How to get a huge guitar sound without double tracking?

[tsunamistar]

Not sure if this is the right forum to ask, if not, you can move the thread.

But im wondering. If the band refuses to double track, or arent tight enough to double track. Is there still a way to make it sound big?

I've tried unlinked compressions, stereo wideners, and turning up the bass. Still the guitars sound very separate from each other, and they feel like they are just, beside the bass. and not with the bass. maybe because each side is playing something different? Do they have to be all playing the same thing in order to sound HUGE?

thanks for the help in advance!

 

[bryan_kilco]

Needs to have really tight playing.

When you say " If the band refuses to double track, or arent tight enough to double track. Is there still a way to make it sound big?"

Make them double track. Double track = 2 tracks panned hard Left/Right.

You can't get that wide stereo image with a single track in the center. no matter what you do to it, it won't sound as good as 2 separate takes.

 

[tsunamistar]

Well we do have a 100% left and 100% right, two tracks. two different recordings. what i mena by double tracking is like, playing say

Riff A once 100% left and Riff Ab 70% left
Riff B once 100% right and Riff Bb 70% right

b meaning they play the same thing twice> so 4 tracks in total! but they dont want to do that.

I mean im sure you can get away with that in rock music, but for metal i feel i t needs a double tracking recording.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Ahh, you meant quad tracking then. I don't prefer quad tracking. 2 should sound just fine if they are tight enough.

 

[lee_mulcahy]

I think I get what you mean, I would say the problem is a different riff on each side, It always seems to make mixes sound lopsided and incohesive (to me anyway), personally I would take the riff that is the more rhythmic of the two and use that as the rhythm guitar track, pan a different take hard left and right then treat the other riff similar to a lead guitar and have it panned more towards the centre. It's usually possible to create a "new" rhythm guitar track by taking from other parts in the song as well as using spare takes if the band haven't planned for this whilst recording! Try it out by hacking together a new rhythm track and see if it helps, It usually helps having at least slightly different tones between the riffs as well for clear separation

 

[Nimvi]

You could try the Haas-effect, although mono compatibility is weak. It won't replace proper multitracking, but at the very least it will give you a way to get those guitars away from the center without sounding extremely lopsided.

 

[Trevoire520]

You should be able to get reasonable results using double tracking (what you're referring to is quad tracking) Though I do find just double tracking can cause problems if there's one guitar playing riff/lead parts and the other playing rhythmn/chords. In which case double track the rhythm/chord part panning it left and right, and do the riff/lead part once and pan it centre.

 

[lelahel]

i had this problem before this is one of the reasons that is stopped to record bands. most of them are amateur and have shitty playing, and when you tell them that they have to double track they say : are you sure?
What you have to do is to convice them to practice more and more to be tighter, or stop record amateur bands

 

[Terminus]

Cant count how many times I've gone to someone's house and they show me their recorded songs and it's just one guitar down the middle. And these people are in or nearing their 30's and have listened to metal albums before. I can't tell if they're just willfully ignorant or stupid. Not that that has anything to do with the thread, just sayin. Damn. I mean I figured it out way back before i even owned an instrument just hearing Maiden on headphones.

 

[ShipwreckSoundWorks]

Ha ha ha. "If they refuse"
If they refuse, since I'm assuming you've done it right and collected an advance, tell them to piss off until they get it together. You can't be blamed for them lacking the ability to play tight.
You're the producer. If the don't want to quad track (Which is actually what you're talking about) and do it your way, then tell them to go to someone else.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Another thing (that's been touched on a million times here) is having the tighter guitarist track, if there's 2 guitarists in the band.

I just "produced" my own bands 2 song demo. I was dreading some of the work, because I hate tracking other people. Maybe it makes me sound arrogant and asshole-ish, but when people are asking me "how do you get your recordings so tight sounding?!?!"......I just tell them it was all me and it took me hours of small punch ins to make sure everything is as tight as I can get it.

Needless to say, in this 2 song demo, we all played our own parts respectively. It came out better than I thought, but still not as tight as if just one of is tracked all the strings.

 

[ProTambo]

If you don't like stereo imaging, compression, thing like that--I would try this: if you have one guitar part left, another on the right, you can achieve a nice wide, full mix by taking left guitar, send to aux, and put delay or tight roomy reverb on it, throwing its effects to the right in stereo field. Make sure and darken the EQ of the effects so u don't cover up the other guitar part that (presence-wise) is sitting in the left ear. Do the same to the right guitar--add its effects in the left ear, darken them. This will add nice stereo fullness, busy-ness, thickness in your mix. Make sense? Hope this helps.

 

[IAMLORDVADER]

I've found that tracking with 2 microphones on the cab really thickens up the sound. if its 2 players pan their respective mics to each side

 

[mva801]

All you usually need is one track left and one track right. If they're playing leads that make one side sound a little thinner, double up the rhythm and put the lead in the middle. If that doesn't sound huge, then your tone is bad or they're shitty players. It's that easy.

 

[schwinginbatman]

I'm glad you learned what quad-tracking is before you went through it. I remember when I got quite confused make the same mistake you did, but I didn't figure it out until the demo was recorded. I hate quad-tracking.

 

[abaga129]

Another thing (that's been touched on a million times here) is having the tighter guitarist track, if there's 2 guitarists in the band.

I just "produced" my own bands 2 song demo. I was dreading some of the work, because I hate tracking other people. Maybe it makes me sound arrogant and asshole-ish, but when people are asking me "how do you get your recordings so tight sounding?!?!"......I just tell them it was all me and it took me hours of small punch ins to make sure everything is as tight as I can get it.

Needless to say, in this 2 song demo, we all played our own parts respectively. It came out better than I thought, but still not as tight as if just one of is tracked all the strings.

I agree. The other guitarist may get offended but the need to suck it up for sake of the mix. This also gets rid of any inconsistencies between the two players. Then if you really want everything to sound perfect, you can time warp both tracks to be perfectly on time (but I doubt you're getting paid enough to want to do this)

Also stereo imaging might help the guitars sound bigger like you want.