Saw this thread and had to get my two sense on it.
I've always done things from a musicians perspective up until four years ago when I started recording with several semi-reputable producers. Now, musicians like me generally want to record something that sounds musically coherent and has the right 'feel' to it AND want it to sound like a million bucks. Producers generally want to record something that is high-fidelity and will respond well to compression, EQ and limiting AND hope that it will still sound musical. For the record (excuse the pun), a producer that can relate to a musician's perspective is invaluable... These wizards generally possess the technical knowledge to get you a great sound and the critical musicianship to ensure that the record still sounds like the band who recorded it.
So, enough of my digressions... When you are looking for beefy guitars, you have to know what you want. Basically, determine if you are looking to get:
A) a vibey, loose, energetic performance (ie Black Sabbath, Slayer, etc)
B) a tight, jump-out-of-the-speakers performance (Devil Driver, Meshuggah) or
C) somewhere in between.
Personally, I go for option C, but it also takes the longest to do... Three producers I've worked with claim that their preference is to take an entire 6-8 hour day to track guitar for one song. I thought they were crazy until I saw the precision and detail that went into this process: Recording anywhere from 1 note to 1 riff at a time and punching in constantly to smooth out timing issues, mis-articulated notes, fret noises, tuning issues, etc. Some guys I've worked with refuse to copy and paste because they claim it's too mechanical sounding. Therefore, I've had to go through the same excruciating detail with each and every riff. Each transition between riffs is punched in to make it sound more natural. Sound strange? yep. Does it work? yep.
Once we (the engineer and I) have recorded a track that we feel is competent, I then take the files home and sit down in pro tools with headphones on. I usually do this late at night when I'm wide awake and the surrounding world is silent. I then proceed to do one of two things:
A) adjust any little blips and timing issues that we may have missed during tracking and then crossfade the entire track. If one chorus sounds weaker than an identical one, I may decide to copy and paste the better sounding one.
B) Quantize each and every note to a grid for guitar 1 and then line guitar 2 up so that it is in phase with guitar 1 (not necessarily on the grid but when the two guitars are in phase it adds a really nice bass response). For this method to work in metal, you will need to record with a DI box.
From my understanding, 99% of tech death and dethcore records are done via option B (include djent here for the Meshuggah fans). That's how you get that machine-gun tight sound where every chug jumps out of the speakers at you. Personally, I usually A-B the edited vs. non-edited guitars and use whatever sounds better to my ear. This is more time consuming and requires more than just blindly plowing through DI signals because you have to use your critical musician judgement.
What you end up with will vary. Hopefully, it will sound like you playing the song with your very best timing and articulation of riffs - That's the point of option C. Quantizing, copying-and-pasting anything and everything without using judgement will most likely leave you with a MIDI metal track where everything is perfect and a tad soul-less. If that's what you were going for because you're a huge Fear Factory fan than good on ya.
Really, I don't mean to bash anyone's approach to recording. Every project has it's own needs and the project works best when the musicians plan ahead and know what method will get them the right results.
