How To Make Two Guitars, Distinct?

[Donna]

Hey all,

Once again, need your help...and thanking you in advance.

I think my question on guitar sounds would apply even if I wasn't bouncing tracks, btw (working w/ a 4-track). It could also apply for co-lead vocals, I suspect.

Anyway, in the configuration of the song I'm working on, at least the rough draft goes like this, including panning:

a) drums & sequencer (organ/strings/bass) - panned almost fully left and right -tracks 1 & 2

two acoustic guitars, w/ chorus effects - panned about 10 o'clock/2 o'clock....this is where I'm doing the bounces or pingponging of tracks. Where one guitar is recorded along with playback of tracks 1 & 2...then the whole process repeated for 2nd guitar.

c) two tracks left open for vox, panned almost straight center.

As far as goes, first I'm having trouble in the sounds of the acoustics being distinuished from one another, after they've been recorded, that is. Once I've done the "bounce" with the 2nd guitar, there's no going back, if something's amiss the process of needs to be redone. So the eq and so on must be set pretty much as I go and cannot be individually tweaked upon mixdown.

Secondly, when I record the guitars w/ chorus, all seems well...but when mixing and I add some reverb for the whole thing, the chourused guitar sounds seem to disappear. Any ideas why?

Thirdly...when you guys say "cut at ___" or "boost at____", a lot of times this doesn't make sense to my ears. What I'm beginning to suspect (am I right to?) is that it might NOT make sense to my ears, because of something Prometheus had stated: that nothing in 100 yrs of using this (multitrack recording technology) would suggest having each ind. track sounding great, will equal a great mix. That's it's the whole which must be considered.

I hope I'm making sense in these questions.

[ATom2]

First off, may assume you are recording direct with the guitars?

Second, does your verb unit have EQ for itself. Not track EQ but verb EQ.

I need those two answered before I can attempt to help.

Tom

[Donna]

Great questions.

1) No - I'm using two mics per guitar line

2) No: but the portastudio's mixer has 2 channels for eq on effects. Actually, I suppose it could be any channels, but I use them with 5 and 6...they're plugged in that way. Per the picture, channels 5 and 6 - Trim is red, eq orange (two gains and two sweepable freq per channel) + pan and faders...the blue/green are effects volume (so to speak), kinda like the montior mix gains.

[Donna]

ATom,

I guess I have "track eq" then?

[ATom2]

ATom,

I guess I have "track eq" then?

I would say yes....I think.

However, let's try just working with mic placement.

With that said, are you saying you use two mics each time you record one guitar? If so we will look into mic placement.

I have one more question, do you have a guitar amp?

Sorry, I can't give you a quick answer but we will eventually get there.

Tom

[Donna]

No worries! I am grateful for your help.

Yes, I am using two mics each time I record a guitar part. And no guitar amp - it's a straight acoustic.

Possibly anticipating your next question, the last time I recorded guitar I used two "Nady" DM-70's - the info says "dynamic, neodymium cartridge, unidirectional cardoid" (is that a condenscer mic?) It's sold as a drum mic and was hot as pistons when placed on the toms, and great sound I thought! Some good soul gave it to me. Otherwise I use an SM58 or 57 can never remember, and a condenscer mic.

One mic placed in front of me, off to the left, aimed at about 4th fret. That's more so I won't bump it when playing. One mic, almost straight in front, aimed off to the right of soundhole. I've done it other ways (to the bridge and 12th fret -maybe didn't mess w/ trims and etc; enough).

[ATom2]

Donna,

I'm not intentionally being slow getting back to you. I am doing some researching and I also have my job and other things taking up my time. I'll be back soon with some more chat that will hopefully help.

I'll leave you with this, if you have both an SM58 and 57 you may want to use those for future recordings.

I have more to look at, then I'll be back, hopefully tomorrow.

Thanks for your patience.

Tom

[Donna]

Tom~

It's totally OK.

Donna (aka the artist who's posted one song in 13 months)

[Prometheus]

Tom~

It's totally OK.

Donna (aka the artist who's posted one song in 13 months)

There's quite a lot of stuff to think about... One rule of thumb that's good to follow, the lowest fundamental on a six string guitar with standard tuning is about 84 hertz, so anything below that is noise, so rolling of below 80 hertz with the EQ can leave space for your bass guitar's low end and your kick drum...

EQing down a little around 440Hz with a fairly wide Q can make a guitar sound less boxy, and also leave space for the snare drum sound...

What I find in the room I work in is that I can have a lot more warmth on my tracks by having a real wide Q and centering it around 1000 Hertz (1Khz) and just taking it down a couple of decibels. This makes the high end cymbals and the bass sound more pronounced without making them sound unnatural with positive EQ on them...

