giraffe
i love negative rep
in my sig, the glory and the dream.... up to 8 gits at some points.
grammy? hell no, and i make no such claims.
but it sounds ok.
grammy? hell no, and i make no such claims.
but it sounds ok.
grn
Well-known member
as an interesting aside, when recording our EP, I really was frustrated getting that perfect distortion that I've always wanted so I spent a week on it. I ended up using a 15 watt practice amp made by crate with a three thousand dollar rickenbacker guitar... I found the most delicious? creamy? sound and the one I have been looking for and I got it down... two tracks, panned hard left and right. once we are done I'll upload some tracks...
B
Beck
Guest
Also one of the most crucial elements to all this is to have the right guys in the sweet spot to judge the mix. Use the buddy system… a wall of guitars can be very dangerous. You need people that will hold the line and do all they can with what they have, right until death is at the very door. Rock & Roll is deadly serious business.
Attachments
Ford Van
Banned
Nick98338 said:
Nice try. Doesn't sound very "wall of guitars" to me.
Ford Van
Banned
treymonfauntre said:
While this sounds really good, it doesn't sound like more than a a rhythm track on each side.
Ford Van
Banned
giraffe said:
Not bad, but they don't sound that HUGE. Was it that part that starts around 2:38 where it was 8 guitars? Cause if that is, I think the guitars actually sound smaller there than the rest of the song.
Layers of the same guitar isn't always the solution for that HUGE guitar sound.
My case in point.
2 mics per amp. Two tracks of rhythm
(this is the band xfinsterx plays in and a song I worked on the mix with him)
Single mic on 4 tracks of rhythm
While the two "minimal" tracks aren't as HUGE as I could have done, they certainly sound bigger than the multi tracked guitar approach in the second group sound, and they sound bigger than the examples people have offered up so far. I am not trying to start a "my stuff is huger than your stuff thread", or to berate other people's productions. I am just trying to illustrate that from my experience, LOTS of tracks of guitars seldomly sound "huge" to me. Almost every HUGE guitar production I have heard has been a very minimalist approach in how many different takes there are.
Lee Rosario is right on track. SIZE come from offering different dimensions to the same thing. Just layering a bunch of small sounding guitar tracks together will generally just make the sound "smaller" because of a LOT of phase cancellation is going on. Even worse would be several HUGE guitars combined.
I mean, when you want a HUGE snare drum sound, you usually get it by a good tuning, with a close up mic, then combining overheads and room mics, and possibly some reverb. The overheads/room mics are the reason it sounds HUGE. These mics are offering different dimensions of the same sound. You get the sense of "space" with these mics.
Well, not all of us can blast a Triple Rectifier in our apartment and have a mic out in the parking lot to get that sense of space and have to use POD/JStation/VAmp dealies. No problem. Here is a very rough draft song idea thingy I was working on (sorry about the drum machine):
Do the guitars sound like they have reverb? Nope, the actually sound pretty dry. But, there IS reverb on them! I have a JStation (this is the Rectifier patch) I am using the "Studio" reverb: Diffusion is 70, Density is 10, Decay is 4, and Level is 60.
So, if you have to use an amp emulator, a little bit of the right kind of reverb is what will add more dimension to your sound. You won't feel you need to lay more guitars to get that HUGE sound.
Ford Van
Banned
grn said:
I wanted to add that a LOT of great guitar tones in the past have been captured via very small low wattage amps!
G
grinder
New member
When layering heavy guitars, try doubling parts without distortion. Bring up the clean tracks just enough to fill out the sound, with out being too noticable. It helps add punch. Also, change guitar and amp setting for each of the tracks or even better use differant guitars and amps. When panning, don't stack the tracks on top of each other, spread them out a little bit.
grn
Well-known member
Ford Van said:
wasn't it eric clapton that used a small amp to record most of cream's songs?
peopleperson
I'm so sorry.
I once learned of a very intersting technique for recording guitars from an engineer friend that I'm still dying to try but haven't.
