Tracking guitars, the logical way for rock? (poll)

[legionserial]

I quad track most of my distorted guitars. I do left and right using one amp, then left and right again using a different amp. I only have 1 guitar.

in nirvana's in utero, for example, it was not double tracked, but it sounded pretty damn good.

That's kind of a broad statement. A lot it was definitely double tracked, some of it wasn't.

 

[Terry Wetzel]

I'm by no means a pro but, It seems everyone in rock bands now days (at least on records, play rithym guitar! What ever happened to lead guitar? Is that the Hi frequency, screeching, noise track that runs continuously from start to finish on most R & R recordings? A well recorded rithym guitar track,(by that I mean good mics, good mic positioning, a quality acoustic guitar or electric, depending on the sound your seeking)and a good room is all that is necessary. If the final recording is stereo then copy a duplicate track of the rithym guitar and pan it left or right to taste. Also the rithym guitar is part of a bands rithym section,(I.E.) drums, bass, Piano bed, Rithym guitar, etc. That's why they call it the rithym guitar! By the way, You may have ascertained by my comment that, yes, I'm old school and please, no remarks if I spelled RITHYM wrong. I've always had trouble with that word.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I'm by no means a pro but, It seems everyone in rock bands now days (at least on records, play rithym guitar! What ever happened to lead guitar?

Because we have entered the "Internet 2.0 culture" age, where personal rights are abused in that the "right" to be able to do something is now used as a blanket excuse for abusing that right without any sense of responsibility and even less shame.

This sick non-sensibility manifests itself in many different forms, but as related to your question, Terry, it means that EVERYONE is in a rock band (or a rapper), regardless of actual musical knowledge, ability, or talent. Musicianship is no longer considered a prerequisite for being a musician, and having an ear for sound is no longer considered a prerequisite for recording and engineering music. And if you call the real problems with that kind of thinking to the floor, you're accused of being a stuck-up old-school elitist.

This shouldn't be surprising in an age where Britney Spears is considered a "singer", Joe the Plumber's opinion about anything other than plumbing actually matters, and the ability to write quality software is a talent that has no value.

G.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

If the final recording is stereo then copy a duplicate track of the rithym guitar and pan it left or right to taste.

1.) What final recording, these days, ISN'T stereo?

2.) That doesn't really give you a stereo image. The same exact sound, panned left and copied right, is going to sound like a louder version of the original track panned mono. Sure,it'll sound a bit different through headphones or something, but if you want a wide, expansive stereo rhythm guitar, you REALLY need to track twice.

As for guitar solos, I'd love to blame it on the "with the net and a computer, you don't NEED talent to record music" thing, but really, it dates back to earlier than that. As a child of the 90's (I'm 28), most of the music I grew up hearing on the radio either had no guitar solos, or had fairly simple stuff (there's a "lead guitar" break in most Nirvana songs, for example, but its usually a simple melody line). Guitar solos are just out of fashion, is all.

That doesn't mean they're dead - Kurt Cobain was the reason I picked up the guitar, yet these days my top two influences are Joe Satriani and David Gilmour, and I'm sitting here listening to a SRV album on my iPod as I type this ("The Sky is Crying," great stuff). It just means currently most people writing music don't consider them a priority, just as not that many years ago, most people did. Things move in cycles, I think they'll come back.

EDIT - and I'm not saying you're completely wrong, Glen - I think there's a fair amount of truth to what you're saying. However, there's also no doubt that the music that people are hearing on the radio these days is a bit short of guitar solos too, so the question of artistic influence is totally relevant, I think. Personally, as a guy who's all about guitar solos, I think the attitute that every single song needs one is a bit silly, but no more so than the "guitar solos suck, we don't need 'em" one that seems prevalent today.

 

[bkkornaker]

guitar solos.....easy. Its just a single take/track and pan it center or slightly off center. (for the most part)

im more wondering how rhythm guitars are done now a days....and how many people are stacking take after take, track after track and layering the bejesus out of them

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

However, there's also no doubt that the music that people are hearing on the radio these days is a bit short of guitar solos too, so the question of artistic influence is totally relevant, I think.

I really don't want to sound like I'm pulling the age card, Drew, but having had the perspective of listening to the radio as a music fan since the '60s, and also having gotten to the point where I no longer listen to Top 200 radio programming in any genre, but rather limit my listening mostly to specialty programming that caters to music lovers and not the general public, I feel that the issue is not that musicianship has "gone out of style", but rather that mainstream radio programming has just gotten so formulaic, catering to lowest common denominators, and the wishes of major labels who are constantly trying to chase lightning instead of creating it, that it is badly imopsing "the style" instead of reflecting it.

