3D Guitar Sound
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Posted on Apr 29, 2004 11:11 am
vdalehubbard
Lost for words with all to say.
Contributor Since: Sep 12, 2003
This might be a weird question but here goes.
I hear in alot of rock/alternative albums that guitar that pretty much fills up the whole song with great mid-range. It also sounds 3D like. The vocals and other stuff is front-stage where the guitar is just all around you. There's this effect I've tried in Sonar called "Guitar Room" that sounds close to it but it over does it and makes it sound fake.
Any suggestions or techniques of how this is done?
Thanks
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drakeMember
Since: Apr 13, 2004
Apr 29, 2004 01:02 pm here is a trick i like to use to get that 3D guitar sound.
first off make sure the EQs are set right to get the crisp sound with still a lot of body (boost at 240 and 3k or so)
now try adding some reverb, but instead of using dry out, reverb out and early out (which is what most reverb presets have, turn the dry out and reverb all the way down and crank the early out. fun little trick. see what it does
Apr 29, 2004 01:06 pm What I like to do, and I know many others do this too, is to take the track and clone it to a second track, pan them slightly different and EQ them slightly different to really give it some fullness and spacial qualities.
It works like crazy.
el musicoFreeleance Producer/Engineer/GtrMember
Since: Aug 11, 2002
Apr 29, 2004 02:14 pm i do something similar to what DB stated, but i actually record a 'double' instead of digitally copying it. i usually eq them the same since i'm after a certain sound... the minor differences between the 2 performances will create the effect you need. i then and pan them left and right (how far is up to taste/purpose).
Apr 29, 2004 03:04 pm Yup, double tracking is how it's done. Most guitars parts are panned off to the sides. Compression helps too. I do the copy, paste, and delay trick if the guy who recorded guitar didn't double track it.
WillumIdiot.Member
Since: Apr 22, 2004
Apr 29, 2004 03:19 pm People will often do the thing of cloning the track and giving it a different EQ or moving it slightly forward-back.. Okay sorry if I sound a little firm here - but don't EVER do the delay thing! you'll end up with horrible phasing and the guitars will sound MIGHTY weird if anybody plays the track in mono... Even worse, if you play a weirdo delayed track on a small CD player or whatever the closer and furter you move your head from the speakers, or depending on where you are in the room, the guitar sound will morph and go weird....
Just double track!
You'll find that double tracking is actually the only way to get it going good, and in actual fact most of the guitar sound you hear on 'pro' albums is 4 guitar tracks.
For each single rhythm guitar track you record it 4 times, and pan 2 hard left and 2 hard right... often you can put one of the copies on each 'ear' slightly in from the right to fill it out a bit more, but that's basically what's done.
You'd think the multiple tracks would somehow 'muddy' up the recording, but it in effect smooths out any small mistakes the guitarist made during the recording and gives it a real nice chunky feeling.
EQ and reverb them all the same, you'll get a nice fat, consistent sound...
I have a bud who can't play guitar to save himself, but he can record and mix like a GOD... here's a quick little test he did just to check out a guitar sound:
oscar.thrakem.com/mp3s/mef2.mp3
I think that's only 2 tracks as well, one hard left one hard right... but it's damn sweet and wide.. :)
In fact, here are a few 20 second samples of his... (I bloody hate it, he mixes these all in a matter of minutes while I spend aeons looking over stuff.. gah) Shows what you can do with a v-amp and shitty midi drums huh?
oscar.thrakem.com/mp3s/borgmix.mp3
oscar.thrakem.com/mp3s/digimortal_v-amp.mp3
oscar.thrakem.com/mp3s/metla.mp3
vdalehubbardLost for words with all to say.Contributor
Since: Sep 12, 2003
Apr 29, 2004 03:37 pm Thanks everyone!
I was believing it had all to do with cloning tracks and panning them hard, but I just wanted to make sure I was doing it right.
I agree Willum with not delaying it. Tried that and it was funky sounding in a regular boombox.
Thanks again everyone, I'm going to do this some more and let you know how it goes
WillumIdiot.Member
Since: Apr 22, 2004
Apr 29, 2004 03:39 pm If anything, tracking the same stuff over and over makes you a helluva lot tighter on guitar. :)
Apr 30, 2004 06:21 pm Agree with this - DONT delay the gtrs! It just sounds like A. A latency problem B. Plain old out of time C. As Willum said just plain weird..not nice on the lugs (ears for all non Scottish folks!).
Double track with, where poss, 2 different amps/amp sounds or settings. I use ampltitube now (and a VAMP2) and tend to use a heavier gtr on one track and an airy, reverbed amp on the other track.