You pump white noise through the guitar amp, and put two mics on the cab. Flip one of the mics out of phase and listen to the two mics under phones in mono. Get as much of the noise to dissapear as possible with mic placement, then flip the phase back in. It's a very simple thing and makes perfect sense as far as getting the mics as perfectly in phase as you can, but I haven't tried it. Anyone ever do anything like this with any good results at all?
You pump white noise through the guitar amp, and put two mics on the cab. Flip one of the mics out of phase and listen to the two mics under phones in mono. Get as much of the noise to dissapear as possible with mic placement, then flip the phase back in. It's a very simple thing and makes perfect sense as far as getting the mics as perfectly in phase as you can, but I haven't tried it. Anyone ever do anything like this with any good results at all?
peopleperson
I'm so sorry.
Oh, and speaking of small amps, I don't know if it's been mentioned, but the first Zeppelin LP was done entirely with a small Supro.
aaroncomp
1-20-2009
When I hear the phrase, "wall of guitars" or whatever, the first thing that comes to mind is Deftones. I've never read how they get their sound, but it is definately a wall imo.
Ford Van
Banned
aaroncomp said:
Again, this isn't the result of a LOT of guitar parts, just two well recorded guitar parts.
L
LoGoTH
New member
Thanks for all the useful info guys. I have to track guitars monday and tuesday night so i will definetly give all these things a try. appreciate it everybody!!!
giraffe
i love negative rep
one of the actual noteable pro's around here said he liked to run the same git part (exact same part, NOT replayed) into many different amps to get a big sound. (obviously, he meant sometimes, not all the time)
Reggie
PutsTheLotionOnItsSkin
giraffe said:
MUCH better way to get a bigger sound without having to chop apart multiple increasingly-sloppy-sounding takes. Either by reamping or by splitting the signal from the performer to the different amps.
Sonixx
New member
what's your idea of a massive wall of guitars sound?
maybe an example?
maybe an example?
Thunder33
New member
Ford Van said:
here is a song that I recorded with 4 guitar tracks. I panned them like this....
_ \ / _ so hard left, 10:00, 2:00, and hard right
here is one that I did with hard pans to the left and right with nothing but bass, drums, and lead stuff down the center. The mix is a little rougher on this one but you can hear the difference. Also on this one, I used a bit of a heavier, more harsh, guitar tone.
http://revrecstudio.com/files/self_inflicted_wound.m3u
I have been told that both achieve a "wall of sound" and both have fairly detailed timing in the playing. At the home recording level, I really feel like you should stay away from more than 4 tracks to achieve a guitar sound due to the lack of ability to be able to mix it properly. There is no set rule for mixing this. It all depends on the tone of the guitar and where the frequencies set in the mix. Just remember that what sounds good live, is not necessarily going to sound good on "tape". You want to really stress the mids and not try to over distort it. Sometimes less is more, no? Anyway, check out my rough mixes and see if I am full of shit or not. I may be!
Ford Van
Banned
Simple Solution just sounds like the guitars dominate the mix at the expense of the drums. To me, that is NOT a "wall of guitar" effect. The 4 tracks sound about the way I expected them too. Mix them properly in a lush mix, and you will soon have a "wall of guitars" made out of mush. Sorry, but that is honestly how I feel.
POD, VAmp, or JStation?
Again, the second one stands up MUCH better. Listen to how the guitars sound fairly big within a much better mix of music! Also, it still isn't quite HUGE sounding. It is the nature of amp simulation when you track them dry. Try some reverb on them!
So, I STILL have not heard where more tracks = wall of guitars sound!
POD, VAmp, or JStation?
Again, the second one stands up MUCH better. Listen to how the guitars sound fairly big within a much better mix of music! Also, it still isn't quite HUGE sounding. It is the nature of amp simulation when you track them dry. Try some reverb on them!
So, I STILL have not heard where more tracks = wall of guitars sound!