Flattening Guitar Tracks

On the previous article we looked a little bit at the importance of treating a room acoustically for a better listening experience.  We’ll be revisiting that topic quite a bit since there’s so much information there.  However, this week I thought I’d talk a little about making your guitar tracks stand out.

One of the primary rules of recording is to get the sound right at the source.  Well-recorded, well-played tracks are easier to mix and work with.  Editing can be a great thing, but why not get things sounding good from the start?  When working with modern guitar tracks, a widely used technique involves double-tracking.  That is, the guitar part is played twice with the goal of playing that second take as close to the original take as possible.  It takes practice and planning to do it right but the benefits can sound great.  Consider this: you record your rhythm guitar part through your normal setup whether using a mic on your amp, modeling software, a guitar-modeling FX processor, whatever.  Now, play the same part on another track.  On that second track, try switching for another guitar or use a different amp or speaker to change up the tone somewhat.  When you have both tracks done, pan one of them hard left or in the 50-75% left range and pan the second track by the same amount to the right.  If you nailed the performances between both tracks you might be amazed at how big a guitar sound you’ve achieved just by taking a little extra time.  I know you’re thinking “why not just copy the first track to the second one and use a delay or something to get the same effect?”  Try it and compare to the 2-performance method, I think you’ll much prefer the double-tracked recording over the edited/copied version.  The little nuances that differ between the two takes give the track a sense of life and provide separation that’s hard to achieve by copying or editing. 

So, if you have great tones to start with, capture them well and are able to play the part consistently for both takes, you can achieve some great rhythm guitar tracks and get that big sound.