There are no more DJs or programming directors. There are people with those titles that go through the mechanics of those jobs, but the days of when they actually served the purpose of playing A&R agent for the public are long over - except on a very few specialty programs. There was a time when they actually played on the air what they liked to hear on their own stereos at home or in the car; if it caught on with the public - and it usually did, because these guys actually had at least some taste - they'd add it to the rotation. If it didn't it sinking down the rotation or winding up in the special request archives only. If Elvis came around today, he'd never get any airplay the way he did Way Back When, because he'd never be given the chance, unless he was lucky enought o make it to the finals of American Idull.

Those days are gone now, replaced by a few inter-related threads: "Billboard" radio has been replaced by ClearChannel radio, where the public is force-fed a diet of those performers who sound exactly like the last performer who sold double-platinum, because it's easier to chase that lightning than to try and create lightning.

This has also led to a real stratification emphasizing "genre". I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I see the multiple references in these forums to the extreme sub-genre-fication of just one type of music which itself is a sub-genre. Jesus, how narrow does one's tastes have to be to make such a fine distinctions between the three thousand types of "metal" and to say that their band plays just one of them?

It's not much different with the mainstream radio stations today. Even Top40 rock back in the 60s had a mix of folk, country, rock n' roll, reggae, bluegrass, jazz and R&B that today you'd have to hit seven different stations to find. When you stratify the genres that severely, it's hard NOT to have everything start sounding the same and to see a filtering of individuality, which is the bedrock of lead musicianship.

Additionally, most of the artists pushed into rotation today are those who can put on a show in front of the camera or on the stage, because it's all about creating a video that can be re-created on stage, because concert tours and merchandising are where the real money is at. The music is just a media vehicle - an excuse - to stage those shows. Who wants a guitar solo when it is so boring to watch (or so the faulty thinking goes) compared to a multimedia experience?

Finally, there's been the steady lowering of age in the key target demographics. Business had locked on to the idea - and they're not wrong - that the majority of easily-influenced discretionary spending today is in the 13-17 year old range. It's always been that way, of course, but as time has gone by, manufacturers, advertisers and record labels have sharpened their laser beam focus on the tween and early teens. This is a demographic that is - by neural nature - much more influenced and impressed by "tone" than they are by viruosity.

There's still PLENTY of lead guitar - and trumpet and sax and dulcimer and jaw harp, and you name it - out there. There's still PLENTY of musical talent out there. And there's still PLENTY of demand for it. Talent will NEVER go out of style, no matter what The Big Boys will tell you today. There's only two problems; the Big Boys are no longer spoon feeding it the public, and the public is too complacent to hunt and gather it for themselves.

G.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

Glen - no need to "play the age card," I think by and large you're right, especially with regards to pop music and the "appeal" of finding sixteen clones of a band that already sells rather than taking a chance on something new.

I was referring specifically to guitar solos in popular music. 15 years ago, everyone played guitar solos, and the labels were taking a chance on bands like Nirvana who didn't. I think at least in those terms, part of the lack of guitar solos in modern music (which was Terry's original, if passing, question) is simply that guitar solos just aren't that big a deal for the target demographic.

As for a general loss of musicianship in popular music... Yes and no. There's a handful of bands out there where the musicianship is undeniably exceptional - John Mayer is a perfect example, underneith all that bubblegum pop, he was a hell of a guitarist. However, it's no longer required (listen to the bass and drums on his debut, as another ready example), and I agree, that's sad.

Then again, stellar musicianship has never really been a requirement - I love Pink Floyd, but Roger Waters is one of the more forgettable bassists I've ever heard, and Nick Mason somehow manages to be even less noticable on the kit.

 

[Todzilla]

are all these reamped passes on different/multiple tracks? or summed to a single track?

Different/multiple tracks.

Tonal thickness with exactly identical performances.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Then again, stellar musicianship has never really been a requirement

Well, if you go back far enough, it was. When entire bands (and I'm talking 20 or more pieces, not a little quartet), along with three or four showcase soloists - each with their own instrument - had to record direct to disc, stellar musicianship was held at a premium.

Granted, that was a long time ago, and things have changed, I know. But it seems as though that as technology has made the recording process less expensive over time, that this has been an excuse to go lax on the actual ability to play (or sing) to the extreme. In an age where *everybody* thinks they have an even shot, that all they have to do is get enough free (legal or not) technology to maybe pull off the illusion of talent and put it up on a meSpace page and burn a couple of "demo CDs", the idea of recording as capturing a memorable performance has all but disappeared and been replaced by "my computer is better than your computer."

