Doubling Guitars

Greg_L said:
That is true. Many people might not even notice or care that their guitars sound like ass after pitch shifting. They'll hear that washy, warbling, artificial, fake "spread" and think it sounds righteous. Whatever floats their boat.

P.S. - I hate Teles too!
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I think you're listening to too many amateur mixes! If you're hearing warbling, the pitch shift went too far. It doesn't need much to separate. I'm not advocating it as my favorite technique. In my original post you responded to I listed it as one of the last ways to deal with the issue.

Anyway, good chat. My plane is about to take off!
 
Brian Miller said:
Pitch shifting by 9cents does nothing to "ruin" a good take. From OU812 forward Eddie Van Halen recorded single takes, then they doubled the track, separated by 30ms, and pitch shifted one guitar by 9 cents. The king of tone himself would not have allowed someone to "fuck up" his tone, especially in his own studio. It's become industry standard treatment for turning a mono guitar into two for stereo separation.

All of these tools are just that: tools. Use the one that works for each particular instance.
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Ok, there is the fact that this is a process that has and continues to be used.

The point here really is that it is likely not the best 'first' method for a guitar player new to recording. Unless you know why/or what the hell you are doing/and have a guitar tone worth working with, this advice could be bad. For someone new to recording, it would be too easy for them to think that the copy/delay thing is the easy way to get a full sounding tone. It is usually not from what I have heard. In fact most times it just makes the guitars sound out of place in mixes.

I have never condoned this type of 'doubling' for creating a stereo spread for guitars for those without experience because it can create a false sense of that sweet stereo image. It is better IMO to record two tracks and pan them. Though I have had projects where the copy/delay track thing works. It just depends on what is needed.

Tools are tools. This technique is a tool. Unless one already has great tone, then they could possibly end up sounding like a 'Tool'.

I see and agree with Greg's point, as I would never recommend this type of thing to anyone starting out. If not used for the purpose of good, it will become evil quickly. lol There is a 'washed out' sound when the delay/pitch technique is used. Whether it is what a player wants is up to them.

It is in my experience not the best way to do it. But when a tool is needed, throw the fucking hammer.
 
The most fundamental problem here is that this copy, paste, shift, pitch shifting crap was even brought up to begin with. The OP isn't trying to "make do" with one track. That's what I was trying to get Mr Brian miller to realize on his own. To the OP's credit, he said he tracks twice, and he even used different guitars. Good for him. That is the best way to do it and a great way to start. There's no good reason to shift and pitch shift anything when you've got two distinct individual tracks.
 
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Greg_L said:
The most fundamental problem here is that this copy, paste, shift, pitch shifting crap was even brought up to begin with. The OP isn't trying to "make do" with one track. That's what I was trying to get Mr Brian miller to realize on his own. To the OP's credit, he said he tracks twice, and he even used different guitars. Good for him. That is the best way to do it and a great way to start. There's no good reason to shift and pitch shift anything when you've got two distinct individual tracks.
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Agreed.

Sorry about the edit. Hit the wrong damn button. :)
 
The original poster's problem is that in spite of tracking twice (which I knew he did - look at the last line of my original post), his performances were so damn tight that they were washing out in mono anyway. If the performances were already double tracked and still having this problem, then they can be treated with inaudible pitch and delay to prevent the mono washing.

Greg - I find your condescension unnecessary and rude. I didn't need anybody to help me see my own errors. I made no such error. I understood the OP problem perfectly and responded with time tested options for handling it.
 
Brian Miller said:
Greg - I find your condescension unnecessary and rude. I didn't need anybody to help me see my own errors. I made no such error. I understood the OP problem perfectly and responded with time tested options for handling it.
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I'm sorry you feel that way. That was not my intention. You seem like a nice guy and I wasn't trying to make you feel bad or anything. I just try to steer people away from bad ideas, and I think sliding tracks around and pitch shifting is a bad idea. I've been speaking out against that "technique" for as long as I've been here, and will continue to do so. It's not personal.
 
Brian Miller said:
The original poster's problem is that in spite of tracking twice (which I knew he did - look at the last line of my original post), his performances were so damn tight that they were washing out in mono anyway. If the performances were already double tracked and still having this problem, then they can be treated with inaudible pitch and delay to prevent the mono washing.
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But that is not what happened. If you listened to the track the OP posted, you would hear that the guitars were out of tune and not tight enough to create the supposed 'wash' in mono.

In this case I must agree with Greg as far as the pitch shift thing is not going to help here in any way.

Sorry man, I just do not agree.

I do however agree that there are times when that is a tool to use. Just not at all here IMO.
 
Greg_L said:
I'm sorry you feel that way. That was not my intention. You seem like a nice guy and I wasn't trying to make you feel bad or anything. I just try to steer people away from bad ideas, and I think sliding tracks around and pitch shifting is a bad idea. I've been speaking out against that "technique" for as long as I've been here, and will continue to do so. It's not personal.
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I totally get that it's not personal. I just have an issue when people give opinions, especially creative ones, as fact. As you just said, pitch shifting sounds bad to you. And if you had said that originally I would have taken no objection, because I can totally understand not liking it. It was the tone, that's all.
 
jimmys69 said:
In this case I must agree with Greg as far as the pitch shift thing is not going to help here in any way.

Sorry man, I just do not agree.

I do however agree that there are times when that is a tool to use. Just not at all here IMO.
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That's cool man. No tool works every time. But it does somtimes, and we can't know without trying.
 
Brian Miller said:
I totally get that it's not personal. I just have an issue when people give opinions, especially creative ones, as fact. As you just said, pitch shifting sounds bad to you. And if you had said that originally I would have taken no objection, because I can totally understand not liking it. It was the tone, that's all.
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I'm all about the tone. The unmolested, non pitch shifted tone! :D
 
This thread warmed my tiny heart.


OP, your cover sounds pretty good already. I know that this isn't the MP3 clinic but I found that the guitars sounded a bit dull.
Also, I'm so used to the Zakk Wylde version of this song that I was mentally adding in pinch harmonics all over the place.
 
Thanks for the tips, everyone!

I'll be redoing this one at a later time, for now I'll probably move onto other songs to do. The last song I did (Which you can check out over here, if you'd like: https://homerecording.com/bbs/general-discussions/mp3-mixing-clinic/skyline-376995/ ) turned out a lot better in my opinion. Played with mic position a little bit, and also played with the sound of the distortion a bit at times too, among some other things. (No pitch shifting! lmao)
 
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