How many guitars do you need?

[joedirt]

OK, Track two guitars, pan 1 hard left 1 hard right and it sounds full and wide (at least compared to one). Now track 4 gits and pan and it seems to fill in the gaps alittle better. Track 8 and I guess it sounds fuller......My question is this, how many do you really need to get that full, wide sound on todays rock tracks like Godsmack Etc? And when is it just a waste of time/hard disk space or whatever?

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Sorry to say this, but: one.

Slackmaster 2000

 

[wfaraoni]

Is this a trick question?

 

[justwantyou2kno]

If you have to record that many guitar tracks something is wrong with how you've recorded your guitar I think. Maybe try moving your mics around to get a fuller sound.

 

[Myx62]

Just turn up some levels. I get a real full/wide sound turning up the chorus on my Mackie mixer effects processor. Ive tried 4 gtrs and it sounded like guitars from hell...........If your doing more than 2 gtrs you have a problem. Just IMHO...

 

[fprod south]

I think you can get some pretty cool sounds by micing as many guitars as you have the patience for. If you've got the gear, different combiniations of guitars, amps, and settings can help. Pan them accross the stereo spectrum. Your playing has got to be really tight though.

Other times one guitar track is all you need.

 

[Dan DA]

Try adding stereo effects to one or two guitars. You can get a very full sound with more space.

 

[dobro]

That extra guitar thing is always impressive the first time you hear it - woah! Great big sound! And it can sound nice in a sparse mix, for sure. But maintain your flexibility.

 

[jamiecer]

What I've been seeing alot of lately is one GTR with many amps and mic positions. The guitarist will go out of his gtr through a mult then out to any number of amps. The amps are then mic'ed every possible way (close, off axis, M/S, distant, room) From here all of the amps are bussed to one or two tracks.

To achive this at home off a DAW, I think you would just play the GTR directly into the computer clean. Once the track is on "tape" , patch the output of your DAW to the input of your amp. Mic up the amp the way you normally would and hit record. Next, repeat the process using the clean sound over and over with diferent amps and micing techniques. Once you have all of these "GTR AMP" tracks recorded you will need to adjust them all backwards to compensate for the latency created by this process. You have now created essentially one gtr track from a boatload of amps. You don't have to worry about how tightly you played against the last take since they are all the same.

I hope this works for you,


jamie

 

[djc]

One guitar, one J-station.

 

[HangDawg]

I think it is good to have slight differences by actually playing the part twice. If a band has 2 guitar players, are they gonna be EXACTLY the same? I don't think so. But that's where the fat sound comes in.

 

[sheppard]

heres a nice trick:use 4 mics on one amp.put a 57 dead center and in the grill.put another off axis and in the grill.put a nice condenser about 2 feet away(and about six to twelve inches
off of the ground,depending on how yer amp sits.always good to have some air under yer amp mic)put another condenser about 6
to 12 feet away from the amp,and 6 to 12 inches higher than the first condenser.all of these to different tracks .
i think this is a good mic tech for guits cuz you can always layer ,with different room reverbs and ambiences,which allows you to get the wall of soundand it also allows you to just pick the single best guit track and go with it when the song does not require a wall of sound.
sheppard