Recording rhythm harmony guitars

[daver]

Hi All,

This has kind of been discussed before I guess, but would like some feedback / thoughts on best practised for recording harmony rhythm guitars / rhythm guitars where the parts are slightly different.

Looking to record for my back in which we have 2 guitars, each play slightly different rhythm tracks a fair amount of the time, ie harmony thirds, chord inversions etc etc

Live we pan left / right, but can't get is sounding right recorded.

Setups i've tried....

a) one track per guitarist pan hard left right with their seperate parts
b) each guitarist plays both parts and then one guitarist part left and other right
c) each guitarist pays basic part right / left, harmony etc new track in middle

What approach do you take?

Many thanks,

Dave

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

I'd try;

4 tracks, the harmonies panned to 30 and the main parts panned to 60 with slightly different sounds... might sound odd or might work.

or

Treat the harmony rythyms as you would overdubbed leads

or

simplify the part so it can be played by two players live (is this allready the case?) and have one part left and one right. If the rythym is the same that'll work well. If it isn't... you end up sounding like meshuggah.

I should get the train over the channel and help ya out

I'm in Cardiff.

 

[daver]

Thanks for the response on this, yeah, the 4 tracks gave me everything to play with, it was just a little 'layered' for my liking. I'll let you know how we get on / what we go with in the hopefully not too distant future! Think the problem is we're so used to our live sound, it's just unfamiliar to hear the extra guitars etc!

Yeah, cardiff just a stones throw away!

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

I'd say the best thing to go for was treating them as leads then, with a little mix tweaking you'd be able to make them sound like one whole thing and you can use the same sound really because they shouldn't create a chorus effect if they aren't playing the same parts.

Let us know how it goes anyway.

 

[Ermz]

How do you effectively treat a part as a lead? Just do one layer and make the tone different/more prominent?

 

[daver]

what i'm thinking along the 'treating them as leads' line may well be similar to what I've tried (and think with some tweaking will be happiest with!)

1st guitarist plays basic rhythm part left, 2nd guitarist does the same right (different guitar, slightly diff sound etc)

Then record harmony parts as overdubs, ie just the harmony notes / chord extensions / sqeals / whatever and mix centre

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

How do you effectively treat a part as a lead? Just do one layer and make the tone different/more prominent?

You treat it as an overdub as opposed to a main track.

A maintrack being the rythyms, the kick drum of whatever.

Opeth do a shitload of that kinda stuff, especially on Still Life.