help! mixing piano and distorted guitar

[coldoatmeal]

Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated, but I am hoping mostly for EQ advice I guess.

In the chorus of one of my band's songs, there is a very heavy distorted guitar part-basically power chords (played on a les paul through a 35 watt marshall with tubes, if that helps at all?) along with a piano part, playing basically the same rhythm but with some fills that I wish would stick out a little more. So far I haven't been able to mix it so that both parts are powerful. I guess I just wondered if there was like some fairly common procedures to follow when mixing these two instruments. The piano part is played on a Roland keyboard, and I don't know for sure, but it sounds like there is already some kind of reverb on it, so I assume adding reverb would just muddy it up even more. The piano is really bassy, but when I take off lots of the low end it becomes harsh and tinny, although there is more room for the guitar. I'm not sure what to do.

If any of you guys could help me out I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

 

[littledog]

Hard to say without hearing the tracks, but my instinct would be:

•Roll off some high end on the guitar tracks.

•Roll off some lower mids on the piano and then boost the volume. If it was a real piano I'd also add some compression, but you could try it on the Roland too if the players dynamics aren't consistent.

•Pan them towards the opposite sides of the stereo field.

 

[riffing]

You may also want to delay one a few ms (maybe 10 or so) more than the other one. Their attacks will occur at different enough times that may give you what you want.

 

[coldoatmeal]

thanks for your suggestions. I will definately give them a try.