Question about recording guitars.

[Lavabug]

How many guitar tracks does a professional band like Nile, HE, etc generally use on a record? For a song that has no separate guitar parts/harmony, do they still record more than one guitar track for it? Or do they just do one take and double it up with a different EQ and pan them separately? Or something else?



I've been getting some cool sounds using just 1 take of a guitar track and making 2 tracks out of it but with separate EQ(different cab impulse, more precisely), each panned somewhere around 90-100% left and right respectively, but it doesn't sound as full as something on a record (nor am I expecting such a thing, but I'm curious about how it gets done in a general sense).



and where the hell does the bass guitar get panned in most situations, assuming its audible?

[deckard]

Usually 2-4 tracks panned in different ways, you need to do two takes and pan them left and right for the proper double track effect.



When doing 4 tracks you could pan 2 hard left and 2 hard right or pan one of the sets 80. Usually if you did 4 rhythm tracks two would be with one tone and two with another, so you get a blend

[Anjel]

Bass goes in the center.

When I record stuff I usually record two rhythm guitars (with the same sound, one panned right and one panned left, usually around 80-90%) and one bass in the center.



Here is two of my latest recordings:

<!-- m -->http://soundcloud.com/anjel5/sets/demos/<!-- m -->

[Uros]

Yeah, in general it's either dual or quadtracked (for ex. like 100L, 75-80L/75-80R, 100R) . Quadtracking is especially beneficial on slower sections, where you'd need really full sound (big chords or palm muting etc.). On faster sections, if a player is not tight enough, quadtracking 'makes' everything sound mushy and unclear tho.



Having only 2 copies of one single track (or a variation of that, where one of them is 20 or so milliseconds delayed from the other(Haas effect)) panned left and right, won't give you wide sound. Another thing to take into account here when you need wide and phat sound, are impulses. They don't take processing (equing, etc.) well, and generally sound pretty flat.



Although there are some cool techniques for extreme metal bass processing, bass is generally panned strictly in the center of the stereo field.

[Hugo.]

Nile had 4 four tracks in the last one for the most part with some of the more epic parts consisting of 6 guitar tracks.

[Hallucinating dead]

[quote name="Anjel"]

Here is two of my latest recordings:

<!-- m -->http://soundcloud.com/anjel5/sets/demos/<!-- m -->[/quote]



those riffs are pretty good

[Anjel]

Thanks! Guitars are too low in the mix, but I already fixed it (although not uploaded).



Edit: Uploaded with more guitars.

[zim]

i've been wanting to ask this same question for a long time

[vO)))id]

What Uros said



Last recording I did was a promo for a rock band, used 2 mics (CAD Equitek e200 and Sennheiser MD421) on the guitarists cab so I just panned those 100 L, 80L (Fender strat).



I recorded the entire band at once, with the vocalist in the control room where I simply monitored the session with my headphones during recording so I didn't have bleed on the vocal mic from the monitors.



After each song the guitarist dubbed the rhythm guitar parts with a Gibson LP, panning them 80 R, 100 R.

Then the melodies, harmonics and solos were dubbed at my place using GTR3 and SansAmp. Which are open to any panning or creative use in the stereo field.

WIth some of Uni's solo's we went far with the panning and placing of certain guitar effects and solos.



Things that work well for me is using different guitars and/or different amps for each side. Different amps isn't a must but in some cases it can create huge differences in clarity, size, amplitude stacking, etc.



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(next time I'll put those overheads a little closer, using the same ones though; Neumann KM140's)

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(watch the headphones, simply plugged into a spare headphone amp that's connected to the 2 aux's on the console for talkback/monitoring)

[shadowalk]

That's a glimpse of Mana Recording right there.

[vO)))id]

Excess Studios to be correct