Jul 18, 2007 11:48 am doubble and tripple track and pan 'em out...multi-mic and even record direct and blend them together. but doubble tracking has the biggest affect on the overall 'thickness'.
Layering techniques for hard rock guitars
Posted on Jul 18, 2007 10:20 am
Lexalotacus
Mamma Jamma
Member Since: May 20, 2007
Im all out of ideas, anyone got any sweet techniques for layering your over-driven guitars without over-adding guitars?
Does that make any sense?
What about maybe re-amping?
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Jul 18, 2007 11:48 am doubble and tripple track and pan 'em out...multi-mic and even record direct and blend them together. but doubble tracking has the biggest affect on the overall 'thickness'.
Jul 18, 2007 11:57 am Quote:
but doubble tracking has the biggest affect on the overall 'thickness'.
Amen, brudda. EQ them slightly different and pan them different, it'll fill up the space nicely.
Jul 18, 2007 12:00 pm ... play it through twice or three times for best results (IMO). Not just a copy of the original take.
Jul 18, 2007 08:39 pm Definatly the key to a sweet full sound when it comes to overdrive/distortion guitars. Double track - i.e. record twice, not copy.
My personal method is marshall amp with either boss SD-1 (for rock) or boss mt-2 (for metal) - SM57 up to the grill, rode NT2-A few feet away - record twice (so now have 4 guitar tracks) pan the far mics pretty far left and right, equally, then the close mics also panned equally left and right, but closer to the centre than the far mics, then set levels till i get a sound i like. That is how i get my sweetest sound.
The only problems i get with this is the guitars sound awesome, but they drown out most of the other stuff as they are so full, but tht just meens i have to spent alot of time eqing out some frequencies to make room for everything else while being careful not to kill the great guitar sound itself - snare in particular i find can get easily buried by great sounding rock/metal guitars, looses all its mid/high mid fullness and ends up sounding like a burst of white noise. part from that the rest is pretty simple i find, just chop of the low end to make room for the bass guitar, cut the extreme high end just to get rid of any hissing that might be lurking and im happy. Occasionally scoop out a bit of the mid range too if its really heavy metal, tends to give it just a bit of a kick in the slayer direction of things.
Thats the way i tend to do these days ne way, hope this helps. :)
main point: record it twice and pan equally L and R - immediate, obvious improvment.
Jul 18, 2007 08:45 pm Lex, the above is more then correct. In the perfect world double, tripple and even quad tracking of the guitars is the best way to do it.
The alternative is a multl mic set up which can take hours to get done properly. I have done 3 and 4 mic set ups on more then one occasion, and if I'm not familiar with the room it can take a couple of hours to get it right. But even when it is set up perfect it does need to have certain thing done to perfect it. You cannot use 4 of the same cheap mic. They cannot all be on the cabinet. And they all must go to separate tracks, which is were the EQ dB spoke of can come in handy after they are recorded.
And careful panning is required after they are recorded to avoid a mushy mess of crap.
Jul 18, 2007 10:24 pm Play it very tightly too. Folks that record 4 individual guitar tracks and they dont keep the same rhythmic syncopation end up getting a very undefined washy overall guitar sound.
Muscle memory and picking memory are crucial to getting a great full dynamic sound.
In additon to the above panning tips... I usually dont do more than 4 individually played guitar tracks. I will use two - three different guitars with different pups and I will move the mic a little on each pass. I also dont use very much drive or saturation. Less is more when you are stacking. I wish I had a dollar for every numbnut geeter player that thinks putting the distortion on 10 will get him sounding HUGE.... :)) Its the opposite. You will sound bigger and more crunchier cutting back on the drive.
Jul 18, 2007 10:54 pm Well stated Rob!
Less is always more, no matter how you look at it.
Jul 19, 2007 12:32 am I always layer my guitars with tones in mind, so i dont end up with 8 tracks with no real form and function. I decide taht this track is going to be bottom heavy, lots of low end, choose my guitar and amp set for that. Then maybe one with mid boost, and then i choose for that, then high and so on and so on. Adding to wat VCRobP said, i actually find it better to get some messiness to it, for rock stuff. My two guitarist have very different ways of strumming, and it might get messy in the middle, but when panned, i think it sounds more realistic and lively.
I try to limit the tracks to 4 rounds of playing, more than that and not only is it a pain to mix, but also it can be overkill.
Jul 20, 2007 07:11 am Oh I agree crux that loose dubling is very cool...4 tracks of very loose doubling (to my ears) sounds like poo though :))
Jul 20, 2007 10:11 am Its the little idiosyncracies between the two (or more) takes that give it the perceived depth and fullness. That's why simply copying and pasting the tracks doesn't achieve the same effect.
But yes, there's a difference between idiosyncratic and downright sloppy :)
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