mixing too much guitarsss

[Adegheiz]

Hello I have 2, somethimes 3 guitars, that plays different things during all the songs, one in the low registers that does more death stuff (palm muting power chords) and the others in the high registers that play melodic stuff like keep of kalessin. Usually I double track all the guitars than I have always a dilemma on how to pan the guitars: mix both on the left & right or is it better to have the rythem guitar L&R and retain only a traking in the center of the other guitars expanding it with delays? I can't give them a nice separation, it is always a mess!
How you behave?

thanks

sorry for my english

 

[Studdy]

Tight tracking + Eq.

Also if you are not visualizing the finsihed mix a little before tracking its hard to get it to sound that way after. What i mean is, dont just track a ton of shit and figure out what to do with it after, have somewhat of a plan before tracking. Cheers.

 

[undercurrent217]

Sometimes if I have a lot of different parts happening at the same time, I'll do one of two things. 1.) figure out which are most important and what part is more supportive and doesn't have to be in your face. Then maybe get rid of it or bury in mix if not necessary. 2.) I'll pan each part different, rhythm guitars being widest. I'll then bring down the volume on one PART per side so the double is still there giving support but there's more of a separation and clarity. So say part "x" is favored mostly on the left side and part "y" is mostly on the right, even though they're both on each side. One is just louder out of their doubles. This is for non-rhythm tracks. I'm no expert but that's what I'll do sometimes.

 

[Jormyn]

Not panning, but recording different parts with a different guitar/amp/pickup/cabinet/mic/whatever does wonders for giving you better separation, since you've actually got different frequencies present in the signal.

 

[Barnsy]

I have always been an engineer who piles on the guitar tracks. Sounds good, well double it. Now a capo and figure out the part on a different neck position. Double that. Find a good combo amp that compliments the full stack in the mix - double that..

One day I downloaded some stems of a Killswitch song. Had some new amp sims I wanted to try out.. and was amazed at how big things sounded with barely any extra layers of guitar.

The playing and tones were so good, you wouldn't want to smear it with heaps of phasey layers.

Since then I have really reduced the amount of guitar layers I track and concentrate on good clean DI tones that I can reamp if need be, and really make sure the take is as amazing and tight as the player can get. Down to concentrating on the amount of pressure the palm mutes have..

I think a lot of the metal based productions I have done recently actually have bigger, more focused guitar production because of this approach.

I still love a good opportunity for a rhythm guitar double to kick in.. I just don't "double everything"