im doing most of the time,but i don't know it worked better this way