Awesome "Wall of Guitars" sound!

[Dom Franco]

I think I'm having way too much fun....but I just sort of re-discovered the effects of layering guitar parts.

I had a nice "stereo" doubled accoustic guitar part on two tracks for a song I was working on. But I was looking for a different texture. So I replaced one of the Accoustic tracks with an Electric guitar through a small tube amp. (Slighty breaking up but not too distorted) I played open chords exactly the same part as the accoustic. It sounded great! in stereo but not fully panned left/right. To this I added another electric guitar part, with heavy distortion, and this time just playing the bottom 5th and 6th strings of "Bar" chords.
This part centered and kept low in the mix
added an Awesome sound. It sounds like a wall of guitars, almost like an orchestra!

It was exactly what the song needed to set the mood of the music. I realize 3 tracks of guitars are a lot give up, but I think this would still work well in mono, by combining all three guitars down to one. Just keep the heavy distortion part down in the mix....it's just there to fill in the background, and shouldn't dominate the guitar sounds. Try it!
and share your findings with the rest of us.

Sincerely;
Dom Franco

[This message has been edited by Dom Franco (edited 10-23-1999).]

 

[bpmufx]

Hey guys this is the thing to get uploaded as MP3 for examples of what can be done. Any chance of this happening?
A side note to what you were saying- I would love to hear a full guitar orchestra play some classical stuff. I heard of Steve Howe doing this years ago but never saw a release. Any info on such a thing?

 

[Eddie N]

this might be a little off the topic , but i know metallica is doing a concert at madison square garden in NYC , and they are performing with a full orchestra...it should sound pretty different.. ive already heard a few of the songs..pretty cool stuff..i know they should have a " live from nyc " cd out eventually...look for it...

- eddie -

 

[Dondello]

I'll do some classical on my guitar sometime.. Just wait until I've bought my POD so I can get more variety of tones..
In the meantime, one of the best examples of orchestral guitar is the first song on Queen's second album. It's called Procession, and it's Brian May at his best... Check it out!

 

[phatstadt]

Same experience here. I got this song with a nice acoustic base rythm.
I then added a Strat with massive stereo flanger/phaser + autoWah and tube pre-amp + small compression which gives the sort of rotating sound that Floyd uses in Dark Side of the Moon, or more recently some slow songs from Soundgarden (forgot title, their big psychedelic slow hit). I then doubled the chords from the rythm part by picking each string on the chord slowly instead of just hitting the chord all at once. Each string sounds huge individually, rotating in space, shifting and coming back and forth. During the verses of the song, I keep the mix of this part a little low, just for the doubling, but then I increase it during the chorus, which gives the song a slight "psychedelic" tone.
I also added another stereo track of highly compressed distorted sound out of a Rockman (from Boston's Tom Scholz) which I keep at a low level, playing one string slide type melodic lead. I keep this really low in the mix, but it adds to the "wall" effect.
Amazing how much stuff one can do with a couple of guitars.
PH