Dual Guitar Tone

tether1

New member
Are there any secrets to recording and/or getting a smooth dual guitar tone a'la Iron Maiden? Even with very minimal distortion the combined tracks sound very artificial. Any suggestions?
 
I was recording guitar through a Shure SM57 and an ART Tube MP/C Project Series before my Shure died recently. Until I can replace my Shure I've been using my Audio-Technica AT2035 which strangely sounded great recording heavily distorted and palm muted guitar. I can get the solo sound dialed in I want it's when I double the tracks for the dual guitar sound that it sounds overly digitized. I wonder if it's building up in a certain hz?
 
You mentioned a key point without maybe knowing it. Iron Maiden has two guitar players with diverse styles, different amps and guitar rigs. The two compliment each other because they don't sound the same.

If you are looking for that kind of sound playing the parts by yourself, try using different guitars and or amps. Maybe even get drunk before playing a doubled track. LOL! Just kidding.

What are you using for gear now?
 
I have an Ibanez rg2ex1 and I alternate between a Boss DS-1X Distortion and a MXR M116. I've tried recording with and without my Behringer Compressor and Boss RV-500 Reverb. I use a Fender Mustang I V2 20-Watt to record with. I'm thinking of trying a couple of tracks with almost no distortion to see what it sounds like.
 
What Jimmy says. Try recording one or even two or three clean guitars to one distorted, eq them differently and layer them. The one guitar with distortion will cover every thing else and the clean guitars will give you all kinds of tone when you bus them together and blend to taste.
 
At a guess, I think a Plexi style pedal might help to get you closer. There are quite a few. The Marshall Guv'nor is one of the earliest ones, and they're reasonably affordable. There's just a certain combination of compression, harmonics and high end spank that gives Marshalls a distinctive sound. I'm not sure what the capabilities of the Mustang are that way, but you're probably not getting anything close to that from a DS-1 or Ultra Metal type distortion. "Iron Maiden" and "JCM 800 2203" have a lot in common.
 
You will have a hard time getting that sort of sound out of the pedals and amp you are using. But try dialing down the treble, make the sound much darker than you think it should be. The closer you get to an AC/DC kind of guitar tone, the closer you will be to what you want. You want it to be crunchy, not fuzzy
 
Making two guitars sound different is also in the tuning. If you re-tune the same guitar it will be slightly off tuning from the other track, use a different pickup and amp setting and it will sound like a different guitar player. I personally use different tunings altogether like the Stones, one in open G one in standard. Or one in open D one in drop D etc. Mix it up.
 
I think that there are some combinations of guitar and amps mentioned out there on the Internet; though I remember Butch Vig combined both diverse and the same guitar tracks for Nevermind... You still got to figure out the good sound.
 
It doesn't have to be complicated. You can get a good sound with two tracks of the same tone, but the tone has to be the right kind. Getting your distortion from those pedals is going to give you a fuzzy sound, which isn't what you are looking for.
 
It's going to sound terrible. Those guys use Marshalls, and Murray used an MXR Distortion+ for a long time... It's hard to really picture what it sounds like, but it seems like your guitar gear is pretty far from what people would use... How does it sound with each track panned at like 75%?
 
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