Guitar Tracks

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wherebeerdies

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I'm having a problem with our two guitarists tracks working together. Both sound great separately. The problems lies in the tracks being pretty opposite.

One guitar is a Strat through a solids state amp. Pretty bright sounding not icepick highs or anything but bright and cutting. It was recorded simultaneously through two cabs one cab close backed and the other open. They are blended and end up sounding like a pretty strong scooped sound.

The other guitar is a Les Paul through a old Orange head that is thick and full of midrange and a Mesa Boogie set to a vintage sound that adds highs and lows. Overall the sound is well balanced but not very bright.

I would like to keep the guitars panned each to a side to let the parts play off one another.

I guess basically what I'm asking is how do you make a guitar sound more polished. I need to take some edge off one guitar and add some to another. Eqing has helped but I haven't gotten really aggressive with it. Another tricks before I get into the some pretty aggressive eqing?

At this point retracking is still an options but would be a royal pain. I would hate to mess with the guitarists sound too much as it works for the most part. For the most part its just the brighter sounding guitar coming across as exaggerated.
 
When working with two tones like that, I tend to track them both twice, and pan them so I have both types of guitar on both sides - gives a thicker sound as well.

Do the sounds conflict or are you just worried that they sound too separated? Because that's not always a bad thing.
The trick is to take some muddy low-mids out of the LP track, and some harsh highs out of the Strat, but it sounds like you've already done that, so either let them each have their own space or if that's not the sound you want, retrack/put down to experience!
 
Elton Bear said:
When working with two tones like that, I tend to track them both twice, and pan them so I have both types of guitar on both sides - gives a thicker sound as well.
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They sound really good that way. It gives more of a wall of sound thing going. We have a lot of interplay between the guitars which seems to stand out better when they are panned. I really would like to halve the difference in sound, but they do sound good when a track of each is matched up. Just loses some of the definition.

Still pretty good though.
 
I guess I didn't read Eltons post closely enough. Each guitarist has 2 tracks each with tonal not performance differences. I use one of each guitarists tracks on either side of the stereo field and that is the option that I have found that works best.

I haven't given up on being about to separate them better. We play heavily 70's influenced hard rock and keeping the guitars to opposite sides enhances the feeling of the songs.
 
NL5 said:
So, you have four tracks of guitar?
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Sorry I'm not being really clear. We have 4 tracks of guitar minimum. All those are the main rhythm parts. All solos are overdubs as are the "color" parts.
 
If it's a problem retrack it. I'd swap amps and try it that way too.
 
this situation is a very good candidate for Reamping, but I'm guessing you don't have DI Tracks.

another if you don't want to retrack, is to sonically nudge the tracks towards each other with something like CurveEQ.

It's difficult giving any advice without first hearing
 
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This question is confusing. :D

If it doesn't work, you either EQ it, re-amp if you've got the originals as DI ... or you re-track it.

There aren't like any special magical tricks. My initial thought is that you're probably creating extra work for yourself (and confusing / cluttering the sound field) by going with two tracks of each guitar ... but that's just me.
 
Andy Johns (who has recorded a few good guitar tracks) often uses two mics on a single speaker. One aimed directly on center, and another aimed at 45 degrees to the center. The mic aimed at 45 degrees sounds less bright while the other is brighter, he then mixes the two together as needed.

I think that given two tracks of the same part, you can get a similar technique going by EQing the tracks differently with one adding mids/bottom, the other adding "bite". I'm assuming that the mic position didn't change from each track or phase may be an issue.
 
Very basic suggestion, and one you've probably already tried, but what about just not panning them as much. 20 or 30% each way instead of 50 or 100%? Might help them blend a bit better, yet still give some seperation.
 
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