Layering guitars?

M

McShredsAlot

New member
Hey guys. I was just curious if you had any preferred methods for layers guitar parts. I usually never layer them. Ill just record everything twice and pan then hard left and hard right. Do any of you quad-track your guitars?

Also I was listening to a Paramore song (Forget which one) off of Brand New Eyes and I noticed that they had an acoustic guitar layered with an electric guitar. I have done things with acoustic and electrics going at the same time but this was just straight layer, but with an acoustic. Have any of you guys experimented with that?
 
I rarely play 'exactly' the same part on acoustic and electric. If I have, its usually the scratch acoustic part, and I'll mute it during the mix.
 
i've layered guitars with differant guitars and amps for thickness. single coils and humbuckers
I dont pan them that far apart. IMO theres no need.
As MJB says though most of the time i'd play differant parts for each guitar.
Good luck and have fun.
 
Ive double tracked guitars for years and my concept is to at least change pic ups for a little different tone than the other one.and of course pan them some (are as wide as the song needs it) which is the whole idea of modulation and widening the stereo field. Also a good trick is to play the exact chords on both takes, but try playing one of them in a different register are inversions :listeningmusic:
 
TASCAM MAN said:
Ive double tracked guitars for years and my concept is to at least change pic ups for a little different tone than the other one.and of course pan them some (are as wide as the song needs it) which is the whole idea of modulation and widening the stereo field. Also a good trick is to play the exact chords on both takes, but try playing one of them in a different register are inversions :listeningmusic:
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^^^^^^^^^^^^. Sometimes I play two different parts but the same chords on one guitar and pan them left and right. Then I will double those to parts with a differnt guitar and maybe a different amp and pan them opposite. Gotten some decent results if the music calls for it.
 
Elton123 said:
^^^^^^^^^^^^. Sometimes I play two different parts but the same chords on one guitar and pan them left and right. Then I will double those to parts with a differnt guitar and maybe a different amp and pan them opposite. Gotten some decent results if the music calls for it.
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well see, you already know what your doing :D:guitar::thumbs up:
 
Lately I've been doing a lot of double tracking.

If you go into the recording knowing that you will be double tracking your rhythm guitars, you will pay more attention to your performance than you normally might, and your timing will lock in really tight.

Generally speaking, I'll play the same part twice, and occasionally in one track I'll swap out barre chords for the more traditional form, even in drop tuned uber chunk. It just gives it a bit more character. After that's tracked, I'll pan them a bit. Make sure to let your bass handle the bass end and don't crowd it with overly beefy guitars and you'll have a solid wall of sound that still remains clear enough to pick out the individual performances.

I hope this helps.


Did you notice how we're all doing basically the same thing? Switch guitars, use a different amp/cab, play it a little different, etc... oh and don't forget that real amps and virtual amps are NOT mutually exclusive.
 
Yeah I know I noticed it now that you pointed it out...very cool because that shows that we are very intuitive creatures for sure :listeningmusic:
 
if your looking for more thickness in your mix try to keep your pans closer to the mid-center instead of hard right and left. in my experience pushing two duplicated guitar tracks hard right and left will not give a more full stereo presence per say but rather thin out the effectiveness of duplicate tracking. also you could pull the ol' phil elverum trick and have the (acoustic) left and right channel's strumming be slightly off, gives an interesting texture
 
analogdrone said:
if your looking for more thickness in your mix try to keep your pans closer to the mid-center instead of hard right and left. in my experience pushing two duplicated guitar tracks hard right and left will not give a more full stereo presence per say but rather thin out the effectiveness of duplicate tracking. also you could pull the ol' phil elverum trick and have the (acoustic) left and right channel's strumming be slightly off, gives an interesting texture
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So lets say I record guitar A, and guitar B both playing the same thing but different takes. Maybe pan them like 50% left and 50% right?
 
McShredsAlot said:
So lets say I record guitar A, and guitar B both playing the same thing but different takes. Maybe pan them like 50% left and 50% right?
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i would say less. but honestly you should try with a test track and listen to the difference between different panning positions. there will be a point when you can discern a noticeable difference in fullness from all dead center, all panned hard, and various positions closer to center.
 
I usually just roll with 2 hard panned and one up the center that's aggressively high passed. The center track helps with phase issues when listening in mono or on laptop speakers. If you add a high passed distorted bass track in there as well that creates a pretty fun sound as well.
 
analogdrone said:
i would say less. but honestly you should try with a test track and listen to the difference between different panning positions. there will be a point when you can discern a noticeable difference in fullness from all dead center, all panned hard, and various positions closer to center.
Click to expand...

I would agree with this and typically go with about 30% in Logic.
 
Hey! Sometimes, I copy/past the guitar track and delay one of thr track just a tiny bit, couple of mili sec... then pan a little bit each of the tracks. It thicken a lot the guitar... It gives the impression to raise the guitar part over the band...
Cheers!
 
Oh-oh....Here comes Miro with his oscillating organ. Everyone get behind a piece of furniture and be quiet. :eek:
 
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