Double Track Guitar Solo's?

[AcousticBob]

Just curious if your typical medium to faster guitar solo's are double tracked and then edited as needed? I've tried and it never seems to sound right, it seems over obvious there are two guitars playing the part instead of sounding like one guitar.

[notbradsohner]

i never double track it. If I need somehting like that I will just copy it and put a delay on the copied track, then pan left/right

[mattamatta]

Yeah, it'd be a very unusual thing, because a solo is typically a focus of the song at that point, and as such, it most often takes "center stage" in panning and volume etc, as that really makes things stand out, wh ereas double tracking spreads stuff around and pushes it back.

But never say never.

I did a song once where there was acoustic guitar straight in the midle, and double tracked vocals panned way off to the sides, on the outside of the mix.

And for that particular song, it worked like a charm.

[vestast]

Sometimes for a solo I'll set up two delay sends, one panned partly left and the other right, with different delay times. Depends on the song though.

[Call-Of-Ktulu]

I don't know, it might be interesting. If you want it to be more present and powerful sounding I like to put a bunch of reverb on it and pick out some frequencies in the sound and crank them up just so it's a more intense sound (depending on your style of course... I do mostly hard rock with an overall very thick sound). If you like the doubled guitar sound maybe try putting a chorus effect on it, thats supposed to simulate a multi source recording.

With that said, I don't know if it really applies, but I heard Metallica do a solo where James and Kirk both played at the same time in Whiplash on the live shit: binge and purge box set. It sounded messy cause it was live but kind of interesting. It's all what sounds good though, right? Give it a shot, if it doesn't work you can always cut one of them out.

[Rokket]

Randy Rhodes was the master of double tracking his leads. The guy had the talent, though. He used to work out every bit of his solo before he tracked it, and was able to dupicate the performance. Not everyone can do that. And come to think of it, I don't really hear double tracked solos at all nowadays...

[jamtheguitarman]

does Steve Vai not double track all his guitar parts.
im not sure if thats true or not, would be kinda tricky

[indravayu]

Originally Posted by AcousticBob

Just curious if your typical medium to faster guitar solo's are double tracked and then edited as needed? I've tried and it never seems to sound right, it seems over obvious there are two guitars playing the part instead of sounding like one guitar.

I double track solos on certain songs - especially if it's a very melodic solo - but for my type of music it doesn't matter if it sounds a little sloppy because the guitars aren't perfectly matching one another - I kinda like it like that. Heck, on some songs (especially faster hard rock numbers) I don't even bother matching the lines - I just play two (or sometimes more!) different solos and let them battle it out in the final mix - gives it kind of a schizzophrenic feel - it's an old Tony Iommi trick (though you can hear lots of other guitarists from the 70's doing - especially old Jimmy Page/Zeppelin songs).

- Chris

[Sir Analogue]

If You Record To Analogue You'll Have No Need To Record Doubles Or Triples Or Quadruples Because Not Recording To Analogue Is Not Recording To Analogue.... And That Is Bad News If You Want To Have That Doubled Sound.

Or You Could Use The Beatles Trick Of Automatic Triple Tracking And Record It To Analogue Three Times With A Single Recording Thereby Making One Into One-two-three!!!! All You Have To Do Is Flange The Reel And Record Three Tracks....

[geoff956]

I don't get this double tracking on solos & vocals. Chordy guitars and keyboards yes, but single lines - a copy of the first with one delayed 20 - 30 ms. and well panned L & R to get the thicker sound without making the delay obvious.

[Farview]

Originally Posted by geoff956

I don't get this double tracking on solos & vocals. Chordy guitars and keyboards yes, but single lines - a copy of the first with one delayed 20 - 30 ms. and well panned L & R to get the thicker sound without making the delay obvious.

This causes phase problems.