Mixing a single guitar track, tricks

  • Thread starter Thread starter sarge117
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Just throwin in another vote for double track it.
Fuller/fatter :cool:
 
I've done that quite a few times in the past, and it works. It's really effective when you're writing, and playing around with the arrangement of a new song that you're working on. Double a guitar track, push the copied track forward just a touch, and pan 'em when and where you see fit. It usually ends up with a boom at that selected point. Fun stuff to mess with in the mix!
 
This is actually an old trick used in studios to create delay. There was a machine around years before the digital age called an "echoplex" , it did the same thing. It was mostly used for vocals though. It doesnt matter what others think , if you like it then do it!

The Echoplex was a tape based delay and had a tape loop and movable heads in it. It worked in the same manner as analog tape delay between the sel sync head and the repro head. Moving the distance between the heads would create the different length of delay. The unit was a bit noisy but had a very cool sound.

Other stand alone tape based delay units:

Echosonic (1952)
Echoplex (1959)
Space Echo (1973)

Binson Echorec - Magnetic drum
 
Hey, tis the season, right? I'm (obviously) in learning mode when it comes to the ins & outs of recording, and I very much appreciate Mattr's linking the technical explanations to the things we hear. Thanks for that.

I can, however, say with great confidence that if you A/B 2 amps on a stage, guitars can benefit in a huge way. First, they will sound a lot fatter, but moreover, the tonal possibilities are pretty awesome. If you link up a vibrolux with an AC30 you can get plenty of jangle, but also get nice full deep mids and wider range of attack points for crunch. (just an example)
Hmm.. as I type this I'm getting an insatiable need to go home and see what happens if I fully overdrive one amp, and go for clean rich, but fully saturated:D on a second amp, to see if it fattens up the overdrive in a good way

Okay, you've convinced me. It's gonna cost me hundreds, but I don't hold it against you. :D
 
When I think "single guitar band" I think eary Van Halen records. In that case, it was a single tracked guitar panned hard left totally dry, and then all of the guitar effects panned hard right.


Another one I like goes something like this:

Put a mic right up on the cab.
Put another mic back a few feet.
Put a third mic way in the back of the room.

Not an easy thing to do...All three have to add to each other and you gotta' watch the phase.

Anyway, once you got that send 'em to three separate tracks.
Put a gate on the mic that's a few feet back. Set it to let the track play when the guitar gets a little loud. Put a gate on the mic that's all the way in the back of the room. Set it to let the track play when the guitar gets REALLY LOUD. Depending on your playing and tones it might be easiest to side-chain both gates off the close mic track.

Obviously that is only useful for a song with some real dynamics, but it can be pretty cool. The guitar player should definitely be listening to the whole gate thing while playing so he can learn where they open and work it into his performance.
 
I dug up an old live recording that I never got around to mixing. Made me think of this thread.

Some of the songs only have one guitar. The band always played live on a click track, so I had a thought: On the single guitar songs, I could grab the 2nd chorus guitar, paste it into the first chorus (and paste the first into the second), and then EQ them differently. I would have different performances of the same part since these songs (like many rock songs) repeat the same guitar notes in different places of the same song. I'll give it a shot and report back...
Running the same guitar-signal into two amps
What I love to do live:

I have a Roland 2480. Turns out it is my best friend when playing guitar live. I map out the song and set a click track. Then I plug my guitar directly into one of the inputs. From there, I route that input to several mixer tracks.

So what I have is an identical copy of my direct, unprocessed guitar on 4 or 5 mixer channels. From there, I start routing the channels all over the place.

-One channel goes out to a guitar amp with a nice distortion setting on the amp itself.

-Another channel goes out to a second guitar amp set to a clean channel.

-Another channel goes through the Roland's internal guitar sim for a different distortion sound, and then back out to the clean amp.

-Another channel goes out to an acoustic guitar simulator pedal, then out to a DI into the house snake.

Repeat for as many mixer channels, outboard pedals, and internal Roland effects as I need.
Since the song is mapped out on a click track, and since the Roland has full automation, I can program tone changes and never have to stomp a single pedal on the floor. When I want clean, the Roland pulls all of the faders down except the one going out to the clean amp. When I want full distortion, I program it to raise only the fader going to the dirty amp and the fader hitting the internal amp sim going out to the clean amp.

All I have to do is start the thing going and then play. It really is a blast to be strumming away with an acoustic sim sound coming out of the house PA and then have two amps kick in with blazing distortion right behind you at exactly the right moment.




And since the Roland is also a recorder and the song is mapped out, I can even do something like record my guitar playing power chords ahead of time (again, clean directly off the guitar) and then send that out to the distorted guitar amp while I play full chords through the other amp live.

Obviously getting the "mix" right depends on outboard gear being set the same way every time. If anybody wants to try something like this, I highly recommend taking an empty track in the Roland (or whatever multi-track or DAW you use) and recording your voice describing the settings on every amp and pedal. That way the info is always right with the mix data.

And don't forget to send the click to the drummer's in-ears!
Fun stuff.
 
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