How many guitars?

ThomasT

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Sep 1, 2004
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Erfurt, Germany
www.krachwerk.de
Another questin I often wants to aks is, how many rhythm guitars do you record?

Hearing to some CDs there are are both extrema: only two guitars left-right (older Slayer, Sentenced, older Moonspell) or a wall of an unrecognisable number of guitars like Metallica (Justice for all), Rammstein etc.

Do you record some identical guitar track (same git, same mik, same amp etc.) or do you variate each track?

How do you pan the guitars in the mix?

Just to get new ideas. I nearly tried everything. And I notices that 5 a maxima. More guitars produce only mudd but no fatter overall sound.
 
4 tracks rhythm, and aditional solo tracks. 2 tracks half left-right not so loud, the other 2 tracks left-right louder (main tracks). Try to get a decent mix of both. No other mic's or positions. If a mic and a position works perfect why change? (never change a winning team) ;)

Franky
 
Frank'nfurter said:
4 tracks rhythm, and aditional solo tracks. 2 tracks half left-right not so loud, the other 2 tracks left-right louder (main tracks). Try to get a decent mix of both. No other mic's or positions. If a mic and a position works perfect why change? (never change a winning team) ;)
Franky

I do normally exactly the same. But I found that using another different sounding mic makes a fatter sound and gives a wider stereo image. But the same mic on a different postion works also nearly so good.

E.g. on the last project I used a SM57 for tracks 1 and 3 and a C541B for 2 and 4. I pan 1 and 2 extremely left-right and 3 and 4 half left(4) half right(3).
This gives the fullest guitar wall.

Even in live situations miking a cap with two different mics panned left-right can make a full sound. Again, you have to try to EQ them so that they sound equal. The equaler the sound of both miks, the smaller the stereo image. But if they sound too different it will sound strange.

Someday a recorded a band with a line6 amp. I use two mics and the direct signal through a red box. So I recorded 3 tracks of each guitar. But I used only 2 of them in the mix. Microfones left-right, direct signals half left right but not so loud.
 
I do 4 rhythm tracks. If there is a melody lead guitar line then I usually double this on top of the 4 rhythm tracks. But I tend to find 6 tracks can be a little too much without having to start automating all the guitar levels. I find it easier to just mute two of the rhythm tracks while the melody lead is playing and this works most of the time. If there's a harmony part I'll make this a seperate track so that there are two tracks of the melody and one track of the harmony.
 
Why not? If you have enough tracks? :D :D :D
No seriously, if you have 2 guitarrist in the band sometimes both wanna play a solo. It's an ego thing hehehehe
Or you have a guitarist that is able to play the same solo exactly twice.
Sounds very terrific.

Franky
 
Frank'nfurter said:
Why not? If you have enough tracks? :D :D :D
No seriously, if you have 2 guitarrist in the band sometimes both wanna play a solo. It's an ego thing hehehehe
Or you have a guitarist that is able to play the same solo exactly twice.
Sounds very terrific.
Franky

Ach so...
It seemed to be a fixed number. For something that often is completely different .

Sometimes 4 Sologuitars (fading each other), sometimes two playing harmonies. Sometimes two left-right (live both players playing leads like In flames).
Tracks (to record*) are not the problem today with HD-Recording.

* too much tracks are much more work during mixing
 
ThomasT said:
Ach so...
It seemed to be a fixed number. For something that often is completely different .

Sometimes 4 Sologuitars (fading each other), sometimes two playing harmonies. Sometimes two left-right (live both players playing leads like In flames).
Tracks (to record*) are not the problem today with HD-Recording.

* too much tracks are much more work during mixing

I read somewhere that by experimenting with mic position and amp tweaking you often don't need to do much mixing in your recording suite, if this holds true, then it's a matter of finding the right position.

Do you record the 4 guitars or do you just duplicate the guitar track as much as the needed tracks and tweak/treat their EQ differently to make a better souding guitar sound? if so, do you have any tips or rules on doing so?

