Recording guitar w/multiple effects

[Nilbog]

I'm trying to record a song that has guitar being played clean in parts and distorted in parts. Is it best to just record using a pedal and get all the levels worked out beforehand, or should I use one track for clean, and one track for distorted? It seems like it would be easier to apply the right fx to the later.

[Slackmaster2K]

You want to record seperate tracks which allows maximum flexibility.

Stomping boxes is fine live but in a recording environment there's no need. Like you say, you loose options if you record the whole guitar part as one track. One EQ for both distorted and clean sounds, for instance, probably isn't going to be good enough.

I record EVERY unique sound on its own track. I never change anything in realtime unless it's required (sometimes I'll stomp my wah pedal while recording a solo or something).

Do you feel guilty doing this? I kinda did at first..."hey, that's cheating!"

(of course there may be times where doing what you're suggesting is appropriate. one thing I've learned around here is to never rule anything out)

Slackmaster 2000

[Nilbog]

I do feel guilty. Very, very guilty. This is where I hit another one of those "All I have is x# of tracks? Damnit! Time to spend more money!"
-Nilbog

[Slackmaster2K]

Oops I'm sorry dude....for some reason I had it in my head that you record on the computer. If your stuck with 8 or fewer tracks then you just have to learn to make good use of them.

Argh! There's nothing worse than being out of tracks. So far I haven't run into that problem on my computer...but I wince at my 4-track days.

Slackmaster 2000

[gonzoagain]

nilbog-
take slackmaster's advice, try to cut them individually, but plan it out so that you've always got a pair to submix to, especially if you're talking about more than 3 tracks that you want mixed in stereo.

if you're really strapped (4 track) then you're probably having to submix everything every time you record a new track. but if you've got at least 8 tracks, you can always bounce 6 to 2 and open up those other 6 for your different guitar parts, and then submix those guitar parts down to there own stereo pair, etc, etc.

and that way, you can apply different effects without having to print them, until you're ready.

let us know how you do it...