Double tracking guitars TOO tight?

[Erkan]

Have you guys ever had a problem with this?

I just finished making all the scratch tracks for my album and now I'm listening through one of the songs and I'm reminded of this problem I detected a while ago.

Since these are scratch tracks, I haven't made any edits to them since.. well, they are just scratch tracks! So even without editing, on some places, on some notes, the guitars suddenly switch to mono. I was like "wtf..?" about it first but it dawned on me - I played "EXACTLY" the same as the first layer. I zoomed in on the tracks and they match up PERFECTLY, as if I had copied from the track above to the one under, thus creating this mono effect.

No point in putting up an audio clip really since it's just a double tracked guitar sounding like mono on a note here and there where I get "lucky" and play tight as f*ck.

I just wonder if this happens to others as well? I have never read anything about people having to edit and displace notes because they are played TOO tight.

 

[iamdunker]

you pan each track hard left and hard right? also, what is the point of taking the time to dual track scratch tracks if you are just gonna thro them out?

 

[Harry Hughes]

Drink one beer before tracking, that should help
Seriously though, I suggest you try and concentrate on getting slightly different nuances for each performance which will benefit you far more in the long term than having to always edit to compensate for excess tightness

 

[Erkan]

Of course. When I double track, I go 100% Left and 100% Right.

 

[alan1990]

not trying to say you cant play that well or anything like that but i really dont think what you are describing is possible. You must have recorded the same part to 2 tracks on accident in those spots.its not possible to hit one chord and make it EXACTLY the same as another let alone a whole passage in a song let alone on a scratch track

 

[Harry Hughes]

Yeah,I think alan may be right.
If people like Jeff Loomis who is an absolute monster of rhythm guitar doesn't get this problem, surely no one else should

 

[streetwise]

Pan both tracks to center, then flip the phase of the other track. If you can't hear anything now, then yes, you're playing too tight.

 

[Erkan]

Drink one beer before tracking, that should help
Seriously though, I suggest you try and concentrate on getting slightly different nuances for each performance which will benefit you far more in the long term than having to always edit to compensate for excess tightness

Harry! By nuances... do you mean I should keep small mistakes or what? I don't really understand what you're saying. Perhaps if I clarify my situation a bit more..

I most often keep the rhythm guitars (which are the "main" guitars so to speak) playing the exact same riff. Lot of bands play atleast some harmonies and stuff Left vs Right but I simply don't see that as something that fits me that much (except on a few amount of riffs). Anyway, this "extreme tightness" happens most often on the low string when I do some open string type of stuff. I always strive to be as tight as possible and I'm really anal about it and then I run into these problems haha

The mono effect only happens on a handful of places per song so it's not really an issue.. I could edit them to make them untight to sound "right". I just wonder if this is common.

Hell, I'll just post an audio clip since it was harder to explain than I thought.

Sorry for the bad quality, it's double compressed mp3 since I had no wav version of the scratch track with me. Anyway, the weird mono effect is still clearly audible, especially on headphones! The weirdness happens right in the middle of this clip, on a low "bauuooow" note.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/585020/weirdmonoeffect.mp3

 

[Erkan]

not trying to say you cant play that well or anything like that but i really dont think what you are describing is possible. You must have recorded the same part to 2 tracks on accident in those spots.its not possible to hit one chord and make it EXACTLY the same as another let alone a whole passage in a song let alone on a scratch track

Well, it's 2 completely different files as I can see their names in REAPER and it's not some strange accidental copying from one track to the other, I'm very sure of that. If I had accidently copied only one note from one track to another (don't even see how I would do this accidently) it would still be visible in REAPER. And since I'm 100% sure I haven't glued/consolidated anything in these scratch tracks... na uh, it's just not possible that it's an accident.

I'll see if I can grab a screenshot of the zoomed in track tomorrow. This does seem to be a rather unique problem, I'd love to go in-depth with it and try to see what's causing it But as I said, I'm 99,99% sure it's not a editing mistake since I haven't done any editing.

 

[Metaltastic]

Hmm, I do hear it (only really on one BAUUOOWWW, but the rest does feel a bit narrow) - honestly, I'm thinking it's the cheesy cheapness of the ampsim your using (Warp?) smearing things over, cuz it's never happened to me before!

 

[Line Level Recordings]

if you were micing the amp, you wouldnt have this problem
try Eqing the guitars to sound a bit different

 

[Erkan]

Hmm, I do hear it - honestly, I'm thinking it's the cheesy cheapness of the ampsim your using (Warp?) smearing things over, cuz it's never happened to me before!

Well, as I said... I zoomed in on both tracks and that "bauooow" note is freakin' on time with the same note on the other track... I mean, they're almost as tight as if I actually had copied them from one to another. As I said, it happens a couple times per song so it's not a huge issue but since I haven't done any editing... it should be safe to say it's a matter of simply playing "too tight", or actually being pure "lucky" would be more like it. I didn't create this thread to say "LOOK AT ME BITCHEZ, I PLAY TIGHT!" This is the first time I'm encountering it and I haven't seen anyone else talk about so it's interesting.

 

[Erkan]

if you were micing the amp, you wouldnt have this problem
try Eqing the guitars to sound a bit different

Yeah, that is one big valid point you've got right there!

But then again, if I was micing the amp I wouldn't even be able to record at all since there are almost constantly bands playing underneath and to either sides of my rehearsal room. I don't have the luxury of a separate studio

But yeah, different EQ would be one way to avoid it but I'm pretty sure it would still be audible unless I EQed DRASTICALLY different.

 

[Metaltastic]

Nah, I hear ya dude, but the thing is, even if it's perfectly on time, the chances of you hitting the string with the exact same attack in the exact same place are so unbelievably miniscule that there are always differences - just humor me, try it with a different ampsim (SoloC or something) and see if it's still doing it!

 

[Erkan]

Nah, I hear ya dude, but the thing is, even if it's perfectly on time, the chances of you hitting the string with the exact same attack in the exact same place are so unbelievably miniscule that there are always differences - just humor me, try it with a different ampsim (SoloC or something) and see if it's still doing it!

Yes I think the same way man. The chances of playing so damn tight so that you fuck up the whole stereo image... that's a slim chance in my world too. I'll try it with SoloC or something tomorrow if I get the chance, good idea.

 

[Metaltastic]

Yeah, I just feel like the subtle differences that would normally separate the two BAUOOWWWW's might be lost if one were using a sub-par ampsim (I know I always felt like the differences between pickups were substantially reduced when using my old PodXT, for example)

 

[mick thompson]

why not set it slightly off time? such as a few miliseconds & maybe open up a pitch shifter plugin and raise the pitch by a few cents too - that should give you some minor alterations between the sounds if you cant re-track it

 

[BLUElightCory]

I think you're overthinking it. It sounds great, it's really tight, move on with your life.

 

[lolzgreg]

I've heard this happen before. I tracked a riff once and someone told me it sounded like there was a dropout on it. I listened back to both tracks; there were no issues. But together, however, there was one note that seemed weaker than the rest and I think it may have been something similar. This only happened once, mind you

 

[GarethSE]

I remember Josh from Sylosis saying something about them having phase issues because he quad tracked THAT tight.
Don't see why it couldn't happen.