Guitar left\right mixdown problem in Audition 3

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Potapka

New member
Hi, guys!


I've got some dark metal project to mix, with 6 mono guitar tracks (4 rythm guitars, 2 solo guitars).

So I pan'em like L90, R90, L70, R70, solo guitars tracks go L20 R20. I've got EQs and Waves RVerb on them.


When I solo a guitar track, it sounds perfectly left or right, but when I solo both the left and the right tracks, they both start to sound in the center. When I mix the song down, all guitars sound dead center and very mono. The stereo effect of a track comes from the drums only, so it sounds very narrow and dull.


I checked the effects pre\post fader positions - no changes. I switched Stereo Panning mode - nothing. I checked my previous projects with mono guitar tracks - they sound cool and give a nice rich sound picture.


So now I'm pretty confused and ask for your help.
:confused:
 
Did you actually play 6 guitar tracks? Or did you copy and paste?
 
What Mixit said. If they simply copied and pasted the same thing left and right a couple times, then panning them doesn't really do anything - it's just one louder mono track at that point.

Stereo rhythm guitars really need to be individually different takes, so the left channel sounds different from the right, etc. If it's the same waveform, there's nothing to make one side sound different from the other, and you don't get any stereo spread.

It's theoretically possible that the guitarist in question is SUPER tight, and played 6 takes with identical guitar and amp settings, and because of that you're getting very little stereo spread, but even then that's an almost inhuman degree of accuracy - even slight differences in the way the pick hits a given string from track to track ought to be enough to give it some space...
 
DrewPeterson7, mixsit, thank you, guys, a lot.

Here what those kids did: they recorded two takes in mono, then cloned those takes to make 4 mono tracks and named them like "Guitar1A, Guitar1B". So I was basically trying to pan two identical mono tracks apart. They're all very lookalike, I found the catch only after examining the waveforms carefully.

Now I pan it right, and the song starts to sound decent, except for a huuge, unholy amount of cymbals in every drum track that I have to deal with somehow, lol.
 
Potapka said:
they recorded two takes in mono, then cloned those takes to make 4 mono tracks and named them like "Guitar1A, Guitar1B". So I was basically trying to pan two identical mono tracks apart.
Click to expand...

Exactly. I knew it as soon as I read your first post. I have no idea where this myth that doubling a track does anything but make it louder.
 
Potapka said:
DrewPeterson7, mixsit, thank you, guys, a lot.

Here what those kids did: they recorded two takes in mono, then cloned those takes to make 4 mono tracks and named them like "Guitar1A, Guitar1B". So I was basically trying to pan two identical mono tracks apart. They're all very lookalike, I found the catch only after examining the waveforms carefully.

Now I pan it right, and the song starts to sound decent, except for a huuge, unholy amount of cymbals in every drum track that I have to deal with somehow, lol.
Click to expand...

My suggestion? Delete the "cloned" tracks. They won't actually add anything to the mix, just increase the overall perceived volume and, depending upon where they're panned, change the place in the stereo field the "original" take will sound like its coming from. There's no reason to keep them.

Cymbal? Geez. How did they even manage that? :p I don't record live drums much, but the times I have I've only gotten the most barely audible cymbal bleed from my snare and kick mics, and that's nothing a gate won't fix. :yesway:

EDIT - is it possible they accidentally printed a cymbal track along with every other drum track? Unless the guy beats the shit out of his brass, I don't understand how you could have so much bleed.
 
If they're absolutely adamant about doubling those guitars, either get them to
re-record, or put a slap delay on them (although I'm sure we all know that if
they're that keen on doubling guitars, they should have actually done it :p)
but make sure to be careful to not have the delay too quick, otherwise you'll
have phasing issues.

Cheers,
Phil
 
philbagg said:
If they're absolutely adamant about doubling those guitars, either get them to
re-record, or put a slap delay on them (although I'm sure we all know that if
they're that keen on doubling guitars, they should have actually done it :p)
but make sure to be careful to not have the delay too quick, otherwise you'll
have phasing issues.

Cheers,
Phil
Click to expand...

Don't bother. Unless they're standing there watching you mix them, there's absolutely no way they'll ever know you DIDN'T use the duplicated tracks. ;)
 
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