mixing (esp. the panning of) electric guitars

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powpowmeow

New member
"sound wise" the guitars are "fuzz"y, varying from barely to highly overdriven. not a lot of clean guitars.

no acoustics yet, just dealing with electrics.


Mixing is in stereo. Using ableton live.
Lots of plugins in the library.


All guitar takes were recorded in stereo, discretely, with the lead mic being a "normal" placement, and the second being very devoid of highs. (it's a shure sm57 close to the grill, outside edge of a loud speaker)

The 2 mics don't cause phase "problems" when panned together





Right now the technique i like the most is:

Find 2 favorite guitar takes for the section i'm working on (verse, chorus, whatever)

Take Mic A from Take 1, pan it hard left.

Take Mic B from Take 2, pan it hard right.




Due to there not being phasing problems with the 2 mics, any mono output of this mix once it leaves my jurisdiction shouldnt cause a phase problem.




Any suggestions?

Where to pan guitars?

Stereo widening plugins useful at all? (Probably more a mixdown thing but i will mixing this down myself also)



Thanks everybody :D
 
My question is more about, overdubbing more guitars on top of that (on top of one hard left, one hard right)
What techniques could i use to add more guitar to that, if any?

Overdubs would be different types of guitar tones, otherwise i'd be heaping on phasing issues
 
How long is a piece of string?

I personally subscribe to the LCR method which leaves three options: either hard panned or in the centre.

My advice? Keep it simple. Sounds like you're on the right track but just one thing...what you're doing is not "stereo". It's dual mono. Remember just because you're using two mics does not make it stereo. So, if the distance of the two mics is equal to the speaker, yes, you shouldn't experience any phase problems when summing to mono. But using two different takes from two different mics could be a good approach, given those mics work well together in the mix.

Speaking of the mix, the issue here is also context. If your music is guitar based like most rock, left and right hard panned doubles is SOP. But if the guitar is a supporting instrument in a big arrangement you might want to put it somewhere where it's discrete and only pops up where it needs to.

Another thing is that if you're creating a sound stage with two "virtual" guitarists up there a la AC/DC, you could treat it as such. Use automation to bring up the lead bits and pull it down when there's just rhythm.

Hope that helps.

Cheers :)
 
I agree with mo facta,

What you really need to understand is that an electric guitar is MONO not stereo, unless you have two amps which are coming from a guitar pedal that has a true stereo output, like a strymon bigsky, then it's never worth bothering with stereo. Stereo sounds great with acoustic guitars though but in a MIX context, mono is often better, and especially mono that has been double tracked, sounds wider when panned hard left and right than stereo ever will. (listen to the beach boys for reference) hope that helps,

regards, Ben.
 
really good stuff guys. thank you

LCR is going to work about 80% of the time


sloppy terminology on my part with stereo guitar vs dual mono. yes it is dual mono, my bad. i dont have anything stereo going on in my guitar's signal path.

i was kind of wondering if there was any occsaion where doing like 15-25 left and right respectively - as opposed to (50) hard left / hard right - would be preferable.

same idea: 2 different takes, 2 different mics
 
I'll take the other side of the spectrum from MoFacta, I suppose :)

powpowmeow said:
i was kind of wondering if there was any occsaion where doing like 15-25 left and right respectively - as opposed to (50) hard left / hard right - would be preferable.
Click to expand...
Absolutely - bring guitars in on a not-so-rocking part and then when you push them all the way back out it's like cranking up the awesome to eleventeen. For extra effect, roll off some highs and lows when you bring them in to exaggerate the explosive illusion when they're pushed back out and the bandpass is removed.

powpowmeow said:
same idea: 2 different takes, 2 different mics
Click to expand...
Honestly, stack up as many takes as it takes to get the sound you want. 2 different takes with 2 different mics is just the tiniest tip of the iceburg of what often (not always, of course, standard disclaimer blah blah) goes into fantastic sounding guitars... at least with guitar-driven music, which it seems like you're doing here.

It's not at all uncommon for a producer/mix engineer/whoever to stack multiple takes with multiple guitars and multiple mics and often even multiple amps/DI/ampsims/whatever, each EQ'd differently, some smashed to all hell and blended with less-distorted takes that aren't compressed hardly at all. Then routed into their own stereo bus and massaged (or beat to hell with a limiter - whatever you're into, lol) together into 1 tight, unified, sound that you can then mix easily with your other busses, sends and whatnot.

umm... that's all I got off the top of my head, aside from the obvious that the performance and tuning of the guitar are the most important parts (especially when stacking takes) - time for lunch, heh. HTH :D
 
TyphoidHippo said:
I'll take the other side of the spectrum from MoFacta, I suppose :)


Absolutely - bring guitars in on a not-so-rocking part and then when you push them all the way back out it's like cranking up the awesome to eleventeen. For extra effect, roll off some highs and lows when you bring them in to exaggerate the explosive illusion when they're pushed back out and the bandpass is removed.


Honestly, stack up as many takes as it takes to get the sound you want. 2 different takes with 2 different mics is just the tiniest tip of the iceburg of what often (not always, of course, standard disclaimer blah blah) goes into fantastic sounding guitars... at least with guitar-driven music, which it seems like you're doing here.

It's not at all uncommon for a producer/mix engineer/whoever to stack multiple takes with multiple guitars and multiple mics and often even multiple amps/DI/ampsims/whatever, each EQ'd differently, some smashed to all hell and blended with less-distorted takes that aren't compressed hardly at all. Then routed into their own stereo bus and massaged (or beat to hell with a limiter - whatever you're into, lol) together into 1 tight, unified, sound that you can then mix easily with your other busses, sends and whatnot.

umm... that's all I got off the top of my head, aside from the obvious that the performance and tuning of the guitar are the most important parts (especially when stacking takes) - time for lunch, heh. HTH :D
Click to expand...

i was hoping for something like this and that's exactly why i started this thread...

the hard left/hard right for a more "in your face" sound...then moving them in and using highpass/lowpass...thats good stuff man.

gonna help me out a lot with creating the illusion of dynamics
 
I didn't read what everyone else has written (because I'm a bastard, sorry!) but all's I have to say is that mic technique sounds like problems. If you're using two mics on the same cab, have em right next to each other with their capsules aligned to get the best phase relationship. Be careful if they are different mic types from each other. But when all else fails, use the main 57 take.

And the other thing i have to say is "LCR baby"! Use the LCR approach as your main big/wide sound (if you're like me you mix the loudest part of the song first and make it as big and wide and powerful as you can), and then bring them in from there on parts you want to collapse the stereo image a little bit - like a verse or break. It creates something interesting for our ears to follow along and look forward to and gives the song a nice dynamic, rather than static super wide guitars the whole time (borrring and predictable).

Mind you, this is ALL a matter of my own opinion and it may not work for every tune. But for a standard staright ahead rock tune with verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus, it should work well for ya.
 
My normal mic setup on a guitar cabinet it a 57 pointing where the dust cap meets the cone and a 421 pointed about half way up the cone. Other cabinets can need different placement on the speakers.

I record the tracks separately.

I perform the part twice with the same sound.

I pan both the 57 and 421 from the first performance hard right and pan the other performance hard left. Then I balance thetwo mics against each other to shape the tone.
 
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