mixing when you have only one electric guitar track?

[RFR]

I grew up with that fucker. Not literally, like we were schoolmates, but musically.

 

[RAMI]

I grew up with that fucker.

That's good to know. It's a lot better than shrinking with him.

 

[RFR]

Hmm. Was not aware of him shrinking.

 

[RAMI]

Hmm. Was not aware of him shrinking.

I'm not talking about George Constanza shrinkage.

But you said you "grew up" with him. I figured it's better than the alternative, which would be the opposite of grow up, which is shrink.

Hmmmmm.....A joke is like lyrics. Trying to explain it means it was shit to begin with.

 

[RFR]

Rami, see, I understood your joke (stupid as it was) And furthermore, I even thought it was funny.

I simply responded with an equally stupid joke myself.

 

[Greg_L]

Just mix it mono. A mono mix can and will sound good if you can mix at all. Or put guitar one side, bass the other. Tons of songs have been recorded with lopsided and/or strange panning. None of it matters. Do whatever you want. Just make a good mix however you decide to do it. Unless you only listen with buds crammed into your ears, you don't even notice.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

If you want to pan the bass to one side you might try something like Basslane. It will move the lows back to center but leave the mids and highs panned. That helps it work in earbuds and doesn't really detract from how it sounds from speakers.

 

[Bobbsy]

There are lots of good ideas above and I won't try to add to them. A good mix can be made with any of them, from the various artificial stereo techniques to Greg's suggestion of mono.

However, the one thing I'd add is that the first thing you have to do is decide on the importance and the place of the guitar in the rest of the mix.

Indeed, that's the thing with any mixing. You have infinite choices to make about what you want to be dominant and what is just "helping" the rest of the mix. Once you've made that decision, the choice of mixing technique will probably flow on from there.

 

[robertrichards]

Or when your tracking get two great takes and then image and eq one of them exactly how Farview suggested on number 4. This way it is a unigue guitar track instead of a delayed original. Depending on the genre and sound, you may get the player to play one track on the front pickup and this will give it an Eq'd difference that will help in "hiding" the ghost track. If the guitarist is an absolute robot player then manipulate the second "ghost" track by moving it backwards slightly so that its behind time of the other take, but seriously no one plays exactly the same every take so it should be fine.

 

[RFR]

Yes. But this defeats the original thread premise. ONE guitar. Not two.

 

[Eleanor Fudd]

4. short delay (30-50ms) with the high end EQed down panned away from the guitar.

I'm not with it enough to understand that. Could someone elaborate a little bit? Thank you.

 

[RAMI]

I'm not with it enough to understand that. Could someone elaborate a little bit? Thank you.

What he means is that you put a delay on it (30-50ms) with the high end EQed down, panned away from the guitar.

 

[andrushkiwt]

I'm not with it enough to understand that. Could someone elaborate a little bit? Thank you.

In other words, put a delay on it, about 30-50ms, EQ the high end down and panned away from the guitar.

 

[RAMI]

What yo could also do is....

................ah, never mind.

 

[Btyre2013]

I'd go with M/S recording, sounds very natural as long as your room sounds good enough, it's great for mixing the ambience in and out in different sections of the song.