Mixing for Beginners

[RAMI]

i record guitar 1 then i copy and paste onto a new track, then guitar 2 and copy and paste onto a new track, will it make the difference to re-record instead of copying and pasting?

YES!!!! It will make all the difference in the world. Just so you know, by copying and pasting a track, you're not accomplishing anything other than making the track louder. Even if you pan the original and the copied track, you're not making it stereo, it's just louder mono. Copying and pasting does nothing and might be the reason you find your tracks muddy. You should be playing the part twice.

(I wish someone was keeping track of how many times a week I have to type that).

 

[grimtraveller]

(I wish someone was keeping track of how many times a week I have to type that).

On average, over a period of a year, you say that about 7 times a week ! Sometimes forcefully, sometimes sarcastically, sometimes humourously, sometimes dejectedly, sometimes caringly, sometimes just so !
But cloning just seems to have caught on as an irreversible part of the human psyche. I blame those scientists that cloned Dolly the sheep !

 

[moresound]

You might want to try different mics. Say maybe a cheap $90. ribbon mic from Nady or MXL.

 

[TripleM]

If the amp sounds good you just need to figure out how to capture it accurately. Try different mic positioning. Putting the mic off center loses some highs, so maybe move it toward center. Putting the mic close boosts the low/lo-mid range so try pulling the mic out a little.

That's what I was thinking too.

The other thing I was thinking was to adjust the tone of your amp, even if it "sounds amazing." Microphones and ear drums are not made of the same material. So what might sound great to your ears when they're 4 feet away from the sound source might sound different to a mic that's 3 inches away.

 

[Dogbreath]

Yup...good tips and suggestions in here.

Definitely double track the guitar. (at least)
What I'll do is a 57 right up on the grill for the first take and then either a 57 farther back, a different mic or I'll set up a room mic. But I have a decent sounding room. Room mic may not work for everyone.
But I digress...

I try to spend more time on mic placement than I used to. Like when the 57's on the grill, I'll twang my guitar (with headphones) as I move the mic around. The closer ya get to the center, it'll become a bit more brittle with more highs. The further ya come out to the edge, the deeper it'll get.
AND...I've got one speaker that sounds better than the other (go figure)...so check that.
So sometimes, I'll go ahead and get one take with the mic close to center and one take with it further out and blend the two in around a 3 o:clock and 9 o:clock pans.
Sometimes not.

other times I'll use different guitars or different pickups on the same guitar, different heads etc...

And I've found (for me) that when I have the gain set to where I like it and it sounds good in the room, I need to back it off another notch or two to have it record well.

And yeah, this has already been said here but......