Your opinions (mixing related question)

[Eddy]

I've been mixing (or more like experimenting) my bands demo and came across a slight problem. The thing is, that there's two guitar tracks, one for lead and one for rhythm. The tracks are recorded "live" ie the lead guitar doesn't have the rhythm during solos etc.

Now, if I pan the guitars hard left and hard right the solo plays in another channel and rhythm in the other. It sounds kinda weak, IMO.

What would you do?

I've been thinking of couple of solutions.
A) Cloning both guitar tracks and panning the rhythm hard right and hard left, and panning the lead a bit closer to the center.

B) Panning them hard right and hard left and bringing them closer to the center on the solo etc bits.


While I'm on it, another question. Any ideas how to alter the individual drum sounds, other than eq and reverb? I'd like the kick more "wet" sounding but have no idea what to do with it other than trying eq.

 

[Mr. Hyde]

I think I would clone both tracks like you mentioned and pan them left and right.

If you use a reverb plug in with a high pass/ low pass filter on it so that it only works for a certain set of freq's then you can add reverb to the kick.

 

[rabies]

I would probably keep them mixed where they are....and boost the appropriate side when they are soloing. Why does it sound weak? If the band elected not to have both players play the rhythm parts and then put the solos in on top, then I would just leave it at that.

..as for the drums, are the various heads recorded to different tracks? If it is like IMG drum tracks, there is not much you can do to alter an individual head...save what Hyde mentioned....believe me..I've tried.

 

[Eddy]

The tracks sound weird as there's only one rhythm under the solo...

Shit, I'm in a bit of hurry atm @ school... Will give better reply later...

And yes, every head were recorded on different tracks.

 

[Eddy]

Right. As I said, every head was recorded on different tracks.

Can you name any reverb plug-ins with a hi/lo-pass filter?

I think I got quite good results with eq. At least the kick now stands out better from the mix.

All tips are still welcome.

The guitar stuff is still a bit open... The track were recorded like this for a simple reason, there were not enough tracks to do it "the right way" (we use a Korg D1600 unit) and there was some other reason too which was left as a bit of a mystery to me... I suggested it, though. Oh well, one can't always win.

I've tried the option a) that I mentioned in my initial post but I'm still doing some experimenting. A question: Why wouldn't you pan the tracks about 30-40 each, but take the further instead? I'm just asking as I don't have that much experience with these things yet.

Btw, I think I can upload a sample of what we're doing here. I just have to discuss about it with the drummer...

 

[rabies]

If the bass is on a seperate track, you don't need a hi/lo pass filter. Hyde just mentioned that would be used to try to isolate the bass. I don't think there is such a thing as a reverb with a filter built in. If you needed to make the bass stand out, EQ/volume adjustments are the way to go...but you stated you already did that. The more mixing you do, the more you realize just how important EQing is.

Heaing what you are working with certainly would help. It sucks it was recorded that way. I am not sure I understand your question about 'panning 30-40 each and taking it further'?

 

[Mr. Hyde]

Cakewalk's reverb has a high/low pass filter built in.

Sounds like you are suffering through the "I don't want to play anything we can't duplicate live" screwing up the recording syndrome!

Sometimes it's hard to make the live thing work when you record.

 

[Eddy]

I am not sure I understand your question about 'panning 30-40 each and taking it further'?

I don't blame ya, reading my question again now I had to think about it a bit myself too...

Let's try again: Why wouldn't you pan the tracks about 30-40 % each side, but pan them further (80-90 %) instead? So basically, why pan the guitars hard left & right?

Sounds like you are suffering through the "I don't want to play anything we can't duplicate live" screwing up the recording syndrome!

In some way, yes. We have some songs with two electric and one acoustic guitar but we had to sacrifice one vocal track for each when recording drums. Yes, there will be two vocal tracks for each song.

Sometimes it's hard to make the live thing work when you record

Very true... At least for me as I'm not that great of a guitarist...:Smug:


Here's a short sample (a chorus) of what we are working on: http://koti.mbnet.fi/ezzyk/music/dd_gn.mp3

The vocals are just for reference at this point as there will be female vocals in the final versions. And as you will notice, the bass ain't there yet either.

 

[Mr. Hyde]

That sounds pretty good! What kind of mic's and such did you use to make the recording?

 

[Eddy]

Duck if I remember!

I think the mics for kick, toms and overheads are a set of T-bone drum mics (from www.thomann.de) and the snare was miked with the standard Shure SM-57. The 57 was also used to close mike the guitar amp, Fender Roc Pro 700. Everything was recorded with the Korg D1600 unit I mentioned earlier. Apart from limiter, compressor and exciter used on the drums, no extra effects were used.

All extra processing and all mixing was done on my computer using Sound Forge and N-Track.

Thats about it really. Oh, naturally loads of coffee and cigarettes were consumed during the recording sessions...