How can I get the widest possible guitar stereo image with one mic?

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jndietz

The Way It Moves
Lets say I record a take with an SM57 and then want to make it as wide as possible without having to re-record the take?
 
Pan your recorded take hard to one side. Run it through a delay (experiment till it's as wide as you'd like it without it becoming an echo) and pan it the opposite way.
 
Track Rat said:
Pan your recorded take hard to one side. Run it through a delay (experiment till it's as wide as you'd like it without it becoming an echo) and pan it the opposite way.
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Good advice (I use it a lot).
Another option, is the traditional (but is ever good to remember...) stereo chorus approach :mono guitar at center an stereo opened effect (taking care, if guitar is the main or only harmony instrument, to get a balanced tone (not "thin" nor too "loud" ).With one mic and without double the track ,that´s the way(s) to go.

Ciro
 
jndietz said:
Lets say I record a take with an SM57 and then want to make it as wide as possible without having to re-record the take?
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Don't be lazy. Multi track the guitar and pan 85 and 60 L and 85 and 60 R. If you CAN'T multi track, all you can do is play with effects. Chorus, delay, verb, re-amp, whatever...but it won't be as good as multi tracking.
 
Zed10R said:
Don't be lazy. Multi track the guitar and pan 85 and 60 L and 85 and 60 R. If you CAN'T multi track, all you can do is play with effects. Chorus, delay, verb, re-amp, whatever...but it won't be as good as multi tracking.
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I figured as much. I love the results that multi-layered guitar yields. I guess maybe I'll stick with it! I'm going to try that delay idea too.
 
Yup, I was sceptical before reading, because I thought it was another "Copy the track and move it over" type things. But taking parts from different sections is about as close to recording 2 tracks as you can get. Coolness!!!!


As much as I'm impressed with this technique, I have to say I'll never use it. I'll stay play 2 seperate tracks if I want a doubled guitar part.
 
Guitarer said:
Very cool :cool:
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This is a cool approach, and I've used it in the past for guitar when I couldn't recreate the tracking environment. But now I track 2 & 4 times on almost all guitar parts--and check 'em out before I move on.

But I did also use this recently w/vocals. We had a lead vox in the center, and another guy does a background. I thought there was a second background part and let the first guy stop after one. Turns out that was all she wrote, and I wanted the background vox to sit left & right around the lead. So I rearranged lines, swapped whole choruses, etc. and comped a completely new "2nd take." Worked like a charm...
 
Track Rat said:
Pan your recorded take hard to one side. Run it through a delay (experiment till it's as wide as you'd like it without it becoming an echo) and pan it the opposite way.
Click to expand...


Or pan it center, run it through a two-tap delay (second delay about 30 ms after the first) with each tap panned hard left and right.
 
deshead said:
Forgive the self-link, but here's a trick you can use (sometimes) when re-recording isn't an option:

http://www.hometracked.com/2007/06/01/create-a-doubled-stereo-track-from-a-mono-source/

In essence, cut-and-paste matching sections of your mono track onto a second track to create a double.
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Yeh i do that quite a lot if I've recorded a band and after the fact decide i want a nice wide stereo image..very hand.

sometime's i'll be even lazier and just take the whole of, for ex., the second verse and put it in the first verse and vice-versa..
 
Hi,
Some interesting answers. I used to be a tape op many moons ago and anytime we wanted really wide guitars, indeed the way to go was playing twice but, we would slow down the tape + 3-4 cent for one take and then - 3-4 cent for the next. This used to be really effective for stereo width and can be done simple with pitch control on your computer. I havn't tried this with one take yet and I would imagine if you did this to two of the same take you would get a slightly bigger chorus but ... if you try the technique mentioned above of guitar on side delay to the other, try pitch shifting either one (or both, opisite way obviously) very slightly and I would imagine you would get somewhere near what you're after.
 
That wasn't a very impressive first post spelling wise my apologeeees lol.
 
Spellings? We don't need no stinking spellings!
I like the idea of the speed variation - I don't know that I'd be subtle enough with my cloth ears not to sound out though.
 
You should find that +/- 3/4 cent would be subtle enough. We had a general rule with vocals that we would never go over 5 cent either way as it tended to make them M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E but you had a bit more room to experiment with guitars.
 
Pleasurehead said:
You should find that +/- 3/4 cent would be subtle enough. We had a general rule with vocals that we would never go over 5 cent either way as it tended to make them M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E but you had a bit more room to experiment with guitars.
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I'm curious how long you could go with that before the amount of delay grew to problematic lengths. It's too early on a Saturday morning for me to feel like doing the math right now, but if you were shifting pitch by varying tape speed, you'd have a delay time between channels that was constantly increasing. It wouldn't take long I wouldn't think for that to build up to a good 20-30ms delay where it starts changing fron delay to echo.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
I'm curious how long you could go with that before the amount of delay grew to problematic lengths. It's too early on a Saturday morning for me to feel like doing the math right now, but if you were shifting pitch by varying tape speed, you'd have a delay time between channels that was constantly increasing. It wouldn't take long I wouldn't think for that to build up to a good 20-30ms delay where it starts changing fron delay to echo.

G.
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It's not a timing issue, is it? It's only pitch--you'd be playing to a slightly above or below pitched track, which would be reset to normal speed for playback with a new guitar track that was slightly pitch shifted as a result, but still on time.
 
mshilarious said:
It's not a timing issue, is it? It's only pitch--you'd be playing to a slightly above or below pitched track, which would be reset to normal speed for playback with a new guitar track that was slightly pitch shifted as a result, but still on time.
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Yeah, but he's talking about doing it by speeding up and/or slowing down the actual tape.... so now Glen's got me wondering, too.

EDIT: MS might be right, too....:D If you're only changing the speed for tracking, then bringing it up, maybe it stays the same thing.

EIDT EDIT: Maybe I just shouldn't have posted altogether....:(
 
RAMI said:
EDIT: MS might be right, too....:D If you're only changing the speed for tracking, then bringing it up, maybe it stays the same thing.

EIDT EDIT: Maybe I just shouldn't have posted altogether....:(
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No, I'm glad you posted, because you straightened me out. I didn't catch the point about changing tape speed *on recording*. I was thinking on playback, which didn't make much sense at all. On recording makes so much more sense :rolleyes::p. Early Saturday morning post, ya know...(that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! ;))

Kinda like doubling with mechanical chorusing.

G.
 
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