Guitarlayering guide

ahjteam

Anssi Tenhunen
Since many of you guys seem to have questions about guitar panning and layering etc, so I decided to do a quick demonstaration.

Do note that it is not metal nor very tightly played because I was aiming for Foo Fighters kinda vibe, where the untightness actually creates these small nyances, but hopefully it gives you the idea :) All of the takes are first or second take as you can see from the picture. All guitars are tracked with LTD EC50 and the free Simul Analog Guitar Suite plugins, bass is LTD B50 thru sansamp.

Anyways, here is the audio file: http://www.ahjteam.com/upload/2008/guitarlayering_test.mp3 (~5.5mb)

guitarlayering_test.jpg


There is a 2+16 bar runs of a very basic drumloop with more guitars added each time. Heres how the runs go and how they are panned:

1: lead guitar alone playing F# and D, R60
2: rhythm guitar alone playing A E and G, L60
3: both together, L60 R60
4: added bass playing same line as rhythm guitar, C
5: rhythm guitar double tracked, R60
6: rhythm guitar quad tracked and lead guitar double tracked, rhythm L100 R100 lead L60

Also do note that my guitarsounds are generally pretty thin sounding by theirselves, but I made it on purpose. This way I can leave a lot more room and definition for the bass guitar. But as you might've noticed, the rhythm guitar has a bit more low end on it than the lead sound, when the lead sound has more mids, high and presence and also a delay effect to mask some of the errors and make the sound a bit smoother. The rhythm sound is dry, no delay or reverb on it.