HEVYDEVY FORUMS

So i just recorded a bunch of guitars for a song. Layered all 3 times with different 3 different recordings. Lead and Rythm Guitar. However it sounds Muddy as Woodstock (i thought that was clever ) can anyone give me some tips on how to make tem sound alot sharper? Myebe also only use 2 layers or something?

Response would be much appreciated

you gotta be clever in cutting out what you dont need.

good EQ from my understanding is best when its focused on removing frequencies.

the problem is when i try that, the guitars just sounds like fuzz. im trying to get a tone that kinda sounds like dino cazares tone from fear factory. its ambitious considering his tone is incredible.

when trying to get big sounds its still being clever with what you dont need
try to picture the shape of the sound with relation to lo.mid, and hi

it may seem like you need a huge amount of lo there but you probably want to cut it off right after you find that sweet point where falls in line nicely with the bass drum.

im not an expert im just trying to ramble some of my thoughts

thanks dude. in the end though i just put the layers in different directions. One hard left, one hard right and one centered. thanks for your help

You don't have to pan hard left and right...

HevyMinik wrote:You don't have to pan hard left and right...

i find it sounds better that way

HevyMinik wrote:You don't have to pan hard left and right...

You do if you want it to sound decent. Maybe not ALL the way right and left, though that doesn't really make a huge difference if you're gonna pan them anyway. The difference between say, two guitar tracks dead center and two guitar tracks panned to different left/right channels is immense. With both dead center it almost always ends up sounding muddy, sterile and demo-ish. It sounds about a million times more 'alive' when you pan the guitars.

(Uh... If you just meant you should pan them, but not all the way left/right, then ignore the above rant)

Of course, the playing is also a factor. If you layer a huge amount of tracks but have sloppy playing, it will sound muddy regardless-- Though sometimes you may want that effect. For example, in my current project, I layer the rhythm guitars 7 times and the lead guitars 4 times. (one hard left, one hard right, one 74% left, one 74% right, one 44% left, one 44% right, and one dead center) I'm a decent guitarist, but I'm not excessively tight with riffing or anything. I'll often keep takes with small mistakes in them, just to add some detail to the intentionally huge and muddy sound.

It all depends on what you want, but in general panning the tracks is a rule of thumb for mixing. Also, let it be said that I think un-triggered acoustic drums sound fucking sweet when double-tracked. The Melvins' latest record proved this, and I'd love to get ahold of a kit and experiment with a stupid amount of drum layers.

yeah well im a bass player so i consider myself a pretty crappy guitarist. i prefer my large stubby fingers on the thicker strings. im tinkering with my tone at the moment and im probably gona re-record

The first thing to do is use less gain. Put it to half what you had before and pick harder.
Then get a tone thats not too bass heavy, you want the bass guitar to take that part of the spectrum.
Then play to a metronome or drums (if you arent already) and really try hard to stay in time. Focus on what exactly you are doing when picking each note, are you playing some of them sloppily?

kewl. the only problem is that if i have treble higher, the tone ends up just sounding fuzzy

Well, you don't want to scoop the tone either... Cutting down the mids on a guitar is like taking away all the low end on a bass. You don't necessarily want lots more highs (it'll just sound crackly at high volumes), but try playing around with the midrange. Even if it makes it sound 'dull', mastering often makes a huge difference.

Josiah Tobin wrote:

HevyMinik wrote:You don't have to pan hard left and right...

You do if you want it to sound decent. Maybe not ALL the way right and left, though that doesn't really make a huge difference if you're gonna pan them anyway.

Sure

Well, what I meant was something else.
Normally, when I track guitars, I use 3 microphones for each guitar.
Normally, it's a 57, a condenser for the room, and depending: a 414 or a Sennheiser 609.
Then I would pan them this way, for example, for left:
100%
50%
and 25%

And the same goes for the right side.
And it usually sounds great!
Plus, it saves a lot of time because you're probably going to play the same parts anyway with a different sound. Here, you have 3 different sounds for 1 take, instead of 3 different sounds for 3 takes if you're using one mic!

So, instead of doing multiple, multiple takes, I just do two takes.
I've found it's easier for me that way.
But sure, it all depends on what kind of sound you want

Well, I just prefer the sound of multiple guitars playing the same thing, as opposed to the same take with a different sound layered in different channels. Guitars are occasionally only tracked once and one of the channels delayed to make it sound wider, or a similar method like the one you described, but it just sounds too thin for my tastes.

God damn guys! im just running through a midi input with a computer based pre-amp