Interesting Idea for Panned Guitars

[MDMStudio]

So I've only had the chance to try this once and it was for a short period of time so I couldn't iron out the wrinkles. I'm curious if anybody has every thought of this or tried this before.

I took two takes of the same acoustic guitar part and panned them left and right (common technique). What I ended up trying was cloning these channels, then EQing and arranging them so that the low frequencies from the first take and the high frequencies from the second take were panned hard left, while the high frequencies from the first take and low frequencies from the second take were panned hard right. It blended the two takes in an interesting way, but I did end up with a bit of a phase issue. Any thoughts on this? Was it a terrible idea or could I be onto something?

 

[miroslav]

Was it a terrible idea or could I be onto something?

How does it sound to you?

There's all kinds of "tricks" you can do, especially with DAW power, it's easy to get lost in "hmm, what if I did this, and then took that, and then...", but IMO, the simplest approach needs to sound good, needs to be usable/workable.
If you can't get it with that, then all the tricks won't help you...and if you cam get it...then you don't need tricks.

 

[RAMI]

How does it sound to you?

There's all kinds of "tricks" you can do, especially with DAW power, it's easy to get lost in "hmm, what if I did this, and then took that, and then...", but IMO, the simplest approach needs to sound good, needs to be usable/workable.
If you can't get it with that, then all the tricks won't help you...and if you cam get it...then you don't need tricks.

That's the thing. I'm not even saying it's a bad idea. But any time you do anything, you have to be able to answer the question "Why?", and the answer has to be more than "it seems like a cool thing to do", or "I read that some pro once did this".

I'll give MDMStudio credit for at least talking about tracking twice, as opposed to the horrendous "Track once, copy, paste, nudge, burn incense, chant a mantra, pray, etc....." crap. But, like Miro says, doing something because it's a cool effect that suits the particular song and situation is one thing and there's nothing wrong with it. But NEEDING to do something just to get a simple guitar track to sound good means there's something wrong somewhere esle.

The answer to 99% of these questions about "tricks" is simple: Try it and see if you like it.

 

[Armistice]

burn incense,

Damn, I missed a step. No wonder all my tracks sound awful.

I think sandalwood will probably work better than patchouli...

 

[RAMI]

patchouli...

Is that how it's spelled? Every time I've heard that word, I thought someone was saying "Petrilli". I just got edumacated. Thanx.

 

[Steenamaroo]

Hey,
No it's not a terrible idea although there are other ways I'd prefer to do it.
What you're trying to do is kinda what you'd get if you close stereo recorded the instrument. One mic would pick up more low end and fullness while the other would be brighter with less body.

Have you ever experimented with stereo recording?
It's the same with close miked piano.

 

[Robus]

I think sandalwood will probably work better than patchouli...

Hipster.

 

[rayc]

The big issue would be the overlap at the crossover stage.
As the crossover won't be pin pint accurate there'll be frequencies that exist in both the high & low versions and will potentially be doubled.

 

[mjbphotos]

The problem as you've already discovered is some phasing issues - this comes from any slightly different strumming between the two takes. If you can use a different guitar for the 2nd take (one that has a different sound, like use a dreadnought for 1 take and an 000 size for the 2nd) it would help. But you can also try a different playing method - play the chord inversions (or use a capo), or use a choppy style one take, and smooth style on the other.

 

[VomitHatSteve]

you have to be able to answer the question "Why?", and the answer has to be more than "it seems like a cool thing to do", or "I read that some pro once did this".

I don't think that's true per-se. If you have studio time to spend, there's no reason you can't experiment with weird tricks on a lark. It certainly helps to have some idea of why your weird trick sounds the way it does or why the pro did it that way, but unless you want to be able to consistently reproduce the effect, you don't need to know why.

That being said, do you have a clip we can hear? It seems like an overly-convoluted method, and you already mentioned phase issues, but it might be neat to hear how it turned out.

 

[RAMI]

I don't think that's true per-se. If you have studio time to spend, there's no reason you can't experiment with weird tricks on a lark. It certainly helps to have some idea of why your weird trick sounds the way it does or why the pro did it that way, but unless you want to be able to consistently reproduce the effect, you don't need to know why.

You mis-understood me. I'm not saying you have to know why it works. You have to know why you're doing it in the first place. I'm all for experimenting, believe me. But I'm not going to do something just because I read it somewhere, unless I know "Why" I'm doing. In other words, if it's not improving the sound of my song, there's no reason to do it.

 

[andrushkiwt]

I don't think that's true per-se.

agreed

 

[miroslav]

You have to know why you're doing it in the first place.

100%

I too am all for experimentation...but I notice that with the DAW age, many newbs are doing many things purely based on experimentation without considering why they need to do it.

Sure...sometimes blind experimentation can yield results that are then adopted and become part of the production. That however is not going to work for you over and over...and eventually you run out of those happy accidents that come from blind experimentation, and you need to then fall back on some foundation where you DO understand what you are doing and why you are doing it.

 

[RAMI]

100%

I too am all for experimentation...but I notice that with the DAW age, many newbs are doing many things purely based on experimentation without considering why they need to do it.

