Quad tracking guitars

[Torniojaws]

Dont worry we are going to be welded to the click

There's more to it than just staying in time with the click. The two same guitar tracks need to be *identical* down to the smallest ghost note/slide. Otherwise it won't sound good, as it will sound somewhat reverb-y and mushy.

 

[Nebulous]

To demonstrate why we are all recommending this, record a simple I III V chord progression (or something very simple) using your method (track slipping and duplication), then record it using our method (multiple recorded takes). Compare for yourself and see which one you like and which one you will use on your CD.

 

[James-Doolan]

To demonstrate why we are all recommending this, record a simple I III V chord progression (or something very simple) using your method (track slipping and duplication), then record it using our method (multiple recorded takes). Compare for yourself and see which one you like and which one you will use on your CD.

That sounds like a plan thanks

 

[James-Doolan]

There's more to it than just staying in time with the click. The two same guitar tracks need to be *identical* down to the smallest ghost note/slide. Otherwise it won't sound good, as it will sound somewhat reverb-y and mushy.

ok now im confused if its suposed to be identical why not just duplicate the
1st take as that would be an identical copy .

i thought the whole idea was to have slight variations to give you a bigger guitar sound.

 

[Torniojaws]

ok now im confused if its suposed to be identical why not just duplicate the
1st take as that would be an identical copy .

i thought the whole idea was to have slight variations to give you a bigger guitar sound.

The variation is something the human ear doesn't notice when you solo the tracks. But when the four separate takes are summed together, they will not be identical in the "duplicate" sense. Instead, there's slight waveform and EQ (not in the effect EQ sense) differences constantly. You cannot emulate that by copypasting a single take, and it is not the same thing.

To put it very straightforward, it's the same thing as 1 person screaming something and then you copypaste that many times. Then you compare that to, for example, 10 people screaming the same thing. They will be just as loud by RMS when you level them to the same level, but the group of 10 screamers will sound a lot different than that one person.

 

[James-Doolan]

The variation is something the human ear doesn't notice when you solo the tracks. But when the four separate takes are summed together, they will not be identical in the "duplicate" sense. Instead, there's slight waveform and EQ (not in the effect EQ sense) differences constantly. You cannot emulate that by copypasting a single take, and it is not the same thing.

To put it very straightforward, it's the same thing as 1 person screaming something and then you copypaste that many times. Then you compare that to, for example, 10 people screaming the same thing. They will be just as loud by RMS when you level them to the same level, but the group of 10 screamers will sound a lot different than that one person.

ok that clears it up for me thanks dude by the way loved your engl powerball biasing guide on the engl fourm it helped me a lot

i still have some questions on it but il pm you some other time on that one. im nowhere near my pb at the mo

 

[Fionn McC]

the point is as follows; a duplication within a DAW is indentical... an identical performance is being sampled by the soundcard at 44100 (or whatever rate your at) times a second so the waveform that is created is far from identical... it may sound identical to you but your easrs are prolly not quite that precise, not far off but just far off enuf!

what i wanna know is when reamping can you get away with just 2 takes reamped to 4 or do you actually need 4 seperate takes... it is being re-sampled so is the reamping process (and the fact thats its going through a different amp say) enuf variation in the signal to give the illusion of 4 performances... if so this would be amazing, i have no experience of re-amping yet, have a seesion coming up soon so i think i'm gonna buy a ProRMP and give it a go!

 

[Darkening]

the point is as follows; a duplication within a DAW is indentical... an identical performance is being sampled by the soundcard at 44100 (or whatever rate your at) times a second so the waveform that is created is far from identical... it may sound identical to you but your easrs are prolly not quite that precise, not far off but just far off enuf!

That's not the reason. It's the variations in the performance, not the A/D conversion that you want.

what i wanna know is when reamping can you get away with just 2 takes reamped to 4 or do you actually need 4 seperate takes... it is being re-sampled so is the reamping process (and the fact thats its going through a different amp say) enuf variation in the signal to give the illusion of 4 performances... if so this would be amazing, i have no experience of re-amping yet, have a seesion coming up soon so i think i'm gonna buy a ProRMP and give it a go!

No. 4 seperate takes is 4 seperate takes. Quadtracking means track 4 times. Period. Quad - 4. If you use 2 takes, you will have Doubletracked guitars. If you reamp them through a different amp, then you still have Doubletracked guitars with two amps that can be blended.

 

[Fionn McC]

That's not the reason. It's the variations in the performance, not the A/D conversion that you want.

the point i was making is that even a seemingly identical performance wont be identical when cosidered at a/d precision, to be honest the closer you can get the two performances the better, the variations you are talking about should be in audible i.e. ms!

No. 4 seperate takes is 4 seperate takes. Quadtracking means track 4 times. Period. Quad - 4. If you use 2 takes, you will have Doubletracked guitars. If you reamp them through a different amp, then you still have Doubletracked guitars with two amps that can be blended.

surely due to the fact that the waveforms are not going to be identical the reamping should not just blend... answer me this if you had a take far left and a reamped version of the same take far right would they merge too center or would they stay far left/right...

 

[Noumenon]

no idea if the reamps will make a difference. but double tracked guitars will be double tracked even if it's reamped through 11 times. you'd still base it on two tracked guitars, not 11

 

[colonel kurtz]

Plus Duplicating Tracks are going to cause weird Phase problems

not necessarily...

and if i was in your situation, i would probably get 2 takes from each amp, at the very least

and remember...WHEN STACKING GUITAR TRACKS, TURN DOWN THE FUCKING GAIN!!!!

while a single highly-distorted track might sound good itself, putting multiple highly distorted tracks on top of each other sounds like fizzy shit really quick, due to the randomization/non-linearity of distortion....multiple tracks at moderate distortion levels produces a single, highly distorted, and hopefully bone-crushing tone

 

[colossal]

don't you guys find that (mainly with the techy stuff) 2 guitar tracks is enough? 1 for each player plus solo's and extra bits is how i usually do it.

open question, how often (percentage wise) would you say you have more than 2 main tracks for each guitarist?

 

[colonel kurtz]

sure it sounds like "enough" - until you throw some more tracks on top of what you've got

for example...on the last tool album, adam jones played through his marshall, mesa-boogie, and diezel simultaneously. each amp went to a mesa cabinet that had 3 mics on it - 2 up close, 1 room.

this means, of course, that each take made for 9 tracks, which were then grouped down to a single channel.

they ended up getting at LEAST 4 takes of everything...that makes for at least 36 guitar tracks throughout!

SOAD's toxicity album had at least 24 tracks layed down for the guitars. it fucking sucks, but that's what it takes to get awesome tone on record a lot of the time.

 

[ryanojohn]

Tuesday night I'm doing a guitar tracking session, we're doing 3 mics on the cab and one in the room, and we're doing 2 amps and performances per side.

One guitarist is doing 4 tracks of the rhythms, 2 on each amp, and the other guitarist is doing the lead bits single tracked through a chandler pre... mmm

Hopefully it comes out badassss