Stereo Spread Guitars

[Just1L]

Stereo Spread Guitars

 

Hello all. I have a quick question about stereo spread guitars. I'm interested to know what everyone's opinions are on how they do it. I've tried it two ways. One is taking my guitar track, duplicating it, spreading one left and one right, and then moving one of them about an 1/8. This seems to work just fine and I know it's something others have done. The other method I do is to play each channel separately so one take goes left, and the other goes right. Personally, I prefer this method but it raises a question. As I'm no pro every once in a while you may hear a little harmonic ring or slight variation in the notes (such as the left note rings while the right note stops short). I kind of like it when that happens as to me it adds a little personality to it all. But I can see that others may think it's just plain sloppy or cheating.

 

So, with all that in mind, I'd like to know what others think about it.

 

Muchos G,

 

Randy

[Just1L]

Thank you both. I'm just glad to hear it's not a frowned upon technique. 

 

Tom, next time I'm on the computer at home I'll give that a listen. It sounds like an interesting thing to try albeit, like you said, a little bit of a pain in the arse. I've heard that tune before but not with headphones. 

 

Dave, I've spent a bit of time getting one perfect track that I'm happy with and when I double it, it just doesn't sound as good, to me anyway, as the two separate tracks. And by the way, I was too late to comment on your latest lock-down but I digged the song even though with those synths it was quite a departure from your normal stuff. I also liked the bass comments. I was listening to an older song I did where I just used my low E string on the guitar and I actually thought it sounded pretty good and def better than what I've been doing with the real bass. When I play the bass I tend to go as low as it can go which could be harder for me to mix than I thought. I'll try not going so deep with the bass on my next song and see what happens. It truly sucks when you spend time on a song and in the end just want to shit-can it because of the bass. 3 songs and counting with that dilemma. 

[davidmichael]

Dont really know if this is relevant to what your talking about ,but I always play in stereo just for the awesomeness of the fullness of the sound.

I run my guitar into a Radial Bigshot ABY which eliminates any ground loop issues [thanks to the advice from our friend Tapper Mike] which then spits my signal into two processors and my up front pedals ,which i can set up with whatever effects i want on either side ,then from there to two amps [sometimes both guitar,usually 1 guitar and 1 bass]for even more tone difference ,or i can jack directlly into my digital recorder on different channels.

Last but not least i use my delays for even more seperation between the two sides.

Now if I could just get my timing consistent on my looper Id have it goin on !!!!!

[justsoulin]

Liking the feedback on this, as it applies across the board

[Tonyy]

 

Stereo Spread Guitars

 

Hello all. I have a quick question about stereo spread guitars. I'm interested to know what everyone's opinions are on how they do it. I've tried it two ways. One is taking my guitar track, duplicating it, spreading one left and one right, and then moving one of them about an 1/8. This seems to work just fine and I know it's something others have done. The other method I do is to play each channel separately so one take goes left, and the other goes right. Personally, I prefer this method but it raises a question. As I'm no pro every once in a while you may hear a little harmonic ring or slight variation in the notes (such as the left note rings while the right note stops short). I kind of like it when that happens as to me it adds a little personality to it all. But I can see that others may think it's just plain sloppy or cheating.

 

So, with all that in mind, I'd like to know what others think about it.

 

Muchos G,

 

Randy

 

Hi, Randy...a newbie, here but I've used split 6 strings for over 40 years. Get a GOOD pickup rewound so there are two outputs: EAD & GBE. Through the board...put them into two different channels...panned far L & far R. Live, use a bass amp and a trebly amp. If you can...use "synth mode" on each side...different, of course. There's a guy in Brooklyn that's made pickups for me for quite some time:  www.ubertar.com   Tell Paul, "Tony in Australia put you on to him."

 

Regards,

 

Tony

 

EDIT:  Oh, yeah. I use ProTools HD and, of course, initiate a STEREO channel for each side...just sayin'......

Edited July 9, 2014 by Tonyy

[Space]

another trick you can use when you are copying into a stereo track to double the guitar.. in addition to nudging one a little bit, you can also use different effects/eqing.

 

For instance, lets say I take my main guitar track and swing it say 40% to the left. Then I will eq and or compress it to get the sound I want.

then, I will copy into the second track, and put it at maybe 30 or 50%. Then I may roll off the eq above 4k or 5k to make it sound more dull. Then I may roll off under 500hz to take the bass out. Now I have a thin sounding, middy guitar. THEN I will smash it with a compressor and suck all the life out of it. Then maybe add a little reverb and or delay.

 

Now that I have done all that, I will turn that track down to zero, play the whole song, and slowly bring up the fader until it sits just under the left track at all times.

 

Doing something like this will keep the focus on the left guitar, while still helping make it bigger and more spread.

 

All of that said, I still prefer using two separate takes when at all possible. 

[Just1L]

another trick you can use when you are copying into a stereo track to double the guitar.. in addition to nudging one a little bit, you can also use different effects/eqing.

 

For instance, lets say I take my main guitar track and swing it say 40% to the left. Then I will eq and or compress it to get the sound I want.

then, I will copy into the second track, and put it at maybe 30 or 50%. Then I may roll off the eq above 4k or 5k to make it sound more dull. Then I may roll off under 500hz to take the bass out. Now I have a thin sounding, middy guitar. THEN I will smash it with a compressor and suck all the life out of it. Then maybe add a little reverb and or delay.

 

Now that I have done all that, I will turn that track down to zero, play the whole song, and slowly bring up the fader until it sits just under the left track at all times.

 

Doing something like this will keep the focus on the left guitar, while still helping make it bigger and more spread.

 

All of that said, I still prefer using two separate takes when at all possible. 

 

Sounds like a pretty interesting thing to try. I may have to give this a shot at some point.

[TapperMike]

It depends on circumstance.....

 

I'm a big fan of sending a mono signal to a leslie cab or at least a leslie sim. It' doesn't have to be super wide the horn and the tweeter move at different rates and different directions.

 

Hotel California anyone?