tracking guitar/crossfading tips?

[batcave1]

hey guys

new to the board
in the past doing demos I have just recorded one straight guitar track side to side and if there are mistakes will punch in...some songs I get tired and performance dies a bit near the end

just wondering how most of you track guitars and get them to sound seemless from part to part if that is the way you do it?

crossfades? like do you record a verse then chorus etc etc

do you start recording before the part kicks in to help the overlap?

thanks!

 

[RedDog]

Write the parts before you track them. Practice. And yes, if you have to punch in, certain DAWs have a pre-roll function that record audio before the actual punch in to help the punch.

 

[The StabbinCabin]

Personally I go DI and use amp sims. Then I'll do all my punch-ins and quantizing and then reamp when it's all done and shiz. Alternately you can get a DI Box and edit the DI as reference for the crossfades for your recorded amp signal.

I like using just the DI track with sims so if you record things at a slower tempo and whatnot it's more subtle than to squish or stretch a recorded amp track.

 

[greyskull]

I tend to trya nd record as long a section as possible, but Like to track in sections of the song, then double track immediately afterwards.

It's all a matter of practice with the fades.
Try and find the zero crossing point, but don't waste too much time on it.

 

[batcave1]

BTW I'm using kemper and axe-fx for guitars

so say the song goes intro|verse|chorus|verse|chorus|bridge|verse|end
just for example

I'm using cubase 6 so if I set up the locators for the intro , should I let the tail go over a little bit into the verse?
And then when I set up the locators to do the verse, should I start a little before the verse and then a little into the chorus? etc etc

and then do the cross fades?

 

[FrankTheSmith]

You could record the song from beginning to end in 1 take 3 or 4 times and slice it up and put together 1 solid track.
Record each section of the song, Verse/chorus/intro/etc
Record 1 take from beginning to end and just punch in sections that need to be fixed.

When I need to punch something in I usually play 1 bar before what needs to be punched in and like 1 bar after.
For DI guitar tracks my crossfades set to 2 miliseconds and there's never any problems, but for mic'd up amps I still keep the default at 2 milliseconds and adjust it until it sounds fine.
I have my crossdfades set like if I drag it to the right a little bit of the wav file goes to the left and vice versa. I use Samplitude Pro X, not sure if any other DAW's do that.
There's been some times where I don't use any crossfades and there's no problem.

 

[Star Ark]

It took me years to figure this one out, cross fade at a point where the kick or snare drums plays, that will hide any artifacts. Also start quite a bit back from where you intend to do the crossfade, it will help alot when it comes to entering the punch in point with the same rhythm. Things have to be perfect, otherwise you have a slight artifact which only gets louder the further into the mixing process you get. Once you bus compress the guitars, then mixbuss comp and or limit you will notice those artifacts become a lot louder. And if you quad track then you have all sorts of problems at the end of the mix

 

[RedDog]

Do what sounds natural man.

Seriously, I'm not being a hippie on you. Use your damn ears and if it doesn't sound natural you're doing it wrong.

 

[amarshism]

quick punch, easy as

 

[bryan_kilco]

I do a section or 2 at a time if I'm really comfortable with the riffs. Then double track right after so the riff is still very fresh. In REAPER, I use the auto-punch in thing or whatever its called. (Right click the red circle "Record" button and you have a few options in there). This starts recording as soon as you hit Play, but hides anything that isn't in the time selection/punch in area that you have made. This works great and then you can slide the crossfades around slightly to get seamless punches.

Another thing I do is move each guitar/bass tracks punch in/out points around so they are all slightly different from one another. So if I have a part of a song where both guitars and bass punch in at the exact same point on the grid, you'll probably hear the artifact there so I move them all around so they aren't all stacked at the same spot.

 

[Kohugaly]

Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't crossfade my DIs. I cut at zero crossings just at the start of the transients. Then align so they are continuous or put a short fadeout on the earlier take.