2 Panned Guitars or 1 Panned Guitar and 1 Panned Reverb?

M

Mattoooo

New member
Trying to get the hang of recording basics. So far, Ive been doing a lot of stereo guitars, one guitar in each channel. But I keep coming across people who place one guitar in one speaker and then pan the quiter reverb to the other side, rather than have another guitar playing there. When would you do that? Would that free up more space? What relative volume do you set the panned reverb at? Do you use it mainly for softer songs? Is it better to pan a guitar in each channel if its a louder, beefier song like the one in the link below? Example below of a song with panned guitars in both channels - would you ever just have guitars in one channel and the reverb in the other in a song like this? All advice is very welcome :p

 
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Probably not what you want to read, but there are no right or wrong answers to these questions. They all work. If you want a big, "modern" production sound, you'll probably record 2 tracks of guitar and pan them. if you want a less dense mix and maybe a more "classic" sound, you'll record one track, pan it and add reverb to the other side, which is what Eddie Van Halen almost always did.

Having said that, many older tunes have 2 guitars panned. If you listen to "Rock Steady" by Bad Company (for example off the top of my head), it's actually 2 guitars in the intro. It might even be just one guitar with some kind of ADT to give a "stereo" sound.

These production decisions are really personal choices that you make based on how you want your song to sound.
 
Random dude said:
Probably not what you want to read, but there are no right or wrong answers to these questions. They all work. If you want a big, "modern" production sound, you'll probably record 2 tracks of guitar and pan them. if you want a less dense mix and maybe a more "classic" sound, you'll record one track, pan it and add reverb to the other side, which is what Eddie Van Halen almost always did.

Having said that, many older tunes have 2 guitars panned. If you listen to "Rock Steady" by Bad Company (for example off the top of my head), it's actually 2 guitars in the intro. It might even be just one guitar with some kind of ADT to give a "stereo" sound.

These production decisions are really personal choices that you make based on how you want your song to sound.
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So theyre not just panning the reverb? Theyre talking about one dry and one wet guitar channel, so to speak? I think what theyre talking about is nothing but reverb in one of the channels, just the reflection, but I might be wrong
 
Who's "they"?

I thought I was pretty clear. Sometimes "they" just record one track and then pan the reverb to the other side....and sometimes "they" record 2 guitar track and pan them away from each other. You can add reverb to one of the guitars....or both of them......or none at all.

There's no real answer to your question. Just do what you think sounds best for your song, it's as simple as that.
 
Random dude said:
Who's "they"?

I thought I was pretty clear. Sometimes "they" just record one track and then pan the reverb to the other side....and sometimes "they" record 2 guitar track and pan them away from each other. There's no real answer to your question. Just do what you think sounds best for your song, it's as simple as that.
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Not quite sure how to interpret the EVH comment, but I guess you mean just reverb in one channel then, no actual guitar. Specifically, this came from watching an analysis of modern metal production that used updated tricks "invented" by Mutt Lange and a part of the Lange school of thought, so to speak, according to the producer analyzing Tool (I think it was).
 
Oh, if you were talking about EVH, then yes....It's pretty well documented that he would pan one guitar to one side (dry), add reverb to it and pan that reverb to the other side. Not sure if he did that for his whole career, but for the first few albums, it was his MO.
 
Random dude said:
Oh, if you were talking about EVH, then yes....It's pretty well documented that he would pan one guitar to one side (dry), add reverb to it and pan that reverb to the other side. Not sure if he did that for his whole career, but for the first few albums, it was his MO.
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Yeah, according to the same guy, EVH started doing double guitar channels once Sammy Hagar and that whole, more commercial sound entered the picture
 
It's pretty obvious here...not in the intro solo, but starting at 33 seconds in, you'll hear it in the intro of the actual song.

 
Just like @Random dude said, there is no right or wrong. It's just about how you want it to sound. You can always double track your guitars and then mute one to try the reverb panned on that one guitar track to see which you prefer for your song. Personally, I always double track, it just sounds better to me and the whole EVH panned guitar/reverb sounds super dated (I was never a fan of the band, probably blame DLR for that one...) but you're the mixer, you make the decisions. ;)
 
Ujn Hunter said:
Just like @Random dude said, there is no right or wrong. It's just about how you want it to sound. You can always double track your guitars and then mute one to try the reverb panned on that one guitar track to see which you prefer for your song. Personally, I always double track, it just sounds better to me and the whole EVH panned guitar/reverb sounds super dated (I was never a fan of the band, probably blame DLR for that one...) but you're the mixer, you make the decisions. ;)
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Yeah, I mainly wanted to find out if I was understanding the concept correctly. Was never much of a VH fan either and listening to the clip you posted, Im not sure I like that guitar prod, but its probably a way of making a guitar sound big while still sounding like one guitar and also saving a bit of space
 
Random dude said:
There's no real answer to your question. Just do what you think sounds best for your song, it's as simple as that.
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I think, when all is said and done, that it comes down to what Random Dude is saying here. There's lots of different things that you can do. It's good that you're listening to what "they" do and are trying to understand it in relation to the sound you are hearing. But ultimately, Random is right. You're the mixer. Every method works in some way or another, but not every method will necessarily be right for the song. Only you can determine that.
Home recording is like science never was at school, in that you get to test things and blow them up if you so fancy. In science at school, the teacher already has the answer and is just guiding the student towards the accepted theory/answer of the moment. They're not daft enough to give the unpredictable/creatively mischievous student free reign to try whatever they want.
It's just as well ! ☄️💥🔥🌪️☀️⛈️💨💦💫
But......in home recording, there are all kinds of experiments with various methods that you can run and they'll all pretty much work at some point. But not every time for every song. You might find panning the reverb sucks for the song you have in mind. Just because it worked for EVH much of the time doesn't mean it'll work for you in the particular song you're thinking of. But it could work brilliantly for the next 10.
You know, in a curious kind of way, we're freer as home recorders to take music in more interesting directions than the artists that inspired us......
 
You could even do something like having the 1 Guitar w/ Reverb Panned in the Verse, and then BAM! in the Chorus with the Double Tracked Guitars to make it sound HUGE!

It just depends on what you want the song to do...
 
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