Seems to work...
Cheers
Coco
May 01, 2004 09:22 am If you delay them correctly you will not have a problem. I don't recommend doing it in general, but I sometimes mix other people's stuff and if they have neglected to double track it really fattens up the sound. I think that 4 rhythm tracks is a bit overkill-- Time consuming and and can take away from the definition of the sound. Perhaps I should load up a sample of a mix I did with delay. A couple milliseconds isn't going to make something sound out of time to the human ear. The whole idea of actually double tracking is that the differences in the performance and timing make the track sound fatter.
DrewMember
Since: Apr 21, 2004
May 03, 2004 01:33 pm you know, i rarely even bother to change settings between takes, anymore... If anything, this just leaves more "space" for my lead tracks (i do instrumental rock, so there's basically a solo track throughout the entire song- gotta be careful with taking up all the guitar frequency space). It might be a different story for vocal work, and I've gotten some MASSIVE sounds by doing a dark, gainy rhythm track on one side, with a bright, percussive one to the other (switching between my humbucker-equipped, basswood 7-string and single-coil-equipped, alder 6 helps, too. ;)).
Double-tracking is about the coolest sound in the world. :) If you want, i was demoing out an idea last night that had some pretty cool guitar textures- i could mix down a quick clip for you, to see if it's what you're hearing.
-D
May 03, 2004 01:52 pm My guitar has two settings, dirty and clean.
DrewMember
Since: Apr 21, 2004
May 03, 2004 02:15 pm it's cool, no one's perfect... ;)
-D
May 03, 2004 02:17 pm Wait, I just bought a cigarette box amp, so that adds a third sound to my guitar.
vdalehubbardLost for words with all to say.Contributor
Since: Sep 12, 2003
May 03, 2004 02:38 pm Yeah Drew, I would like to hear.
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
May 03, 2004 03:32 pm It can be done with delay but typicaly is done with mic spacing while recording. The most typical application is the Decca Tree mic array with a coincidental pair up front a spaced array back 2 to three feet providing an effective delay of 2 to 3ms. It is tricky to duplicate the effect with just delay in software and panning but can be done.
DrewMember
Since: Apr 21, 2004
May 03, 2004 08:40 pm ok, just did some cutting and pasting and threw a clip together.
The first bit is actually the chorus chord changes (sorry, no melodies- they were just this side of free improv, just me trying to get the general ideas out, and anyway, i decided i needed to cut the tempo back a bit, as especially the verse melody felt "rushed," so that'll have to wait for a future version), two reasonably distorted tracks 30% out on either side playing powerchords or octaves, and 100% out the same basic chords played on the same settings with the volume rolled back, played as add9's- Bmadd9-Gadd9-Aadd9-Bmadd9. Then, after that, i break into a riff that hovers somewhere between that and a straight B vamp- chords are really suggested more than played.
This is just guitar and (really shitty- i don't like the beat either) drums, and no eq'ing done or anything after- i just threw a mic down quickly and went for it. I meant to record a bassline before uploading this, but couldn't think of something that didn't suck quickly enough, and anyway, i hate my bass tone. ;) Especially in the chorus, things need to get cleaned up a little bit- that's a LOT of sound in the same frequency range.
This is a pretty scooped tone, middle position on my RG-7620 (air norton in the neck, tone zone in the bridge), which actually has a suprisingly single-coil like vibe. Gain 4.5, bass 3, mids 4.5, treble 4, presence 8, i think. the bridge pickup is more metal "crunch," but i wanted to safe that sound for the lead track, so... Anyway, it's fairly heavier, yet much less gainy or scooped than you'd think.
Oh, also gotta apologize for the fact that the strings here were about a month old- very little "impact" left. eh, it's all good, it's just a sketch. ;)
www.geocities.com/drewpeterson7/doubletrack.mp3
-D
DrewMember
Since: Apr 21, 2004
May 03, 2004 08:41 pm ps- copy and paste into your browser.
vdalehubbardLost for words with all to say.Contributor
Since: Sep 12, 2003
May 05, 2004 07:59 am Sounds really good. That's what I'm looking for. I'm going to try this out when I can get my guitar player to come over. Thanks Drew!
DrewMember
Since: Apr 21, 2004
May 05, 2004 11:53 am A shortcut that I personally really dislike but you might want to check out; a good stereo chorus can give some of the same sense of space. To my ears, though, it robs the gutiar of a lot of it's "presence" in the mix; this can be a REALLY good thing in certian situations, as it can really help a guitar "sit" in the background of a busy mix (Check out just about anything by Floater, the greatest band in the world- "All the Stories But One" or "The Knowing Dirge" are two pretty choice examples, though), but if you want this loud, aggressive, up-front sound, then you're going to want to steer clear.
