Stereo outputs

  • Thread starter Thread starter thebigcheese
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Really? From what I'd read, lots of guitar parts end up having like 20 things to make it thicker. Or at least, I read something about that in a Guitar World article on Motley Crue. So I figured if I used different distortions and stuff each time, it would make a better sound... but live and learn, right? Oh well.
 
All the tracks aren't all playing the same thing. Most of them are stabs and little harmony parts in the background. 20 tracks of the same rhythm part will end up being so thin it will be unbelievable. This is mainly because of the certain frequencies building up. You end up having to EQ them out of every track, thus ending up with a messy, strange sounding, overprocessed thin mess.
 
Farview said:
20 tracks of the same rhythm part will end up being so thin it will be unbelievable.

There are of course exceptions, Brain Stew and most of Nevermind had plenty of guitar tracks. Good use of panning and using a different guitar/pickup/distortion pedal/amp/tone settings will allow you to continue to layer tracks without really thinning it out. I have absolutely no fear of putting 6 rhythm tracks playing the same thing on a song so long as no two tracks attempt to occupy the same space in the aural field and no more than two (a mirror of eachother on oposite and equal sides of center) use the same guit/pedal/ect.

thebigcheese said:
...lots of guitar parts end up having like 20 things to make it thicker.

I'd be unwilling to use the word 'lots' here.
 
nevome said:
There are of course exceptions, Brain Stew and most of Nevermind had plenty of guitar tracks. Good use of panning and using a different guitar/pickup/distortion pedal/amp/tone settings will allow you to continue to layer tracks without really thinning it out. I have absolutely no fear of putting 6 rhythm tracks playing the same thing on a song so long as no two tracks attempt to occupy the same space in the aural field and no more than two (a mirror of eachother on oposite and equal sides of center) use the same guit/pedal/ect.
This takes more preparation and planning than someone that is trying to find a way around double tracking will do.
 
Farview said:
This takes more preparation and planning than someone that is trying to find a way around double tracking will do.

Completely true
 
That's not true. That was exactly what I had meant. I don't have different too many guitars to play with, but I've got plenty of settings/pedals I can mess with for different sounds, and that was what I had meant by adding more guitars. I was looking for an easier way to double each of those guitars than playing every single one two times, because an extra 6 minutes of playing per part adds up. I'm not completely clueless here.
 
You don't need to double all of them. If you do that, you will end up with big mono.
 
Fair enough. Cool beans, this has been informative. Thanks.
 
thebigcheese said:
Fair enough. Cool beans, this has been informative. Thanks.

The bottom line here is that without knowing the material, the skills of the guitarist, the sound that you want to get, etc., all this free advice is worth precisely what you paid for it. If you think something might work, then try it. If you like the result, use it, if not, try something else.

My free advice is to use forums like this to get ideas of new things to try, but not to eliminate anything.
 
thebigcheese said:
I meant that I have three pedals, each is stereo, so I would end up with 3 extra outputs. I was thinking I could just route the one output that goes through all the pedals to one channel, then the three different stereo ones into other channels, and mix that all down to left and right on the mixer. I don't fully understand phase, but I feel like that ought to work.
i just built a mini mixer for this very reason. To mix the right side of my stereo effects which have mono inputs. I got the project from www.generalguitargadgets.com . The build is done, but i havn't tried it out yet. I will let you know how it works.

In the past I just put the effect that i wanted to use stereo last in the chain.
 
thebigcheese said:
I meant that I have three pedals, each is stereo, so I would end up with 3 extra outputs. I was thinking I could just route the one output that goes through all the pedals to one channel, then the three different stereo ones into other channels, and mix that all down to left and right on the mixer. I don't fully understand phase, but I feel like that ought to work.

I'd just try it and play around with the mix. You may not end up with what you expected, but it could be something different and perhaps even better.

Many great inventions in history, and perhaps many great sounds in music, were just serendipitous accidents.
 
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