Double tracking arpeggio guitar

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Around

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Hi,

I am working on a arpeggio song. I am having trouble getting the guitar in time. I have recorded the guitar two times, playing the guitar as exact as I can. But you can still hear the guitar sound a bit off. Is there any plugin or something for Logic pro 9 that can fix this? Or should it sound like this? A short mp3 file is attached.
 
Attachments rarely work here these days. Host the file at a free internet host. There's hundreds of them.
 
That sounds like perfectly natural double-tracking to me. It's the tiny differences between individually played parts that gives it depth and dimension. That's a good thing. Could you get it tighter? Maybe, but don't beat yourself up over it. It's not worth losing the human element over it.
 
Greg_L said:
That sounds like perfectly natural double-tracking to me. It's the tiny differences between individually played parts that gives it depth and dimension. That's a good thing. Could you get it tighter? Maybe, but don't beat yourself up over it. It's not worth losing the human element over it.
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Thank you for the feedback. Well, you're probably right. It's just when you're listening to the same song over and over again can get you a bit paranoid.
 
Also keep in mind that any potential listener of your tune isn't gonna notice every little tiny flaw that you think is there. Huge flubs get noticed, little nuances don't. What you heard as a glaring inconsistency in playing, I heard as a normal part of double tracking and I probably wouldn't have even noticed had I not been listening specifically for it.
 
Yes, thats true. Well, then I can probably continue on finishing the song! :)
 
If the double was exact, it wouldn't sound like a double and completely defeat the purpose of doing it.

The performance sounds great. Especially with all that processing on it, any slight variation will be perceived as 'added dimension' and not 'performance screwup'.
 
yep .... to reiterate the previous commentary ..... the entire point of doubletracking is that the two takes will not be exactly the same.
Otherwise you could just copy the first track ...... but there's no benefit from doing that.
You want some differences.
 
Thanks for the comments! I will then continue double tracking without doubts!
 
ollie99 said:
I do that sometimes, pan one left and one right, gets a fuller sound for me.
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only if you time shift it.
Otherwise there's no difference between that and simply panning the one track centered.
It's the exact same information either way.

Now some boards will bump up the volume if you pan them hard right or left so it might seem to be fuller but it's only a tad louder ........ the info is exactly the same.
 
ollie99 said:
I do that sometimes, pan one left and one right, gets a fuller sound for me.
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Lt. Bob said:
only if you time shift it.
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Yup. Just copying and pasting does nothing other than make it louder and still mono. Time shifting will give some difference but almost never sounds good. Besides the fact that all you're doing is the same thing you can do by putting a delay with one repeat and panning them.
 
Mono means the same thing is coming from both speakers at the same volume.

1 track panned center= same thing is coming from both speakers at the same volume= mono

2 copied tracks panned wide= same thing is coming from both speakers at the same volume= mono

As was said, it can give you more volume, but so can turning up the fader.
 
oh shit - thanks a lot, that now saves me another 2 tracks, which, given i use the 16-track version of ableton, really helps :)
 
Its a very effective result. I wouldn't change a thing unless you wanted to play it again. As stated above, if it tracked any better it would be like having a single recording in stereo. I like it :)
 
Hey Newbie, I am a newbie on this forum too and have really enjoyed reading the posts. I have a thought or two on double tracking and will do my best not to ramble.

I am a folk and classical guitarist and have played for 45 years. My right hand knows what to do without me having to think much about how to play arpeggio but if you put a pick in my right hand then I have to concentrate on what I am doing. I like to double track guitar parts and as Greg_L said, the little differences in each performance is what gives the recording depth and dimension. I listened to you track and thought it was very nice, keep up the good work and the double tracking.

Having said that a problem I see, not with you, I am speaking in general, is that guitarists and musicians in general who have grown up in the digital age can sometime get in the habit of not giving their best performances. I am not knocking the digital medium, for that matter I wold love to try my hand at digital recording, what I am saying is that it is too easy these days to lay down a mediocre performance and then "fix it" with a plug-in or some other digital wizardry. In the days of analog if you laid down a mediocre performance when you played it back you heard a mediocre performance and there was very little anyone could do to fix it other than re-record the track. Let me say again that I am not talking about you, I am making a general statement. What I do is that before putting anything down to tape, I work on the guitar part over and over and over until it is the best that I can get it then work on it a little more. Then when I double track the guitar part it is as close to the first track as I can get it without it being exact. As others in this thread have said, what would be the point in double tracking if the two track were identical. But what all that practicing does accomplish is a much cleaner and pleasing result. So if you intend to do a lot of double tracking, work on the parts until you are sick of them before you put them down to 0s and 1s and you will be much happier with the results.
 
Illsidgus said:
Having said that a problem I see, not with you, I am speaking in general, is that guitarists and musicians in general who have grown up in the digital age can sometime get in the habit of not giving their best performances. I am not knocking the digital medium, for that matter I wold love to try my hand at digital recording, what I am saying is that it is too easy these days to lay down a mediocre performance and then "fix it" with a plug-in or some other digital wizardry.
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yeah ......... that's not true actually.
A lotta folks might think they can fix a poor track and turn it into a good one but they can't.
It's usually obvious and almost never succeeds.
 
You are correct Lt. Bob, what I should have said is "try to fix it". I am afraid that I don't know much about digital recording but am trying to learn.
 
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