Big up front guitars

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chris Jahn
  • Start date Start date
two distinct rythem parts, Like Fugazi or At the Drive

Fugazi seems to have some layering going on. At the Drive In is like 4 quadrillion guitar parts stacked ontop of each other.

You dont have to pan the layers opposite, you can use varying degrees of the specturm
 
If i have two distinct guitar tracks, ie: a band with two players, and im doing some of this to make the guitars bigger, wont i lose the basic left right stereo image of two players on stage, or at least the distinction of two seperate parts. Wont some of this kill the dynamics of a song that has two seperate guitar parts and kinda make it all mush together.

It can get mushy if you have too many parts panned all over the place.

But, at the same time, you sometimes have to think outside the box. Instead of always placing one guitar always on the left, and the other always on the right, you can think more in terms of a soundscape. Not everything has to be simmetrical in the sense of always having a perfect balance between left and right. Nature's not simmetrical. If it was, all trees and mountains would look the same. We'd never find beauty in anything.
For example, you can treat one guitar the way you'd treat a keyboard "pad", where it's doubled and panned to either side pretty much filling in the whole spectrum. The other guitar can be on top of that, not doubled (or doubled with both parts panned to the same place), panned 25% to the left or right. It's not something you'll always want, but it's just one example of many different ways to treat your parts.

I think a whole album of simply a guitar in the left and the other in the right would get predictable and boring.
 
Quite, true, i tend to have a very rigid view of recoring, "if you cant do it live then dont record it" but im trying to open my mind and look at a recorded song as its own little piece of art as apossed to trying to duplicate it live and vice versa. thats a great point of view Rami, its hard for me to do, although punk and hardcore do "layer" alot (at least modern hardcore) they dont leave a lot of room for anything other than two guitars, bass, drums, vocals, thinking outside the box could do the genre some good.

A great example of a HC band doing just that is "the shape of punk to come" by Refused, great album by any standard.
 
Quite, true, i tend to have a very rigid view of recoring, "if you cant do it live then dont record it" but im trying to open my mind and look at a recorded song as its own little piece of art as apossed to trying to duplicate it live and vice versa. thats a great point of view Rami, its hard for me to do, although punk and hardcore do "layer" alot (at least modern hardcore) they dont leave a lot of room for anything other than two guitars, bass, drums, vocals, thinking outside the box could do the genre some good.

I'm with you as far as the making sure you can re-produce it live. I never have more than 2 guitars playing at the same time, will never use drum machines, keyboards, samples, sequencers, etc....

But that shouldn't limit HOW you produce it, as far as making it sound as good or as weird as you want.
 
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As the originator of the this thread id like to say thanks for the info, most of it is worth a try, and all of it is at least good stimulus for trying new things.

One question though, if i went one of these routes that suggest doubleling, tripleing etc... and then panning all over creation, wont i lose the basic dynamic of STEREO. If i have two distinct guitar tracks, ie: a band with two players, and im doing some of this to make the guitars bigger, wont i lose the basic left right stereo image of two players on stage, or at least the distinction of two seperate parts. Wont some of this kill the dynamics of a song that has two seperate guitar parts and kinda make it all mush together.

Im not saying, im wondering, cause ive tried alot of this to varying degrees and what i said above is kinda the resault.

Very differnt than the genre that i specified in the begining, are the Kings of Leon, GREAT DAMN RECORDINGS for a modern band, and there guitars (although not at all heavy) sound big, upfront, but VERY seperate, like completely far L and R, thats what i want but with heavy super overdriven guitars!
Ok so here's what you do.
1. A massive tube amp, no amp modeling crap, big tube halfstack, the end. This is a step that cannot be skipped.
2. SM57 Positioned on the 1 inch from the grill 2 inch off center and then tweak to taste.
3. Quadruple track so that there is 2 takes on left and 2 on the right.
4. Play in time with the other tracks! If you can't do this you will not get the massive metal sound you are looking for. PRACTICE!
5. A decent preamp.

Watch this video. Its One of the best ones out there. Try everything in it. Watch it again. Experimentation is the key here.

http://www.imperialmastering.com/guitartonevid/
 
What popular band is close to the sound you want? That would help me know more of what you are looking for.
 
ah rami, the kick fiasco of 2007 was all me... and you guided and educated me so that i can turn around to my friends who try pass it off as a legit technique and rip them a new one!

it may be tiring, but i learned a lot from your scathing remarks of my stupidity and now i have more respect for you as some one who has taught me something valuable! :D
 
alright, ill chime in here.....

heres what i do.....and ill post an example of my latest recordings showing the technique....

a single SM57 right up on the grill, pointing straight forward on the middle of the cone (not the dustcap, which is that lil' round thing in the center of the speaker), so this might be off axis as some would call it.

remember, placing a single mic in the very center of the speaker will sound its brightest, placing it at the outter rim will be its darkest..........just stick it in between the 2 spots!

Crank your amp loud (past bedroom levels), if you cant....get an attenuator.

dont suck all the mids out on your amps tone knobs, if you do....you just lost all your tones "body".....

Double track your rhythem guitars so theres 2 guitar tracks per side. So now you have a total of 4 separate guitar tracks.....2 panned on each side of the stereo field (try guitar#1 88% left, guitar #2 75% left, guitar #3 88% right, and guitar#4 75% right).

add VERY minor compression (4:1 ratio and mess with the threshold so its barley working, but helps tame low end rumble on palm mutes and super low flabby notes).

add post EQ (if needed) to fit your mix. My magic EQ frequency is 8k. Keep adding 8k to the guitar tracks untill they sound as bright and shinny as everything else in your mix.

Heres a clip of a song i just finished recording (and playing on) using these simple rules i go by......

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=465137&songID=6813559

again...these are a starting point, or simple testing guidelines.....they my not work for you.....but they work for me.
 
ah rami, the kick fiasco of 2007 was all me... and you guided and educated me so that i can turn around to my friends who try pass it off as a legit technique and rip them a new one!

it may be tiring, but i learned a lot from your scathing remarks of my stupidity and now i have more respect for you as some one who has taught me something valuable! :D

Well, thanx alot. Even though I was a lot ruder than needed. I was getting frustrated in that thread, I should have just stopped subscribing to it. :)

And, just because someone learned or read something before someone else did, doesn't mean the other person's stupid. We were all "stupid" at one point. If anything, you're a little stubborn, but I can relate to that, and it's not always a bad thing.:cool:
 
Chris: Are you one of the guitarists?

If not, may I suggest that during a practice or a sound check that you take a step off stage and into the audience and hear what your dual rhythm gits sound like from the audience perspective instead of standing in front of your amplifier?

I suggest this not to suggest that you try creating a documentary sound stage, but rather so that you can get a more third-party perspective of what your band - more specifically, your charts and arrangements - actually sound like from that perspective.

Again, not as a comparison of the panning, but rather as a comparison of how your gits actually do get along (or maybe not) *sonically* on stage vs. how they get along in the mix. To the point: how does what your ears hear coming off the stage differ from what you are reproducing on disc, and what do you need to change on the disc side to bring them more together.

It's often extremely hard to tell from the middle of the stage itself just what things actually sound like in the audience, and it's even more often quite a different thing.

One thing I think there's about 50% chance (IME, anyway) of your discovering is that because of a combination of arrangement and tone that your guitars simply don't from the beginning sound as up front but separated (why do I sound like a Playtex Living Bra commercial? :D) as you guys think, and that some production changes on both sides of the microphone might be needed to get that up front *studio* sound you're looking for.

G.
 
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