when copying/pasting to doubling and thicken guitar do I use .5 delay or...

[videodrone]

When copying the guitar track to paste to teh other track hard left or right.

Do I put on a delay on 1 track or both?

Or should I just make one guitar play like .5 secs before the other with no delay,

anyother suggestions to thicken up the sound?

thanks

[Shailat]

You leave the souce alone and delay the other side by ms depending on the effect you want. Forget all sugestions you hear about the amount of ms and use your ears.

Playing with the "time" will give you either a fatter sound, a larger sound, to a big sound. They arent the same thing. Some people will call it a image change to a double to a slapback to a distinct Echo. Use your ears and forget discriptions.

Start from 11ms to 100ms and listen to the effect.
Make sure the delayed part is lower in volume. USe monitors and not headphones to work on the delay. Try different panings between the two - from source centered and delay behind it to panned hard left and right. You will hear a difference in Depth width and general size.

Check out the use of modulation and the LFO to create a chorus type delay. Do you know how to use them?

[SS454]

I wouldn't recommend copying and pasting guitar tracks. Just do overdubs. That is probably the sound you are looking for.

[jonobacon]

Hmmm this is interesting - I had never considered using a small delay to fatten up a sound. I normally just do overdubs and play as a second guitarist - but that is often error prone.

I will give this a try also - thanks guys!!

Jono

[Downside Studio]

Be aware of compying and pasting a track.
For example. if you switch the phase on one of the tracks, it will provide a very wide stereo perception of the guitar sound. When played back mono it will totally cancel the part.

This sounds logical (and is) but whenver I'm recording a track and it sounds really cool and stereo to me, the first thing I will check is phase and mono competability.

Indeed best way to fatten or stereoising tracks is double tracking.

[Downside Studio]

Another way to really fatten up guitartracks is to record the main rhythm part mono. Afterwards let the guitarist just record the chord fading out, and double this part. Voila, put it left and right behind the main part, and you have a real strong and stereo guitartrack.

Done million times before, but surely works still great. One of those little fast tricks!

[fenix]

i support the copy and paste method if you are recording with computer. with one of the tracks though, offset it a couple of samples or milliseconds...this helps thicken and remove phase problems

[Downside Studio]

Originally posted by fenix
offset it a couple of samples or milliseconds...this helps thicken and remove phase problems

To my knowledge this is adds phase problems.

[Shailat]

Originally posted by Downside Studio
To my knowledge this is adds phase problems.

First of all take into consideration that a copied track as a "doubler" can be more precise and that is a big advantage to do it that way. It defenitly isnt more natural though. cons and pros like every thing ....

As to the phase problems....Success is dependant on the delay time. A prime # will yeild better results. All you have to do is sum to mono and check it out. If it disapears you make a slight change to the delay time untill it cuts through. And so you find the best time for Stereo and mono.

[jonobacon]

I have heard a lot of talk about 'phase' and I am not sure if I have experienced it - I copy a track and put it at the same point on the score and it works fine and sounds quite fat.

What does phase sound like and how can I detect it?

Jono

[Shailat]

Originally posted by jonobacon
I have heard a lot of talk about 'phase' and I am not sure if I have experienced it - I copy a track and put it at the same point on the score and it works fine and sounds quite fat.

What does phase sound like and how can I detect it?

Jono

Use the search function. There must be at least 50 threads on the topic "phase" filled with answers for you.

[mixsit]

Originally posted by jonobacon
I have heard a lot of talk about 'phase' and I am not sure if I have experienced it - I copy a track and put it at the same point on the score and it works fine and sounds quite fat.

What does phase sound like and how can I detect it?

Jono

Have you heard a phase shifter pedal?
Same thing. Anything in the 5-25 ms range causes this.
Double tracking it is more random, sounds thicker (gererally) and doesn't have the static comb filtering effect.
Wayne

[cominginsecond]

Originally posted by jonobacon
What does phase sound like and how can I detect it?

Jono

To hear exactly what phase sounds like do this: clone a track, scoot one of the tracks by 10 ms or so. Play back both of the tracks. That is what phase sounds like. You can detect it by listening for sound like that.

[maestro_dmc]

Originally posted by SS454
I wouldn't recommend copying and pasting guitar tracks. Just do overdubs. That is probably the sound you are looking for.

I've done it both ways, it depends on what I'm after. A nice stereo spread can be achieved either way.

Now I'm going to go back and check for phase problems on all my cloned doubletracks!





You're never done learning around here!

[S1000W]

Originally posted by jonobacon
I have heard a lot of talk about 'phase' and I am not sure if I have experienced it - I copy a track and put it at the same point on the score and it works fine and sounds quite fat.

What does phase sound like and how can I detect it?

Jono

I was trying the copy/paste things awhile ago.. and it seemed to work fine.. i never noticed any "phase" problems or anything on my main studio monitors or out in my cars system..... but!!! ... when i took the mixes out to my truck for a listen on the cd player... i could hear a horrible distorted/swishing type of sound coming from the guitars... especially in heavier "chugging" parts.. at first i thought it was some problems with my high hat mix.. but i soon discovered it was "phase" problems caused by my copy/paste of my guitar tracks.

Even if you dont hear the problem right away... it might show up on a different sound system... like it did for me. It made the mix unlistenable in my truck... but since i discovered the problem, ive had no troubles with my current mixes... now i just record another overdub if i want a second guitar to fatten up the sound.

[roman]

The fastest (and perhaps the easiest way?) is indeed to copy a track and have it delayed about 10ms for example.

a few things about phasing and delaying

- Phasing is critical at very low delay e.g. 1 or 2 ms.
- A delay can be picked up by human ear starting from 30 ms (or something close). Anything higher is noticable as a delay. When going to extremes, say 150/200 ms or above, it will sound more like an echo.
- Fattening: pan the source to one side and use any delay for the right channel shorter than say 30 or 40 ms. This will 'fatten' the sound.
- Slap delay: same trick as fattening but now with higher delay times like 80 ms.

another great trick: put the source in middle, delay the right channel about 60 ms and the left about 70 ms. This will give great guitar sounds (typical combination of fattening and slap delay)

check the differences, may be very interresting.

I'd suggest checking the Ultrafunk Sonitus plugins for the delay.. it'a beautifull stereo delay which sound great! (www.ultrafunk.com to DL a trial version)

ps. flanging and chorus is also a delay thingy...

[mixsit]

Originally posted by roman
...snip...
I'd suggest checking the Ultrafunk Sonitus plugins for the delay.. it'a beautifull stereo delay which sound great! (www.ultrafunk.com to DL a trial version)

The diffusion option is also a nice bonus in that plug.
Wayne