Have you been to an open mic night recently? My god, the number of bands or would-be artists that shamelessly get up there with un-arrangements and performances that absolutely *suck* on any musical measure, even if their guitars were in tune - and they're usually not - is despicable.

And no, it's not just that I'm an old man looking through snobbish rose-colored glasses; there has been a palpable change in attitude over the last decade or so that it's an even playing field out there and that being a rock star requires only having the right EQ and compressor. It's not a question of virtuosity, it's a question of being able to play at all.

I mean, thirty years ago and more, there were still a lot of hacks hitting the open mics, to be sure. But there was a difference; the number of them who couldn't even play the right chords, let alone tune their own instruments, were the few oddballs. The rest may not have left many pleasant memories, and maybe could only play three chords, but they at least played those chords correctly for the most part, and had a sincerity where they knew their place and didn't pretend to do things they knew they were not yet ready for.

And don't get me started on the club circuit drummers, who have *really* gone down hill, and for whom keeping the beat is no longer even a priority; as long as they break a stick or two in the process of mauling their kit, they're doing their job.

Everybody has to start somewhere, I know. And that's fine. But the idea has become standard that as soon as one picks up a stick or a pick or a microphone that it's time to start recording, instead of actually waiting until one REALLY has something worth recording and worth unleashing upon the general public in any forum larger than the Wednesday open mic at the local pool hall.

And I think what's being heard on the radio is about 1/3rd to blame for that (the other 2/3rds being the blog/tweet culture of Net2.0, where everybody has something to say even when they have nothing worth listening to.) When what's being stuffed into their ears is the same ol' Vanilla Ice of ClearChannel stratification, and when the top-grossing acts of today *are* indeed more computer than artist, it doesn't exactly supply a creatively inspiring muse to the up-and-coming artists of tomorrow.

This also extends to the whole loudness wars thing. It is so disheartening that there's an *entire generation* of ersatz music lovers now who have grown up experiencing nothing but the pancaked crap that's being broadcast and pressed and downloaded today. That's all they know. Even the "classic rock" stations and CDs have pushed the RMS of the original releases to the point where hearing how something actually originally sounded when it was released in 1968 or 1971 is a rare event indeed.

So OF COURSE these guys and gals think that mastering is all about loudness and that the mo' louda', the mo' betta' because that's the only thing they really know in their lifetime. As annoyed as us old-timers may get at that, it's hard to really blame the listeners for that.

I'm not saying that everything has to have self-masturbating solos or virtuoso performance chops the likes of of an Eric Clapton or a Joe Satriani, but it'd be nice if there was a swing back at least a little to musicality and talent instead of a concentration on "tone" and style, and even more importantly IMHO, a re-uptake of respect for the recording process as something to impress - the recording device as the woman you want to make love to - instead of a view of it as a disposable commodity - the computer as the slut from which you can get a quickie blow job.

G.

 

[miroslav]

I’ll often have up to 4 rhythm guitar tracks, plus some lead guitar tracks.
Sometimes I’ll use all different guitars for the rhythm tracks, setting one a little brighter, another darker, etc.
Sometimes I’ll just do 2 guitars and then clone them for the other 2 tracks and run them with a very short delay….usually the shortest possible delay that it takes to spread the tracks (within the tempo of the song)., and then I spread the panning.
I also like to mix a pair of acoustic guitar rhythm tracks in with electric guitars…even if I’m doing more of a harder Rock tune. I find the combination of the acoustic and electric guitars blend real well without fighting each other as a bunch of electric guitars can do at times.
Usually I’ll pan the acoustic guitars hard L-R, and then the electric guitars anywhere from 8:00-4:00 on up to 10:00-2:00…wherever the spread of all the tracks works best for the song.


WRT the side discussion about lead guitars in music today…
I’m wondering how much of that is because many current guitarists that are in younger bands are not that good as lead players…
…or are if they are just following the current trends/formulas of not using any lead instruments in a song, kinda’ the same, but opposite way everyone was throwing in massive leads into everything during the “big hair” years?

