How many guitar tracks should i record

All of the sonic room for distortion had been taken up, but the clean part was clear and distinct without being loud. The ear could easily identify it because it took up its own sonic space, not competing with the distorted tracks.

Next time you double track a guitar part, change where you play it on your guitar. Capos can be extremely useful for this technique as well, offering you all sorts of open-string-type jangle in higher registers. Finally, I might add a single note or two higher up the neck, played in the same pattern as the main rhythms. These high notes are just for color or sparkle, and I tuck them in and let them be a part of the whole sound, or I experiment by turning them way up to see if they act as more of a melodic part This works just as well for rock as it does for pop or country, and is the same approach many people use in the electronica world to stack massive keyboard patches as well.

Same part, different octaves, slightly different sound. A great technique to try with acoustic guitars or clean rhythm guitars is to add variations to your strumming or picking patterns.

Lock in your main part, and on the double track, try strumming a slightly different pattern. This will help add left and right motion to the parts, and to your mix. This works really well with single note picking patterns as well. A double-tracked, single note picking pattern with rhythmic variations can start sounding like delay taps. When recording real amps, to get variation beyond the guitar, you can vary your mic setup.

I almost always use at least three microphones on one amp two close mics and one ambient mic , and I mix and match to get the tones I want. But as you pile on successive layers, try different microphone combinations — maybe kill the ambient mic for one layer and on a different layer try only using the ambient mic — the possibilities are only limited by your creativity and attention to detail.

Your guitar production will take a quantum leap if you learn how and, more importantly, when to use these techniques. It's time to throw away your preconceived notions about what will work. Especially if there are vocals in those sections. Remember vocals are the main reason why most people listen to the music in the first place. You don't want to tire the listeners ears with lines that are too busy. Usually when I record guitars I do a bit of layering and I will record a guitar track for each side left and right to create a stereo image.

Then I will layer another guitar on top of that with a different EQ curve or with a different guitar for both left and right. Right there, if you are counting tracks, it is up to 4.

Of course the goal of that wasn't to make it sound like 4 different guitar tracks, it was to make it sound like one awesome guitar track. I hope that helped a little bit. Let your ear be the judge. If you pull up a fader and if it doesn't add anything or is distracting , don't use the part. Having 10 guitar parts for a song doesn't mean they all have to be playing through the whole song. It's common to have differant tracks come in on differant parts of the song.

Cyrokk Farce of Nature. There is no way you are going to get 10 tracks of guitars mixed so that each guitar's voice can be heard, and have a decent mix. I say let him record all the tracks he wants, then when it's time to mix, throw them all up with all the instruments, including vocals, and print the track, mud and all, and give it to him.

Then mix it for real by hacking at each of them one by one until you get a good solid mix going. Have the band as a whole decide which is the better mix. I'm sure they will chose the uncluttered version. If not, then give the client what they want. Armistice Son of Yoda. I've recorded 10 guitars before - the difference being that a I record instrumental music, so no voices, b they're not all meant to be heard up front.

As opposed to something newer like Soilwork. Or something more complicated like Necrophagist or say maybe on the new Meshuggah? Wolfeman I Prefer ELs. So What? It all depends on the context of the album being recorded. I usually do two parts right two parts left on all my stuff, but I've heard some great albums done with just one right and one left I should add that if the guitar player isn't tight enough, then quad tracking sounds like sheeeeet. Though with my current MKII settings, I seem to get a nice full sound without the need to quad track either two guitars panned opposite of each other or one track with Mda Stereo on it.

As said before, quad tracking can be deadly if you're not that solid or consistent of a player. I used to quad track a few years back, but not I stay away from it. With my music I have every instrument of an orchestra playing their own separate parts including doubling the guitar lines most of the time , quad tracking regardless of how tight you will play will cause more phase cancellation in the lower harmonics, killing crunch and intelligibility, with the increase of gain regardless of amp or cab or recording environment you will get fizz, something I cannot have with an already dense mix, however with all that I usually have going on and the mix being as dense as they generally are, most assume that it is quad tracked that may be more of adding dual tracked overdub parts over the main rhythm to make one big overall rhythm sound, buts that more of a songwriting approach rather an AE one.

By nature a quad track will give you the wall of sound but won;t sound as thick, aggressive and in your face as a dual track, which will be warmer and clearer, without the fizz. I've never experienced the low end loss If I had that low end problem I would just high-pass the 3rd and 4th guitars until the low end was there again.

Nuno Filipe You talkin' to me? Metaltastic Member.