Recording Distorted Guitar Tones?

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bhefner88

New member
Let's reference the song Over the Hills and Far Away for this question, although I understand that an acoustic guitar is used in this song, so on and so fourth.

HOW do you go about combining a clean guitar tone with a distorted guitar tone in a song and effectively and artistically? Any time I go about recording a distorted tone it seems to contrast way too much with the initial clean tone and it doesn't sound pleasing at all. I'm using germanium fuzz pedals, which I'm sure will prove to be a factor.

I try to clean up the tone with the fuzz pedal instead of completely turning it off instead of completely eliminating that influence to encourage more consistency, but I'm still not achieving what I'd like to.

Any tips?
 
I find it's best to have distorted guitar playing no more than 2 notes at the same time when combining with a clean guitar. Let the clean guitar do most of the chords, especially the thicker ones. If you must have the distorted guitar playing chords then you gotta really turn down the distortion to a minimum
 
There are several different types of distortion. The distortion that your fuzz pedal makes might not be the kind that works well for what you are trying to do.

I would think that you need something more of a crunch distortion instead of a fuzz. Think 70's Marshall, or even modern boogie. The distorted tone needs to have enough articulation so that you can still discern all the notes in a chord you are playing.

You also need to have the tones matched to a certain extent, having a bright clean tone and a really dark distorted tone will not let the two blend together.
 
Mike-Mat said:
I prefer to record everything clean and then treat it with effects in the editor.

Mike
Click to expand...

I hate to say it, but a 'feel' guitar player, like me, can't do that. Try holding a bent note on say a clean Tele through a Twin, and keep thinking as the note dies out, 'Yeah! Later it's gonna have distortion and just ring like a bell!' I just play differently when there's an effect happening. Adding effects later takes CPU, and RAM, and always sounds like an added-on-later effect. Distortion or overdrive now makes me hold sustaining notes, I might go for a pinched harmonic, whatever. Clean sustain? That's been the goal of so many pedal makers for the last 912 years, so if you have it, you'd be a millionaire.
It's kinda sorta like playing piano with no sustain pedal and thinking there will be one added later. Or even worse. I just can't imagine doing it. Well, I can, but not liking it at all.
But back to the original question, record the 'distorted' guitar not as distorted as you might think would be normal. Then double it. Not really playing it twice, but copy and paste the track onto a new track. Time shift one up ahead a few milliseconds if you'd like. Pan one left and the other right. Or try slightly panning them. EQ the clean guitar for more mids and lows, and the distorted guitar for more mids and highs. Or EQ one distorted guitar for more mids and lows while the other distorted guitar is more mids and highs. You get the idea. It's all about experimenting, and you'll discover a new sound with effort and dedication.
 
Thanks guys, those last 3 answers are what I'm looking for.

Just say I wanted to go about using a fuzz pedal, how would I do it? How did Jimmy Page use his tonebender on early Zep albums?
 
You could also try to cut some separation between the two guitars with either eq and/or panning. You might try cutting out the lower frequencies of the distorted guitar to let the acoustic come through.
 
try playing the clean chords in a different position, distorted guitar up around the 7th fret while the clean guitar is playing down low, this stops them fighting for the the same frequencies. also a fuzz pedal is not very tight and focused, try a tight distortion, and back the gain off to about 6-7, then double track the heavy guitar with a slightly different tone and gain and pan them hard left and right, keeping the clean guitar in centre. brightness is a big factor also, if everything is trebley, it will make the whole thing brittle
 
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