Edited November 16, 2006 by john

[ATom2]

Donna,

I went back and reread your original post. I think I may have misunderstood your goal.

Answer this question for me.

Do you want the acoustic guitar to sound different on each side, or do you just want them to sound separate? After reading, I am thinking you just want to have them sound independent from each other.

If you want a clean split, I think I know what is wrong.

Let me know,

Tom

[Donna]

Hey Tom,

That is a very good question. Which makes me stop and ask myself.

* Yes, I want them to sound independent. BUT, I also think, owing to the differences in guitar parts, it might warrant differentiation in sound itself. One guitar is a bit dreamy, with suspended notes and more ring, while the other is grounded both in triad notes being emphasized and anchoring kind of rhythym.

"A clean split" sounds like too much of a degree, but maybe it wouldn't be.

In any case, I welcome your suggestions, because even if they don't apply in this case, I'm sure they will in another.

[Donna]

Prometheus, thanks for chiming in! You know I'll save/retain what you've just said about the low string 84 htz and all.

Hey, do you know of a link that lists the instruments and all that to their frequencies? I'm a bit muddled right now and not able to search it out for myself...

[ATom2]

Hey Tom,

That is a very good question. Which makes me stop and ask myself.

* Yes, I want them to sound independent. BUT, I also think, owing to the differences in guitar parts, it might warrant differentiation in sound itself. One guitar is a bit dreamy, with suspended notes and more ring, while the other is grounded both in triad notes being emphasized and anchoring kind of rhythym.

"A clean split" sounds like too much of a degree, but maybe it wouldn't be.

In any case, I welcome your suggestions, because even if they don't apply in this case, I'm sure they will in another.

Donna,

I guess a clean split isn't what I mean. What I mean is retaining the divide you have before mixing.

From what I understand you are adding verb on the mixdown. This could be part of your problem as adding verb covers everything from the left side and right side. What this does is take your left side guitar and spill it over to the right side and the right side guitar spills over to the left side. Unless you are using a stereo verb unit that enables you to pan left and right, it is basically taking all the verb enhanced sounds and making them mono to a degree. There is still a splitting of your dry sounds but not as much as you had before the verb was added.

I'll stop there in case I am way off base.

Tom

[Prometheus]

Prometheus, thanks for chiming in! You know I'll save/retain what you've just said about the low string 84 htz and all.

Hey, do you know of a link that lists the instruments and all that to their frequencies? I'm a bit muddled right now and not able to search it out for myself...

http://www.mojopie.com/mix.html

This looks pretty good Donna...

In terms of panning guitars, if this is what you're thinking about, unless I am working on a mix with a hell of a lot of elements in it, I very seldom pan further than ten to two (as on a clockface) because if you pan to wide your mix ends up with a hole in the middle. I recommend panning out gradually till you have the desired spread...

Edited November 18, 2006 by Prometheus

[Donna]

Tom, that makes sense (verb spilling side to side uopn mixdown)....I'll just be needing to mess around a bit and report back.

Mr. P, I remember the Phil Spector guidelines - start out 12:00 and pan out from there if needed - to hopefully avoid any holes. I'll check the freq. link, t/y.

[Donna]

OK - that link looks good and another overview to my Songstuff eq/freq. charts. Cool.

[Prometheus]

OK - that link looks good and another overview to my Songstuff eq/freq. charts. Cool.

They look like a good rule of thumb to me, and from their experimentation and practice is the order of the day... It's like learning to play guitar, I've been doing this for years and never stop learning... Every time I record something I learn new things...

[Donna]

Hey-

I think I've figured out some things.

First, it's easier going direct in this household, anyway. Less intrerference. I have a new Seagull acoustic/electric and went to work last eve on Phase II of my project (recording guitars 1 and 2)

Secondly, now that I'm able to get better instrument separation on existing tracks (just in the past couple of days), the guitars are coming out more distinct.

Thirdly, I did mute effects spilling onto existing tracks and put them just on the guitar while recording *it*.

I'm getting pretty excited and can hardly believe things've come this far....listening on 2 dif. sets of speakers, the snare, kick, cymbals, toms, bass, guitars one and two, organ and strings are sounding separate. And all that, on two tracks....it's basically four conglomerates: drums, sequencer (bass/strings/organ), guitars 1 and 2. But it's been something trying to get the sequenced lines a coherent whole in itself.

I'm keeping pretty detailed records and wish I had some grid paper for a soundboard...you know, I've made a lot of circles lately, filling in the eq/trim/effects for each stage. I think there's about 3 substages within each stage.

Will try again micing guitar at some point, maybe sooner rather than later, but it seems to be sounding pretty good going direct.

Edited November 26, 2006 by Donna

[Prometheus]

Sounds great Donna...