Mixing/tracking approach for combined finger-picking and strummed guitar parts

Qwerty

New member
Hello Gathered Gurus and Swamis,

I can set my compressor quite happily to track my finger picking acoustic guitar parts and I can also set it up to play whatever dynamic games I am looking for in strummed, pad acoustic guitar parts.

What I can't get a handle on are tracks that play a finger-picked lead part which needs it's dynamics for the main verse but then drops back to a strum pattern for the chorus.... Jeff Buckley, Tea Party etc....

I tend to set up my sound with compression whilst tracking -- nothing major -- and add a little bit extra when I need it.

However, when I try and do this on these sorts of parts which combine finger-picked and strummed stuff, I get a little lost setting my compression for tracking.

I either end up with a finger picked part that is a lost and inaudible and a good strummed part or a good FP part and an over-compressed monster of a strummed pad part.......

What do the big boys do? Record two seperate parts? Record with minimal compression, split the track after recording and deal with different compression ratios for the fp/strum parts during mixing?

Any wisdom, duly noted and appreciated!

:) Q.
 
Qwerty said:
What do the big boys do? Record two seperate parts? Record with minimal compression, split the track after recording and deal with different compression ratios for the fp/strum parts during mixing?

Sure. Whatever works.
 
Re: Re: Mixing/tracking approach for combined finger-picking and strummed guitar parts

TexRoadkill said:
Sure. Whatever works.

Ah - The Golden rule again :)

:) shuts up and presses record
 
Record with ZERO compression.

If you've got a DAW, use a compression plugin to attack the parts you want with the appropriate settings.

If you only use outboard, maybe you could grab two different compressors, and get the settings right for each dynamic, and switch over at appropriate times?


PS- a whole lot of this will depend on the players dynamics
 
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