Guitar tracks no good in mono

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rp3703

New member
Ok, I’ve been battling this all week now and I’ve tried everything I can think of to fix it but nothing seems to work. To start at the beginning, I’m tracking heavy distorted rock guitars. I started out recording two passes direct(actually, it was more like 800 passes comped down to two), then re-amped them through a dual miked 4x12 (57/421). Both mikes are about the same distance off one of the speakers. Nothing was changed for each pass. This gives me two tracks of one pass and two tracks of the other. Panning both sets right and left sounds great(or good enough) but collapsing them to mono sounds like a flanger with the volume dropped. Obviously, this is comb filtering but when I zoom in on the tracks, everything looks to be in phase. What am I missing? Is it possible to have comb filtering occur when the signals look to be in phase? If the signals where not perfectly lined up, would it not be possible to just move one of the tracks and line them up manually? I do that with drums and it seems to work great. I still have the DI tracks so I can re-amp them as many times as it takes but I would like to know what I’m doing wrong before I try it again. Thanks.
 
Lose one mic/pass....see how that works.
Also, with the whole DI/reamping + 2 mics/pass thing...did you maybe invert the polarity on anything along the way.
You got a few I/Os going on there...

Oh...if your heavy distorted guitars are too distorted, you should back off about 1/3 of what you think it should be.
It just never works out well when you make them too distorted, even they sound great in the room. They lose the punch in the recording.

And...don't post the same question in multiple forums...it just pisses everyone off. :)
 
It may be one cable or mic is wired wrong. The volume drop is the key symptom. Invert the polarity on one mic and see if that works better in mono.
 
I posted in two forums because this is both a mixing and recording issue. Sorry if I pissed anyone off. Again all the signal wave forms have the peaks lined up. To me that would suggest that they are in phase. It is sounding like I need to re-record the tracks again. I found a Sound on Sound article on using white noise to phase align multiple mikes https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan09/articles/loudelectricguitar.htm . Anyone use this technique? Is it overkill?
 
rp3703 said:
Is it overkill?
Click to expand...

Probably.


Once again...check your polarity first. You are recording DI...then you are reamping back out...then recording back in again.
It's possible that you may have a polarity reverse on one of the I/Os.

That aside...I would lose one mic per side anyway.
I mean...do you really feel the need to have two mics per pass...and then you're doing two passes and panning. How are you panning the two mics/pass VS the two passes?

AFA needing mono compatibility...I think you're overestimating that....but if you feel mono is that important...then forget the two mics/pass and doing two passes and panning everything. Just record in mono then.

And please don't get upset by what anyone is suggesting because you think you're doing everything the right way.
Remember...you're the one with the problem...we're just trying to help.
 
Not sure what I said that would imply I was getting upset. I have tried flipping phase on the recorded tracks(which sounds worse). It is entirely possible that a cable was wired incorrectly but am I wrong in assuming that I can correct for that on the DAW? I have tried using only two of the recorded guitar passes in different mic combinations and I get the same result. I have tried delaying one of the passes with varying but similar result. It always ends up sounding flanged in mono. The best result I had was copying the tracks and panning one 100% to one side and one 50% to the other but then I had a smaller stereo image. I guess I should give it one more shot and double check to make sure everything is as phase coherent as possible. From what I have been told and read I probably need to cut the distortion a bit anyhow.
 
rp3703 said:
Not sure what I said that would imply I was getting upset.
Click to expand...

You didn't, but people have been known to when offered advice that goes against their thoughts. :)

It's odd that two separately recorded passes, and then each reamped with just one mic, would flange and/or cancel out that dramatically in mono...?
Of course, since the parts are the same, you might get some comb filtering when you combine them...that's normal, and that's what makes for the differences.

I would back-track and check your process....and yeah, check the wiring just so you can remove that from the equation.
You might also want to use a different mic position and/or amp setting for one of the passes.

When I double track guitars, I'll grab a different guitar, and also make some changes between the two...that way, when they do combine, there is enough tonal difference to prevent excessive comb filtering.
 
I usually check stuff in the control room in mono while the player is warming up to prevent these problems, but if you're the player and/or don't have a control room maybe try checking in mono on headphones before recording. Or just use one mic per pass.
 
Ok, so Donsolo from gearslutz actually came up with a workable solution to my problem which did not involve re-recording the guitars. What he suggested and what I did was to take the 421 miked track from one guitar pass and leave it mono then take the 57 miked track from the second guitar pass and copy it to another track, invert phase on one of them and pan them far left and right. The panned guitars sound messed up by themselves, almost painful to listen to but combined with the mono, it all sounds huge. Plus it spreads the stereo image, still somewhat sounds like a single guitar player and collapses to mono. You do have to keep the mono guitar kind of even with the bass so that it doesn't drop too much in volume when collapsed to mono and mix the panned guitars to fit. Some of the weirdness can be alleviated by delaying one of the panned guitars but either way, it sounds good to my ears even if I was not concerned with mono compatibility. Far more professional sounding than generic L and R panning double tracks. If you are mixing a three piece G, B and D, I would highly suggest you use this method every time. The only issue with it is, with every instrument in the center, you do need to work a bit harder to make room but it's worth the effort.
Thanks for all of your suggestions. I'm sure I will look back at this post the next time I go tracking guitars.
 
It depends on what is phasing. Is it the 57 and 421 in a single performance that are phasing, or is it the performances that are phasing?

If it's the mics, move the mics

If the performances are phasing, that's not really possible, since the two performances should not be coherent enough to actually phase. Unless, you edited the crap out of the direct tracks t the point where they were 'perfect'.

I have had a couple guitar players that could double themselves close enough to cause comb-filtering in mono, but I just let it go. There wasn't anything to do about it.

No matter what, anything that is stereo is going to get quieter and sound different in mono. If you are really worried about it, make a dedicated mono mix to distribute to where ever you assume it will be plaed in mono.
 
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