For example, what's the volume difference for the tracks, is there some formula to do this? or is it a matter of tweaking? do you cut/boost some freqs in the left-panned ones that you don't in the right-panned ones?

Last week all I've done was recording short clips of stuff I've done, to learn and practice the art of mixing, but...I seriously don't know anything, all I do sound horrible, starting from the flat-guitar to the eq'd one, I did duplicate the tracks as well. Not to mention, EQs are still a big mistery to me, I don't get along with them firmly yet.

For example, I read somewhere that if I cut a little around 500hz, the vox gets more presence, on which track(s) should I cut this freq for example? I'm full of unanswered questions. I wish I had a pair of decent monitors to be able to assume this as my ears problem and not a problem resulting from the weak output of my PC speakers (a 15watts phillips pair with bass button ^_^)

I've started writing down the questions that come up to mind everyonce in a while at home while recording or reading production-related documents/books...it's getting bigger and bigger :-/

To end, how much time (on average) do you take to mix a song?

Anyway, thanks a lot for all who explained me much.

off-topic: Opeth's deliverance was mixed/mastered by who? wilson or sneap? I
 
morningstar said:
I read somewhere that by experimenting with mic position and amp tweaking you often don't need to do much mixing in your recording suite, if this holds true, then it's a matter of finding the right position.

Mic position is overated in my opinion. It important but not that much.
If it don't sound good when you just put a mic in front of a speaker it will not sound good even if you try hours to find the golden mic position.
Mic placement is a kind of natural EQ. EQ cannot compansate bad placement.

morningstar said:
Do you record the 4 guitars or do you just duplicate the guitar track as much as the needed tracks and tweak/treat

You need 4 different signals! 4 signals that have as less a possible correlation.
A copy is simplier done by tuning the pan-pot to center instead of copying the track an turn on left and the other right.
You can do some tricks to make pseudostereo from a mono-track but that is not what we want. We want 2 or 4 different tracks that sound different but fits together.

morningstar said:
For example, what's the volume difference for the tracks, is there some formula to do this?

There are no formular in recording! There are only physical and psychological rules.
What works today will fail tomorrow.
 
ThomasT said:
Mic position is overated in my opinion. It important but not that much.
If it don't sound good when you just put a mic in front of a speaker it will not sound good even if you try hours to find the golden mic position.

I agree with you that you need to get the best sound at source possible, but I think mic placement is probably THE most importatnt thing when recording guitars. If you're just 1/2 an inch off the sweet spot you are sacrificing a full tone, and you can end up getting a horrible off axis sound.

I find that when mic placement isn't spot on I end up killing so much of the sound with EQ to try and get rid of all the hisses and farts that the sound just loses all its character.
 
mic placement is one of the fundemental points to a great tone, moving the mic 1 cm can make a huge difference imo.

Of course its got to sound good coming from the rig, but then what...

Deliverence....I can never remember album names (song names, peoples names) but if thats the heavy album, I did it.
 
So, sorry for keeping the off-topic.

Yes Sneap, it's their heavier release. I love the drum sounds in it, they sound so crystal clear..tons of definition... what a tag team! ^_^
 
ThomasT said:
...unrecognisable number of guitars like ... Rammstein etc.
A normally unreliable source tells me the guitars for "Mutter" were done by recording the same note eight times, mixing this together, chopping off the attacks and building the riff in the editor.
This sounds plausible, particulary in places where the riff includes a fast run which wouldn't sound right done this way, as the sound seems to change slightly consistant with the idea that these parts were recorded manually.
Apparently done with a Pod as well.
 
Mendez wasnt happy with it! Not enough cymbals apparently, though I did what I could with what they gave me. No natural kick recorded!! I think the live recording came out pretty good considering their was a minimal sound check, I'd like to work with the guys from start to finish though, Mike especially, very talented gtr player.
 
yeah, bit megadeth at times also I thought, its difficult mixing songs that long, you never listen to the whole thing til you print it.....then you realize something at 10min 28 sec needs changing aarrrgghh