Stacking multiple track E.G. Vox, Guitars, Bass

Ralis

New member
Hi All,
I am not sure if this is a recording and or mixing question.

I liked the sound of stacked (doubled or multiple tracked) Vocals and Guitars but I am not sure about a few things.

I can hear that Eminem at least double tracks his main vocal track and they seemed to be panned dead center and many metal bands double or quadruple track the guitars and have them panned far left and right whilst having two bass tracks, one clean and one distorted right up the center.

My first question is if I (in pro tools) record Two Guitar Tracks, one panned left and one right, then I send them both via a bus to a stereo aux track do I then have to pan the left and right stereo tracks the the far left and right as well? Or is That stupid?

My second question is if I am stacking main vocals Do I process each individual track with say an EQ, compressor, a de-Esser etc. then send them via bus to my aux stereo track to add reverb, delay etc? Or do I just send the raw tracks to the stereo track and apply the EQ, compression, de-Esser, reverb, delay all to the stereo track?

Sessions can get pretty CPU intensive and I do not want to be over processing if it is not correct or necessary

Thank you all for your time and expertise
 
I put all EQ, compression on individual tracks, send the signals to a bus for reverb only. If you send left-and-right-panned guitars to a stereo bus, you will not be able to isolate those guitars' bussed FX to only left/right, they will be centered (or however you have panned the buss).
 
My first question is if I (in pro tools) record Two Guitar Tracks, one panned left and one right, then I send them both via a bus to a stereo aux track do I then have to pan the left and right stereo tracks the the far left and right as well? Or is That stupid?
I don't know pro-tools, but I suspect you could figure this out by listening. Send one of the panned guitars into the stereo aux, and listen to the aux track. If the guitar is in the center again, then you'll have to re-apply your panning. If it's still panned, then panning again would be redundant

My second question is if I am stacking main vocals Do I process each individual track with say an EQ, compressor, a de-Esser etc. then send them via bus to my aux stereo track to add reverb, delay etc? Or do I just send the raw tracks to the stereo track and apply the EQ, compression, de-Esser, reverb, delay all to the stereo track?

Sessions can get pretty CPU intensive and I do not want to be over processing if it is not correct or necessary

Thank you all for your time and expertise

This is all pretty subjective, and you'll have to do some experimentation on your own. 'verb and delay are very RAM-intensive, so I would definitely put them on the bus rather than individual tracks. I'd personally put EQ and compressor on the bus too. De-esser might have to be on individual tracks to be effective tho.
 
If it's a stereo bus and a stereo aux then the panning of the source tracks should show up just fine in that aux. Things like reverb can smear the pan around a bit, of course.

De-essing probably would go on each track if you're applying subsequent FX like distortion or such. You probably want to clean that up early as possible.

I've recently been trying to just use standalone RX and surgically de-ess (and some of the other cleanups, like plosives, clicks, etc. if necessary) the raw track and mix with that processed track. Tedious, but it's a little better than slapping a de-ess or other RX thing as a plugin on the track because the filtering is hard to get right for an entire song and be sure you're not introducing other artifacts. (And, at least in Logic, I've found that automating toggling on/off of some RX plugins just doesn't work.)
 
In PT once you assign your audio tracks to an aux stereo track the pan position of the individual original tracks will show up in the aux buss as their position you place them in. If these original tracks are 'stereo' to begin with then their individual pan position will only matter to the aux buss. Most of your plugins will have a mono or mono/stereo choice and choosing the one that fits the track isn't 'always' the right one. !! Sometimes having a stereo capture and assigning a mono effect to it can thicken the original track even though having that plug on it may change it's output to mono. To get that BIG pro sound in the box you really need to use your buss assignments as much as possible. The ONLY reason to run a vocal, for example, through any time based device is for getting a certain depth of the effect and since you'll be 'driving' the output on the track with the output levels of the plug, you have a delicate balancing act to keep the impact and clarity. This is also where you load your cpu. Assigning effects to their own tracks and then bussing them together with the original track to an aux stereo gives you so much better control of all involved. I will hit a compressor inline on a vocal but always buss the time based effects and then use whatever compression needed to polish it up across the stereo buss of the aux.

So in answer to your first question.....recording a mono guitar track, even though you have it panned hard left or hard right still makes it a mono guitar track and the playback is the only thing that is panned in that case. Recording a stereo guitar track with panning will place a 'printed' position to the recording and could impact the phase when placed against another stereo and similar recorded track. When doubling or tripling alike tracks you really have to be phase conscious more than anything else and staying with a mono tracking for this will help. Having a "phase tool" also is a big deal for accomplishing this. I use the Little Labs IBP from my UAD plug list.

I cannot emphasize enough how important phase is when you are stacking things. The funny part is once you get that, things get way bigger and clearer even if the distortion is through the roof. Note: Nearly all EQ's impart some sort of phase shift when added to a signal. You'd think with the digital world that this wouldn't be the case but it's the nature of how EQ is with overlapping of frequencies and the inter modulation of the harmonics is where you will find these phase anomalies. One instance here and there isn't going to break the mix but stacking a crapload of similarly voiced tracks with eq all over them gets the mud and the hair pulling going.
 
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