Sure...sometimes blind experimentation can yield results that are then adopted and become part of the production. That however is not going to work for you over and over...and eventually you run out of those happy accidents that come from blind experimentation, and you need to then fall back on some foundation where you DO understand what you are doing and why you are doing it.

Someone gets it. I was starting to lose hope.

 

[jkuehlin]

So I've only had the chance to try this once and it was for a short period of time so I couldn't iron out the wrinkles. I'm curious if anybody has every thought of this or tried this before.

I took two takes of the same acoustic guitar part and panned them left and right (common technique). What I ended up trying was cloning these channels, then EQing and arranging them so that the low frequencies from the first take and the high frequencies from the second take were panned hard left, while the high frequencies from the first take and low frequencies from the second take were panned hard right. It blended the two takes in an interesting way, but I did end up with a bit of a phase issue. Any thoughts on this? Was it a terrible idea or could I be onto something?

Yeah. Cudos for willingness to experiment, but overall bad idea. Here's a much better way to do this.

 

[MrWrenchey]

It wasn't done with guitars, but a few years ago, we had a bass DI that we reamped through a guitar amp to get it sounding a lot more gritty.

The band only had one guitarist and didn't double track, so I did the same kind of trick you did, but with the bass. Filtered out all of the highs of the DI so it was only lows, and set that dead center, and the high frequencies that gave the bass some grit I kept in the reamped track, and panned that out a bit to even out the stereo field.

Worked real well for me. Didn't have any weird phase issues since it was just one take, but yeah, YMMV and all that stuff.

 

[gecko zzed]

100%

I too am all for experimentation...but I notice that with the DAW age, many newbs are doing many things purely based on experimentation without considering why they need to do it.

Sure...sometimes blind experimentation can yield results that are then adopted and become part of the production. That however is not going to work for you over and over...and eventually you run out of those happy accidents that come from blind experimentation, and you need to then fall back on some foundation where you DO understand what you are doing and why you are doing it.

There's room for (at least) two approaches.

The first is:

I want to get this particular sound for this particular song. How do I get it? By using this particular technique.

The second is:

This song needs something else, but I've no idea what. Let me try out some stuff. Hmm, this might just work.

The danger with the first is that you limit your options to what you know, and preclude adding other options to your arsenal of techniques. The benefit is that it's efficient: you're using what you know works.

The danger of the second is that you can descend into an endless spiral of possibilities, wasting your time and not deciding on anything. The benefit is that you discover new ways of achieving results.

In the end, I applaud the OP for his experimentation., It makes a refreshing change from posters who ask opinions of whether whether technique A will sound better than technique B when all they have to do is try it.

. . . you need to then fall back on some foundation where you DO understand what you are doing and why you are doing it.

Exploring possibilities and trying out stuff is the way you get to understand what you are doing, and then why you are doing it.

 

[Farview]

If I'm understanding this right, you have the two takes panned wide and then added the high pass and low pass on top of the original guitar? That would probably sound like a big mess, because you have both guitars on both sides, so it is mono to a certain extent.

If you only have the high pass and low pass versions (without the original guitar takes), it might work better, but I don't get the advantage over a coherent left guitar and right guitar.

I did use a technique similar to this to give a little stereo spread to a bass track. I split it 3 ways: low end in the middle, low mids and 3k to one side and 800hz and 6k on the other. It worked best on slap and pop type stuff, where a chorus or reverb was too much.

 

[miroslav]

Exploring possibilities and trying out stuff is the way you get to understand what you are doing, and then why you are doing it.

That's what I'm saying.

I think maybe you misinterpret my posts as saying the OP should just do what's tried and true and forget experimentation.
No...not at all.

My point was that when something sounds good at its simplest state....you usually don't need to experiment and look for "tricks" to get it to sound good.

There's valid experimentation...and I'm all for that...but many home rec newbs have NO foundation in basic recording skills, so the experimentation is more like wild flailing, hoping something sticks ...and DAW power often leads them to wrong or unrealistic approaches to getting tracks recorded and mixed.

Everyone says, "how can you learn if you don't experiment?"...OK...but my point is...first learn basic recording skills and how to get to where you need with the simplest approaches...have a foundation. Then, when you think that well has run dry for you, and it's not yielding good tracks and mixes...go wild, try the most off the wall approaches if you think they will get you there.

To this day, I rarely see a case where the basic, simplest recording and mixing approaches fail.
Rather it's the opposite.
It's the ridiculously convoluted and sometimes overly complex paths home rec newbs end up taking that gets them to that wall, where things don't sound right....and they have no where to go.


How often have we told newbs to strip it all down and/or start over when they are stuck and their mix is all skewed with no easy way out.

 

[VomitHatSteve]

How often have we told newbs to strip it all down and/or start over when they are stuck and their mix is all skewed with no easy way out.

Y'know, I'd be inclined to let newbies get to that point first. Let them break it in some weird way, and then help them rebuild it. It's more about the journey than the destination, right? Go off on a wild tear, and then when you get back look at the map and see if you can figure out where you went relative to where you meant to go.