I like to use leads to break up the lyrics, and leads also add a different flavor of ear candy to the mix…otherwise the song can sound like a run-on sentence when it’s endless lyrics. If you just play drums/bass/rhythm guitars for 4-8 measures without any lead instrument, it can feel somewhat empty, though there are songs where that type of simplicity can work very well.

miroslav

 

[greyharmonix]

i gotta reply to glen's rants (i like the rants btw, they're insightful), but as a member of the "LA scene" good music made by talented people is still in full force, it's just not on the radio. I hear a lot of talented guys and gals playing creative stuff that may not be listenable to public that glen paints, but there is a movement of good music in LA and Portland and probably all over. but it's just as glen said, the big wigs who have the power to make someone famous play it safe nowadays.

to make it in music the way, let's say, Nirvana did will probably never happen again. mainly because people don't buy Cd's anymore and radio stations are at the mercy of their sponsors. But in a weird way i think music is going back to the way it used to be. people who are really passionate about music are the one's making it because there is no money to be made in music anymore. The music business is going down and now small factions of music "scenes" are the only place to find good original music. AND the fact that it's so relatively inexpensive and easy to make a homerecording makes it easy to share music. What's happened is that finding good bands has become an intimate moment again, after playing a show or watching a show it's so easy to just go right up to the guy who performed and talk about music and songs and moments within the songs.

There are still people who probably play shows and make music thinking they're going to make it big and tour the world, but they're fooling themselves and their music probably sucks. I actually like what's happening in music. Sucks that there's no money in it, but money seems to be lowering in value more and more in this country anyway. The fact that so many twenty somethings don't have jobs maybe a good thing. Now we have time to make good music...

 

[ez_willis]

I usually have two guitar tracks panned hard left and right. This is the correct method for tracking and mixing rock guitars. Don't listen to anyone else.

http://tinyurl.com/pab8lz

 

[ez_willis]

I usually have two guitar tracks panned hard left and right. This is the correct method for tracking and mixing rock guitars. Don't listen to anyone else.

http://tinyurl.com/pab8lz

also, I really don't care what program director's or SSG thinks. I know I'm right.

 

[Cyrokk]

Well, if you go back far enough, it was. When entire bands (and I'm talking 20 or more pieces, not a little quartet), along with three or four showcase soloists - each with their own instrument - had to record direct to disc, stellar musicianship was held at a premium.

Granted, that was a long time ago, and things have changed, I know. But it seems as though that as technology has made the recording process less expensive over time, that this has been an excuse to go lax on the actual ability to play (or sing) to the extreme. In an age where *everybody* thinks they have an even shot, that all they have to do is get enough free (legal or not) technology to maybe pull off the illusion of talent and put it up on a meSpace page and burn a couple of "demo CDs", the idea of recording as capturing a memorable performance has all but disappeared and been replaced by "my computer is better than your computer."

Have you been to an open mic night recently? My god, the number of bands or would-be artists that shamelessly get up there with un-arrangements and performances that absolutely *suck* on any musical measure, even if their guitars were in tune - and they're usually not - is despicable.

And no, it's not just that I'm an old man looking through snobbish rose-colored glasses; there has been a palpable change in attitude over the last decade or so that it's an even playing field out there and that being a rock star requires only having the right EQ and compressor. It's not a question of virtuosity, it's a question of being able to play at all.

I mean, thirty years ago and more, there were still a lot of hacks hitting the open mics, to be sure. But there was a difference; the number of them who couldn't even play the right chords, let alone tune their own instruments, were the few oddballs. The rest may not have left many pleasant memories, and maybe could only play three chords, but they at least played those chords correctly for the most part, and had a sincerity where they knew their place and didn't pretend to do things they knew they were not yet ready for.

And don't get me started on the club circuit drummers, who have *really* gone down hill, and for whom keeping the beat is no longer even a priority; as long as they break a stick or two in the process of mauling their kit, they're doing their job.

Everybody has to start somewhere, I know. And that's fine. But the idea has become standard that as soon as one picks up a stick or a pick or a microphone that it's time to start recording, instead of actually waiting until one REALLY has something worth recording and worth unleashing upon the general public in any forum larger than the Wednesday open mic at the local pool hall.

And I think what's being heard on the radio is about 1/3rd to blame for that (the other 2/3rds being the blog/tweet culture of Net2.0, where everybody has something to say even when they have nothing worth listening to.) When what's being stuffed into their ears is the same ol' Vanilla Ice of ClearChannel stratification, and when the top-grossing acts of today *are* indeed more computer than artist, it doesn't exactly supply a creatively inspiring muse to the up-and-coming artists of tomorrow.

This also extends to the whole loudness wars thing. It is so disheartening that there's an *entire generation* of ersatz music lovers now who have grown up experiencing nothing but the pancaked crap that's being broadcast and pressed and downloaded today. That's all they know. Even the "classic rock" stations and CDs have pushed the RMS of the original releases to the point where hearing how something actually originally sounded when it was released in 1968 or 1971 is a rare event indeed.

