Double tracking guitars TOO tight?

Yeah , it's impossible I believe. I edit the HELL out of some guitar tracks and never have had this problem, only when I accidentally copied the same part to both tracks as some else said.
 
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.

this has happened about 3 or 4 times in my career

its totally possible to play a note or a few notes that are EXACTLEY the same and the signal goes to mono

i have the project files saved to prove it
 
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.

Interesting!

I was having phase problems with a track the other day - I couldnt for the life of me figure out why; the playing seemed to be tight, but I assumed that the phasing would be from un-tight playing. It also sounded mono in places.

This explains much, thankyou! I will try to be less anal about the timing of my doubles. That should shave a couple of hours off tracking :kickass:
 
I had this problem one time recently using pod farm. Luckily I discovered it right away and was able to retrack the part. I was a bit skeptical about it being from playing too tight, but this thread (and the fact that a quick retrack solved the problem) kind of erodes my skepticism.

For me though, anything even approaching this level of tightness is too tight for me. I'll spend a lot of time trying to get rhythms as tight as possible just to end up not liking the end result. Too robotic sounding (I'm sure amp sims and DFH have no part in the synthetic sound! ;) ). I want them to still sound like two seperate guitarists, playing really tight, rather than (the reality) one guitarist playing really tight.
 
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.

if you want, you can send the DI tracks to me and i can re amp them for you :)
 
You are a GOD among humble humans, man.:worship:
Come track my album pls.



ps. sorry, couldn't resist. friends?

You immature little competitive prick, I didn't even have the slightest thought of making this whole thread sound like a brag but it turns out it did. The reason it sounds like I'm bragging is because I'm completely swallowed up by this phenomenon and how "cool" it is because I've never heard someone talk about it and when I saw the waveforms matching up like that I was almost shocked. Audiogeek ftw haha.. being shocked by waveforms!
 
I heard that happen in one of Lasse's clips:
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...0-guess-amp-easy-metaltastic.html#post8314686

Real amp, two takes but listen to 0:23 in the clip

http://lsd-tonstudio.de/sonstiges/amptest.mp3

Holy shit! I heard it... and that's from a real amp with SO many more variables than an amp sim? Damn, this is a cool phenomenon :) I guess it's not so uncommon after all... I mean, it's not a matter of playing SUPER TIGHT, it's more a luck thing I'd say and it wouldn't surprise me if my favourite albums are full of this "mistake". It might be hard to notice in a full mix.
 
without naming names, there's a dude on here that likes to comment that people's clips sound mono even though they're stereo. I thought it was a put-down but perhaps this effect of which you speak is what he'd heard.
 
Well if you're referring to me, then a peek in the guitar tone comp. results will show that each one that I thought sounded mono had guitars that weren't hard-panned (so no, that's not what I was hearing :p) If not, disregard this poast! :loco:
 
You immature little competitive prick, I didn't even have the slightest thought of making this whole thread sound like a brag but it turns out it did. The reason it sounds like I'm bragging is because I'm completely swallowed up by this phenomenon and how "cool" it is because I've never heard someone talk about it and when I saw the waveforms matching up like that I was almost shocked. Audiogeek ftw haha.. being shocked by waveforms!

I prefer you to stop right here Mister. I said I was only making a joke and kind of apologized.Calling me immature prick doesn't make your tracks sound better or solve your problem for which I might had an answer. I happen to know how rapidly Turks are getting angry and don't have that sense of humor I was looking for. But competitive? What for?
So, Erkan, I am apologizing once again, happy now? I hope you get a good answer from the guys. Cheers.
 
I prefer you to stop right here Mister. I said I was only making a joke and kind of apologized.Calling me immature prick doesn't make your tracks sound better or solve your problem for which I might had an answer. I happen to know how rapidly Turks are getting angry and don't have that sense of humor I was looking for. But competitive? What for?
So, Erkan, I am apologizing once again, happy now? I hope you get a good answer from the guys. Cheers.

I think Erkan was joking but forgot to indicate so.
 
I prefer you to stop right here Mister. I said I was only making a joke and kind of apologized.Calling me immature prick doesn't make your tracks sound better or solve your problem for which I might had an answer. I happen to know how rapidly Turks are getting angry and don't have that sense of humor I was looking for. But competitive? What for?
So, Erkan, I am apologizing once again, happy now? I hope you get a good answer from the guys. Cheers.

It kind of felt to me as if you were offended by this thread and it sounded like you thought I was doing all of this just to brag my ass off that I got lucky enough to play super tight on ONE note here and there. I just saw that as a really unnecessary remark considering I never spend any time on this forum talking about how awesome I am - I know my place and it's not in the hall of fame.

As for the turk part - I have never been in a fight since I was 12. There have been MANY occasions on which I'm sure almost everybody else would decide to use their fists when I instead managed to solve it by talk/walking away. So I'm not so sure about what you're saying dude :) I'm born in Sweden so there's not much of a turk "instinct" left in me anyway, I'm just really calm and down to earth, I promise! Have a drink with me and you'll see =)

I think Erkan was joking but forgot to indicate so.

Yea, all this forum and internet business can get serious quite too often! When I said all that "I played so tight, yada yada" I didn't mean it as if I had managed to do something no one else has ever done before. I guess it's a touchy subject for most musicians since everybody is striving for extreme tightness due to today's modern standards. I know back when I was into extreme drumming and all that, I was infuriated to hear any drummer being able to pull off anything better than me. I hated surfing around on YouTube because I used to see so many little kids being faster than me on the double kicks. I'm so glad I got out of that trap, and I just despise that way of thinking now. It's sadly too common among musicians to be extremely competitive, and I just perceived Raptor7 as one of them due to that remark. I'm aware that I might've been a bit trigger happy in my response! =)

Anyway, let's skip any further drama in the thread. I didn't ask for you to apologize Raptor7, it's cool dude =) Just promise me you'll never become like I once used to be, play music for music, not for dick waving contests! Haha =D
 
Erkan, no probs, man. We'll do it next time I visit Sweden. The drinks I ment. As for the turks part, I know coz I have a few turk friends. Pls accept my apologies once again. next time when I want to laugh a bit I'll think twice
 
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

The whole lot does kinda sound super tight maybe a little too clinical but believe me im not knocking you I just think maybe sometimes perfection can be taken a step too far .
If you recorded that clip in one take then I suggest not practising so much :)
Whats the point if you just end up with random mono notes ?!