Guitar "presense"

[medium_grade]

I have some guitar tracks that I want to EQ a bit more "presence" into. Which frequencies would be most effective for this?

 

[SS454]

EQing may not be the problem. I'd have to hear the guitars first. Iv'e had a lot of luck by doubling my guitars, panning them hard left and hard right and adding some compression to make them stand out if they need it. Oh yeah, Is this for elec. or acoustic?

 

[medium_grade]

It's for electric. Distorted to be exact.

The guitar tracks were mic'ed with two Shure SM mics and the mics were complete separted into the left and right on a single stereo channel. I was told that there would not be any cancellation as long as the mics were three times futher away from each other than they were from the source. I also used a very low compression setting because I found that if I compress distorted guitars, it makes them sound small and I wanted a full and rich sound from these.

 

[VotaIdiota]

although not knowing song pretty much puts me in the dark on the sound you're going for, I would say that instead of using two mics on one source, do two takes with just one mic on the amp each time. For the second take, if you can, switch guitars, amps, mics, preamps, etc. so you get a different tone from the first. This will help your guitars sound bigger by the irony of two different sounds coming together to form one big guitar. Put a high-pass somewhere around 100 hz on both, and pan one halfway to the left and one halfway to the right.
I know this is a pretty basic default answer, but it's the best I can give for not knowing the song.

 

[pipelineaudio]

what format are you recording on ?
If you can in any way, move or delay one of those tracks relative to the other youre in some bit of luck

pan them both to center and delay or move one of them 1mSec at a time if you can until you hear it get louder, then pan em back how you had them

btw things can phase cancel no matter what so always be aware when youve got more than one transducer for an uinstrument, sometimes even headphone bleed can make phase problems

 

[M.Brane]

Another idea to try is to use a 57 up close and a condensor for your second mic to capture more of the cabinet/room sound. Just watch out for those phase issues. Sometimes they can work to your advantage, sometimes not. Always check your mixes in mono on one speaker.

VotaIdiota's advice about doing multiple tracks with different guitars and amps is good. I use this technique quite a bit myself. A similar thing is to split your guitar signal and run through two different amps at once.

 

[shackrock]

i record at least 2 tracks to each ear if i want a powerful distortion sound. and if i can, 3 tracks on each ear.

pan at all different locations (symmetrical to each ear though), and if i can maybe get 2 different amps to do it with. both with pretty powerful dist.

i mic with an sm57 bout 1-2in. from the cloth, aimed at the edge of the center cone.

 

[BrettB]

I have some guitar tracks that I want to EQ a bit more "presence" into. Which frequencies would be most effective for this?

Just remember that EQing is boosting or reducing frequencies in that are in the recorded sound, they don't create new ones.

Sorry I come barging in on this thread like that, but I often notice people forget that if you haven't got enough high frequencies in your track, extra EQing isn't likelely to help: it's only going to add hiss. You can't boost something that isn't there...

Good luck with your recordings

Brett

 

[Track Rat]

As far as where you can boost, sweep around 2k-5k.