Layering and Mixing Guitars !!!!!!!

halo206

New member
Hello,

Im recording a bunch of music for a disc, and I'm kind of new at this whole thing(recording), so i wanted to get some perspective on what other people out there are doing as far as mixing for guitar. I'm running an American Strat through a Focusrite Voicemaster Platinum, into a Tascam Fw-1184 and then into Cubase SX.

The parts I'm having trouble mixing well are the distorted guitar parts. I just cant get them to sound good and/or mix well with vocals and bass. By the way most of the stuff im doing is guitar/keys/bass/drums/vocals. Can anyone give me some good tips on layering or mixing or anything. What do you guys do when your mix distorted guitars?!

- Mike
 
Basically, keeping the distortion and bass lower than any other time and to make it a tad brighter and crank the mids. That is the basics for going in. It makes mixing them a lot easier and ends with a better result.
 
Hi I,m Mark,
I get great sounds from recording distorted guitar.
Firstly I tune the guitar up a half tone so the strings are tighter,so what you play in the key of A on the fifth fret is now played in the A flat position.....

The strings being tighter give me a much inhanced sound.....Ac/Dc use this techneque alot...

Next I don't record using the mic milking tech,I get a signal direct from the speaker on my amp and directly to sound card....M audio Delta 44..
I do this by putting a resistor on the hot line of the speaker to the tip lug on the 1/4 inch female input jack ....the cold wire goes direct from neg from the speaker to neg on the 1/4 inch input jack... Start with a million OHM Resistor first and work from there....Example My onboard computer card I have a 3 million ohm resistor(so the input was to hot) But on the delta 44 I have only 100K Ohm to satisfy signal strength....You will have to experiment
Mark thegoodegg@dodo.com.au

DO NOT PUT SPEAKER OUTPUT INTO A MIXER OR ANY OTHER DEVICE

USE only Direct to sound card or a record in on a tape recorder
 
I get some quick, easy, good sounding tones from running direct from a line 6 flextone head.

I'm the only guitarist in my band, and for the main guitar part I mic my tube combo for the most natural tone. Then if i need any layers i just go direct.

I'm no expert, but its easy and it sounds good.
 
Boost your mids, experiment with mic placement (lots of threads on that in here), and pan them hard right and left. If you are recording the same guitar into the same amp and playing the same chords, the closer they are to each other, the worse it will sound. The frequencies are matched, so it will cancel out. Try playing around with different amp settings for each guitar track, alternative tunings, or playing similar parts in different positions. Or try playing different guitars for each part if that is feasable (you, like me, may only have access to one guitar, which really blows goats). It's all my feable little mind can come up with, I hope it helps....
 
halo206 said:
I'm running an American Strat through a Focusrite Voicemaster Platinum, into a Tascam Fw-1184 and then into Cubase SX.

The parts I'm having trouble mixing well are the distorted guitar parts. I just cant get them to sound good and/or mix well with vocals and bass.

If at all possible do not record your distorted guitars direct. Layering guitars is where you really notice the flaws of direct recording.
 
You will be missing the 'air' around the guitar if you record direct. You will also take the speaker sound out of the equation, the problems just mount from there.
 
Bigmark said:
Next I don't record using the mic milking tech,I get a signal direct from the speaker on my amp and directly to sound card....M audio Delta 44..
I do this by putting a resistor on the hot line of the speaker to the tip lug on the 1/4 inch female input jack ....the cold wire goes direct from neg from the speaker to neg on the 1/4 inch input jack... Start with a million OHM Resistor first and work from there....Example My onboard computer card I have a 3 million ohm resistor(so the input was to hot) But on the delta 44 I have only 100K Ohm to satisfy signal strength....


Man that sounds kind of dangerous to me. :eek:
 
I get a good sound micing the cabinet and lowering the distortion when recording. You don't need as much distortion as you would think when recording.
 
Bigmark said:
Hi I,m Mark,
I get great sounds from recording distorted guitar.
Firstly I tune the guitar up a half tone so the strings are tighter,so what you play in the key of A on the fifth fret is now played in the A flat position.....

The strings being tighter give me a much inhanced sound.....Ac/Dc use this techneque alot...

Next I don't record using the mic milking tech,I get a signal direct from the speaker on my amp and directly to sound card....M audio Delta 44..
I do this by putting a resistor on the hot line of the speaker to the tip lug on the 1/4 inch female input jack ....the cold wire goes direct from neg from the speaker to neg on the 1/4 inch input jack... Start with a million OHM Resistor first and work from there....Example My onboard computer card I have a 3 million ohm resistor(so the input was to hot) But on the delta 44 I have only 100K Ohm to satisfy signal strength....You will have to experiment
Mark thegoodegg@dodo.com.au

DO NOT PUT SPEAKER OUTPUT INTO A MIXER OR ANY OTHER DEVICE

USE only Direct to sound card or a record in on a tape recorder
If that is a tube amp, you are really messing with the impedance and it will take a toll on your output transformer.
 
I always record the cleanest guitar track first, for some reason this helps me cut down on the ammount of dirty guitar I add and (to me anyway) helps keep the sounds a little more distinct.
 
Hey

Thanks for the great responses! I think ill take some of your advice and try micing my tube amp instead of going direct. I got a tip today that i should try a D112 for micing the cab. It was a fellow sound recording student and he said he had achieved excellent results. So, i think i am going to give that a shot! Hopefully it works out well, from there ill try the layering thing again. See how it comes out. Thanks again!

Also: Would you suggest using a lot or a little when compressing saturated guitars?

- Mike
 
halo206 said:
I got a tip today that i should try a D112 for micing the cab. It was a fellow sound recording student and he said he had achieved excellent results.

I'm sure you could manage to get some workable results from the D112, but it is designed primarily for micing the lower frequencies of kick drums and bass cabinets and not so much for guitars. The industry workhorse for guitar amp micing has been the Shure SM57, but some people have also gotten excellent results with the Sennheiser E609.
 
halo206 said:
Hey

Thanks for the great responses! I think ill take some of your advice and try micing my tube amp instead of going direct. I got a tip today that i should try a D112 for micing the cab. It was a fellow sound recording student and he said he had achieved excellent results. So, i think i am going to give that a shot! Hopefully it works out well, from there ill try the layering thing again. See how it comes out. Thanks again!

Also: Would you suggest using a lot or a little when compressing saturated guitars?

- Mike
Using a kick drum mic for guitars will work sometimes, but it is the exception not the rule. A '57 or a 421 is a much safer choice.
Saturated guitars are already compressed to death anyway. The only time you really need to compress them is when you have wildly EQ'd something to death.
 
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