-D
vdalehubbardLost for words with all to say.Contributor
Since: Sep 12, 2003
May 05, 2004 01:21 pm Yeah, I tried that first with a effect called "Guitar Room". It did exactly what you said, totally killed the presence and I couldn't even eq it back in. So, I knew there had to be another way.
May 07, 2004 10:48 am Method 1: take mono wav, make him stereo with the equal left and right chanel, add delay to the left(or right) chanel on 15-20 ms, then add a little chorus and reverb. Magic is 15-20 ms.
Method 2: again mono->stereo, then for the left and right chanels use the same effects chains but with slighly different tunings:
EQ16->Some Distortion->EQ16->Some Distortion->EQ16-Some Distortion etc.
May be 5-6 "distortio-EQ" blocks, and again add in left (or right) chanel 15-20 ms delay.
I mean
EQ(left) - 300 Hz +2 dB
EQ(right)- 300 Hz -2 dB
EQ(left) - 400 Hz -2 dB
EQ(right)- 400 Hz +2 dB
EQ(left) - 600 Hz +1.8 dB
EQ(right)- 600 Hz -2.1 dB
EQ(left) - 800 Hz -2.1 dB
EQ(right)- 800 Hz +1.7 dB
...
etc. you understand.
You can do this sound experiments in 5 minutes with this software ***
h-m-m, may be not 100% clean...
Again...
Left Chanel: EQ(var+/-)-Distortion-EQ(var-/+) etc.
Right Chanel: EQ(var-/+)-Distortion-EQ(var+/-) etc.
May 07, 2004 11:49 am Dude, your input here is great, and I would like to keep you around, but don't come here just to use it as an advertising platform for your application. If you want to advertise here, take it up with me offline.
May 07, 2004 03:24 pm well, I deleted the link to my site in previouse post, can I keep the link to my mp3 or I must delete this link too?
May 07, 2004 03:28 pm I didn't say you MUST delete anything, I am just advising you that the forum is not a personal advertisement place. You have placed your links in related threads, so you are not "spamming", and you information and knowledge is good and appreciated. I was just giving notice to the fact I see a trend in the works...and I don't want to see an otherwise producitve and knowledgable member of the community start spamming our forum with self-promoting links in every post they make.
You must understand that. Gratuitous advertising and spamming our forums is clearly against the rules.
Actually, your software looks like something that might be very cool and very useful, I wouldn't mind taking a look at it when I get some time...
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
May 13, 2004 10:09 pm DigiGuitar, opo into our links sectioin and submit your site. I will get it approved and you will have a link to your site there. I took look at your app and will probly give it a test run when I get some time.
Anyway, submit the link and Ill get it up.
May 13, 2004 11:08 pm i double trackeds with a kid the other day and the final result was terrible. maybe he need to play more consistanly but it sounded super spikey and buzzing.
i tried using the 2 tracks in the center then panned wide left and right. luckily i insisted on using the close and far mic method.
the final mix ended up with the close mic(shure beta 87a) panned right and the far mic(oktava mc012) panned left i took the second take(close mic) and brought it up just under the original take on the left tiny bit of reverb to the right and a tiny bit more to the left.
honestly i think i got some of the best guitar sounds out of this method and this was a terrible guitar player with way too much distortion
the EQ was pretty much how digi guitar described whatever you do to one side do the opposite to the other......except the second take which i only used on mic and panned left i made that the same as the guitar on the right
May 14, 2004 12:47 am On the whole delaying guitar thing. It works very well if you have the delay time correct. If you keep it between 7ms and 30ms you will not have any phasing or cancelling. I'm really reaching back now but I believe that is called the Haus (sp) Zone?
I know that I tried it with a 4ms delay one time and it sounded terrible. I tweaked it longer, and EQed the other track different and it sounded very good indeed. I would prefer to double track the guitar as well... but sometimes people just don't have the means to do so. This is a nice trick if you don't have the tracks to double track the guitar. And of course sometimes it can come down to musicians not have the funds to spend for the extra time.
DrewMember
Since: Apr 21, 2004
May 19, 2004 03:04 pm "and of course sometimes it can come down to musicians not having the funds to spend for the extra time."
Well, i got scolded last time i said, ;) this, but i'll say it again- if you can't nail your parts consistantly enough to double them, then you shouldn't be in the studio. Spend that extra couple weeks rehearsing before you go in, and you should be able to hit everything in two or three takes tops. At which point, funding isn't nearly as big an issue.
-D