So OF COURSE these guys and gals think that mastering is all about loudness and that the mo' louda', the mo' betta' because that's the only thing they really know in their lifetime. As annoyed as us old-timers may get at that, it's hard to really blame the listeners for that.

I'm not saying that everything has to have self-masturbating solos or virtuoso performance chops the likes of of an Eric Clapton or a Joe Satriani, but it'd be nice if there was a swing back at least a little to musicality and talent instead of a concentration on "tone" and style, and even more importantly IMHO, a re-uptake of respect for the recording process as something to impress - the recording device as the woman you want to make love to - instead of a view of it as a disposable commodity - the computer as the slut from which you can get a quickie blow job.

G.

Tell us how you really feel.

I still don't see much of a correlation with your rants and the question of why people don't play guitar solos anymore. The trend is simply out, the guitar solo in many cases oversaturating the market like the retarded 30 minute drum solos and improvisational borefests of 70's arena concerts. People got sick of hearing half a song dedicated to noodling so the artists either cut the improv section in half (and in metal, making the guitar playing far more gutsier and difficult technically than any retarded tapping technique from EVH clones) or leaving it out completely to focus on the primal groove that makes people want to dance. The resulting shift has been an emphasis on songwriting, which trumps recording technology and technical ability.

If you think most bands are void of technique nowadays, you simply haven't been listening to the right music, and judging by your complaints of radio-where good music stopped existing over twenty years ago-you aren't looking in the right places.

Find some Tool or Mastodon, then come back and tell us just how untalented today's artists are.

 

[Dogman]

Find some Tool or Mastodon, then come back and tell us just how untalented today's artists are.

Ha ha ha ha aha.......you said Tool.....

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I still don't see much of a correlation with your rants and the question of why people don't play guitar solos anymore.

Well for starters, the fact that so many people these days can't tell the difference between *lead guitar* - which is what we were talking about - and guitar solos, which we weren't.

G.

 

[ez_willis]

Well for starters, the fact that so many people these days can't tell the difference between *lead guitar* - which is what we were talking about - and guitar solos, which we weren't.

G.

sue us. sheesh.

 

[Cyrokk]

Well for starters, the fact that so many people these days can't tell the difference between *lead guitar* - which is what we were talking about...
G.

Except some of the posts you quoted specifically referred to soloing, so yeah, we really were talking about it.

Regardless, a stylistic change in song approach that happens to focus less on lead playing has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with talent.

Now, if you stuck to the original topic of the best approach to tracking rhythm guitars, and the fact that it has to be tight as fuck in order to be good, which itself requires skill, then maybe you'd have a more solid basis upon which to place your rant pedestal.

 

[bkkornaker]

hi i'm george do you know what's the guitar brands of les paul and st style guitars. I'm very like les paul and st style guitars and want to know all the brands of les paul and st style guitars. Thanks

WTH??? When did the short yellow bus pull up?

 

[mattdee1]

Like somebody pointed out, when Nirvana hit it big, the guitar solo started disappearing from most rock music that received heavy airplay. I certainly noticed it, and I always felt it had a lot to do with how stale rock music was at the time, and how "grunge" kicked everybody in the pants and changed the face of music. All those glam bands with ball-splitting spandex and lame-o ballads played guitar solos aplenty, but did anybody ever do anything that sounded all that interesting? In my opinion, the answer was no they did not; the guitar solos served only to drag the song on without making it any better or worse. Not what the function of a guitar solo should be, IMO.

So I guess what I'm saying is that there was a period there where the sentiment was probably "meh, it's ALL been done before, so we won't bother with the solos". I remember reading an interview with Alex Lifeson in the early 90's and he said something to this effect, but conceded that he usually gave into pressure from his bandmates to play solos anyway. To encounter such a statement from a consummate wanker like Lifeson (God Bless him), really left a mark on me.

For better or for worse, this early-mid 90's period in rock music had a ripple effect of sorts. Lots of up-and-coming bands/artists from the last few years cut their teeth on the music described above--which did not focus much on lead guitar or solos. As a result, they didn't either.

I know I'm painting with broad strokes here, but this is how I always viewed the situation. Personally, I'm more interested in the songwriting angle--I don't care how simple or complex a song is, or whether it has any lead guitar, sitar, horns, or upright bass. I just listen to it as a cohesive piece and if it moves me, it moves me (no, not a reference to the chorus of The Analog Kid). Is it possible for the solo to make a bona fide comeback? I think so. If somebody with the right combination of skill, confidence, and pop sensibilities stormed the scene, I think they could make the solo fashionable again in the same way that Nirvana made it unfashionable.