Any folk out there got pro experience with mixing distorted guitars?I have two guitars and used a 57 and a 58 on different speakers for tracking. Used a marshall dsl100 tube amp with 1960 4x12 cab. The two guitar tones are quite different but both play major parts in the mix. Both rythym alot of the time.
I was wondering if anyone had any tips atall on this matter of mixing.
I amnt sure whether to use a little compression or not yet. I have heard that if you dont hear a visible difference from using an effect, then dont use it, but when listening to commercial CDs like System of a down they must use some compression to give more body to them. The guitar tracks have good levels. By this i mean that when the guitars are heavy they are at a pretty consistent levels. Compression is not needed to bring down some parts of the waves and because of this i am confused as to whether i should even use compression.
I know that i should just listen and hear what is best, but i aint a pro, so any info from experience would be of a great help to me.
Heres a pretty safe bet with a two guitar part song:
0) Record both guitar parts on the the same amp and settings, and use the sam guitar
1) track the guitar 1 and then dub it
2) track guitar 2 and then dub it
3) pan one track of guitar 1 hard left and 1 track of guitar 2 hard right and leave a track of 1 and 2 in the middle
4)balance the volume between the 4 tracks so that nothing is dominate and it just has a good mix
5) cut 5000k all the way around (this is the one that hurts at loud volumes the most - to me at least)
6) cut around 6oohz the tracks for one guitar part
7) cut around 400hz the tracks for the other guitar part
8) cut somewhere around 200-250 all the way around to make room for a good bass sound
9) Open two more tracks and over dub the chorus pan these hard left and right - you can fill out and balance between the panning on the core tracks - usually sounds pretty good on the chorus (I mean if guitar one is panned left on the core track, then pan it right on the chorus dubs.)
10) Dub in a cool effect on the bridge
11) Over dub any lead parts with a thick bassy sounding guitar and mix it in good (cut the highs so that its not missed when the freqs disappear.)
I would use your availibility of gear combinations on the over dubing. It sounds like theres alot of oppertunity for cool sounds, but I definately would not try to over complicate it. Good with all the same stuff on the 1st 4 tracks.
please note that all the cuts that I suggested are to take place in post production