Top Tips To Make Your Guitar Tracks Sound Huge!
Todd Simpson
Aug 15 2020, 03:29 AM
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Sometimes, one wants HUGE guitars in a mix. So, how to go about it? Well, the first thing folks tend to do is hard pan two guitar tracks left and right, then add some reverb. This works just fine of course. However, there are some tricky ways to get a bit more BIG out of your guitar tracks. Try this.

DOUBLING:



It’s a time honored technique. It’s also very simple, you just take a given guitar part, and record it again. You can leave both tracks of the same part panned to the center, or you can start playing with panning them As always trust your ears as to what sounds best It’s the little inconsistencies that make this trick work. So it’s not the same as just duplicating the track using copy/paste. You actually need to play it again and have two recordings of you playing a section of the song. Trust your ears as to how far you pan if you pan at all.

1.)Record the guitar part.

2.)Make a new track and record it again.

3.)Pan each track to taste.

PSEUDO DOUBLING



If you have the time, it’s always best to actually double a track to get the best doubling effect. However, if you are doing rough demos, if you are mixing for someone else and there is only one guitar track availablee, if you just don’t have time, you can do something similar without actually recording twice. To “fake it”, you can simply re time the track you want to double.

1.)Copy the section of guitar track you want to double.

2.)Make a new track and paste it in.

3.)Depending on your DAW, you can then use whatever time based track tools or plugins you have to essentially slightly slow down the pasted track to create some degree of difference between the tracks. Don’t take this too far or the tracks will fall out of synch.

4.)Pan the two tracks to taste.

REVERB TRICKS




1.)Take a given guitar track, pan it towards the left. Then take the reverb and pan it toward the right. Use your ears as your guide.

2.)Move to the next guitar track, add reverb and do the same trick. Pan the guitar to the opposite side of the previous guitar track and now pan it’s reverb to the opposite side.

3.)Rinse and repeat. For each guitar track you are working with. So if you have four guitar tracks, you’ll pan track1 to the left, and it’s reverb to the right. Track 2 to the right and it’s reverb to the left and so on.

4.)Pull up your favorite E.Q. and high pass each guitar track around 150hz. This prevents guitars from being “Boomy”.

This trick works great for CHORUS sections in your song. It makes a given part of a song sound very big and the chorus is often the most important part of your song. So this widening draws attention to that part of the song.

QUESTION:

These are just a few tricks. What are your fave tricks for making guitar tracks sound HUGE???

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This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Aug 15 2020, 03:35 AM
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Phil66
Aug 15 2020, 08:17 PM
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Very interesting Todd, thanks for sharing smile.gif This should be in the Wiki.

I noticed something else that I want to look at, he seemed to have the left and right track in the true double take section, in a single track that was acting like a folder. I must check that out.

Cheers

Phil

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klasaine
Aug 15 2020, 08:45 PM
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One of the 'tricks' of double tracking (which has been around since the development of 4-track recording - early 60s) is to slightly tweak the tone/eq of the doubled part. Another trick is to drastically change the tone. Guitar 1 - scooped, all highs and lows. Guitar 2 - all mids.
If it's a fake double (copy and paste), pushing one of the parts forward or backwards in the timeline by a few milliseconds can both make it sound more 'real' and also correct possible phase issues. *The Beatles ADT (automatic double tracking) was this. A second tape machine that offered a very very quick delay with one repeat. They used it on voice, piano and guitar a lot (and this is in mono).

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Todd Simpson
Aug 15 2020, 10:54 PM
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Each of these is worth a try smile.gif Each one has a different vibe to it. All of them can help make you guitar tracks sound HUGE!!!

QUOTE (Phil66 @ Aug 15 2020, 03:17 PM) *
Very interesting Todd, thanks for sharing smile.gif This should be in the Wiki.

I noticed something else that I want to look at, he seemed to have the left and right track in the true double take section, in a single track that was acting like a folder. I must check that out.

Cheers

Phil



Almost forgot E.Q. Tricks!!!! Good call per usual. The more mid, the more "forward" a track sounds, so with either double tracking or just copying and pasting with a pseudo double, you can do Kens E.Q. trick to get more width!

QUOTE (klasaine @ Aug 15 2020, 03:45 PM) *
One of the 'tricks' of double tracking (which has been around since the development of 4-track recording - early 60s) is to slightly tweak the tone/eq of the doubled part. Another trick is to drastically change the tone. Guitar 1 - scooped, all highs and lows. Guitar 2 - all mids.
If it's a fake double (copy and paste), pushing one of the parts forward or backwards in the timeline by a few milliseconds can both make it sound more 'real' and also correct possible phase issues. *The Beatles ADT (automatic double tracking) was this. A second tape machine that offered a very very quick delay with one repeat. They used it on voice, piano and guitar a lot (and this is in mono).

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klasaine
Aug 15 2020, 11:20 PM
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The age old rule with a double is to grab another guitar or switch pickups or plug in a different OD or change the settings on the same OD - just make it different. Even a tweak of the tone control will suffice.

One of the issues that can come up with a straight copy/paste double is that you will have some (or a lot of) phase problems. In fact, it's one of the things that can make guitar parts sound smaller. There is both hardware and software that can time align a track. Little Labs IBP is probably the most notorious.

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Todd Simpson
Aug 16 2020, 07:04 AM
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Well said! It's the little differences in each track of the same riff that allow for the perception of width. The more similar the tracks are, e.g same guitar/pups/etc. the more drastic that pan has to be in order to get that "WIDE" vibe typically. Using two different guitars, if possible, then two different amps/sims / eqs is a great way to make these differences and thus the HUGENESS stand out.

QUOTE (klasaine @ Aug 15 2020, 06:20 PM) *
The age old rule with a double is to grab another guitar or switch pickups or plug in a different OD or change the settings on the same OD - just make it different. Even a tweak of the tone control will suffice.

One of the issues that can come up with a straight copy/paste double is that you will have some (or a lot of) phase problems. In fact, it's one of the things that can make guitar parts sound smaller. There is both hardware and software that can time align a track. Little Labs IBP is probably the most notorious.

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Steve Gilfield
Aug 16 2020, 05:55 PM
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Zakk Wylde uses a subtle chorus effect to make his live sound sound bigger.

Some players told me they use a a quick, subtle delay on their guitar to make it sound "doubled".

All in all, very clever tricks smile.gif

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klasaine
Aug 16 2020, 08:41 PM
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In the 80's this was ubiquitous on recorded guitars ...

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