tracking guitars with two guitar players

[Fragle]

hi guys

i've got a question regarding the recording of rhythm guitars. as most metal bands seem to have two guitar players, i wonder how it's usually done....does one guitar player (the one that's playing more precise?!) play all the tracks (lets say it's gonna be two left two right), or is one playing the tracks on the left and the other dude the tracks on the right side, or both one track left and right? what's the most common way?
furthermore, it would be great if a pro like andy could post his opinion on this issue...maybe he could even say how specific bands did it? (nevermore, arch enemy??)

thanks

 

[Razorjack]

It depends on the band, if both guitarists are tight then I'll let them both track 2 rhythm tracks each, otherwise the guitarist who is tightest will play all rhythm tracks.

 

[Ermz]

The way I recently did it was have one guitarist play all the rhythms and the other play about 90% of the leads. As jack said, it depends on the band. You want the tighther player to be doing rhythms. If one fancies himself as the rhythm guitarist, and the other as a lead player, do it like that. Let them both fill their specific roles.

 

[Fragle]

well, the reason i'm asking is that the band i'm in is taking a different approach regarding songwriting for the next record. everything used to be written by the lead guitar player and the drummer, with the lead guitar player recording every single guitar track, both lead and rhythm.
the next record however will be more of a band effort, meaning that the bassplayer and myself will also write stuff. i'm also quite a lead player in contrast to the guy i replaced who was like rhythm only. i figured i'll share the lead duties with the other guitar player, but i wondered how it should be when it comes to rhythm. the thing is, i don't have any actual studio experience (although i'm doing a lot of home recording, which consequently includes multi tracking rhythm guitars to a click etc), whereas the other guy already tracked guitars for three records.
basically, i wanted to know if i should be satisfied with playing a couple of leads and having him record all the rhythms no matter who wrote the songs, or if i should insist on recording at least my songs or even all of them. i mean, time's money, and studios are expensive, so i'm 100% sure the band (namely lead guitar player and drummer) won't let me record anything in the first place, but i wondered if thats common or rather uncommon given the fact that i'm the songwriter, too.

any more comments? am i just being an attention whore?

 

[Lopes]

If you guys are paying to record in a studio, then throw the egos out the window. Whoever plays it best, tightest, and can nail it quickest should play it, and that doesn't mean one guitarist should do all the rhythms, whoever can play a particular section the best should do it, which is something that needs to be decided before entering the studio.

 

[Matt Crooks]

For the new Twisted Tower Dire CD I had the guitarists play different sections of the same songs. One guitarist was better at the precice picking parts and one was better at the looser, swinging parts. The both used the same guitars and amps so the punch-ins are un-noticeable. It really wasn't a question of who was faster, just a question of who would get the best results for each section of each song.

 

[the phish]

just because you mentioned nevermore, the new album had 4 rthym tracks, both guitarists doing two tracks each, Jeff doing two on one side, steve two on the other. Each did a 100% track and an 80% track on their respective sides. Nevertheless, the rthym on the disc is tight as hell.