Stereo seperating on a multiple guitar track.

[ambi]

Ok guys.

Im in the process of mixing/recording a song of almost all guitar. Its going to have various guitars, playing over various guitars. At one point i have Strumming panned Center, some plucking panned a bit left, and im planning on getting a little electric panned a bit right, to accent it.

Now for seperation how can i seperate multiple guitars so they don't step on each other? Seems like it may be impossible considering its the same instrument.

Or is this a problem? Is it ok if they kinda blend together? The panning im sure helps a bit.

Oh, and the other things in the mix are drums, with some congas to add rythm, and im going to get a kinda slow droning bassline from a midi keyboard, and then maybe some random high sparkly midi riffs.

any advice on this mix?

mainly guitar seperation.. thanks

 

[jake-owa]

People will disagree with me but I like to move my mic placement or change the sound of the guitar between recordings. It's difficult for me to mix two identical guitars in a rock track. They get too mushy.
If I'm faced with mixing two identical guitars I like to be real creative with EQ. Sometimes a thin boxy sounding left guitar will mix nicely with a more full mid scooped guitar on the right
I think panning should be done by ear, I wouldn't claim some formula for that. Sometimes I end up with 2:00 and 10:00, sometimes it's hard left and right, even had 'em at 8:00 and 1:00. When you pan unevenly be sure to solo both guitars together to get the balance right.

 

[ambi]

hmmm, yea that makes sense.

Well i wouldn't exactly call it 2 identical guitars
theres one acoustic strummer, and in parst there is some plucking from the same accoustic (so far im happy with these two together, although i worry about the beat being hidden a bit by them), and then in another part i'll have some electric guitar.

Well, hopefully tomorrow i'll beable to post the mix up ,so you can comment on the actual thing

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

 

[Phyl]

Jake's reply was interesting because I've been listening to Allison Kraus (with Union Station) recordings and wondering the same thing. At any one time there can be guitar, mandolin, banjo, and dobro playing together but you can always pick out each instrument. Granted these instruments all have a unique tonality but it's amazing how they got that many stringed instruments to sit in the same space.

If you have access to some bluegrass CDs they might serve you well as reference disks.

 

[ambi]

Ok, im not getting a chance to do electric tonight, i got off work late and my brother is going to bed now.
im going to have all the strumming and plucking done tonight though.
hopefully i can post something up and get a critique from all your trained ears. (well more trained than mine).