Regarding double tracking: copy and paste just adds volume. It COULD sound better than a single track, but that's because louder sounds better. Try double tracking like this: Record a distorted guitar, the same part with one guitar left, one right, one center. You can also have two left and two right. If you have one left and one right in the verse, bring in the center guitar in the chorus. You can have one distorted guitar left and one right and double track those with one clean(ish) guitar on each side. For huge sounds, don't use a lot of gain and record humbucker guitars on one side and single coil guitars on the other side. Using different speakers and/or amps could help the different guitars stand out and fill in different frequencies in the spectrum.
4:00 as a guitar tech you are absolutely correct. I always stress to people who bring me their guitars that it doesn’t matter what forums say or whoever they idolize play, as long as the guitar feels good to your specifications then its perfectly fine and ill to my best to set it up to their play style.
Look at J Mascis as an example, dude plays with an action that most would consider stupidly high, yet he made it work because he's comfortable with it.
On doubling guitar tracks: It's true that you'll never play a part _identically_ twice. But also: the physical properties of the amp itself will provide variation. That simply can't be reproduced by copying the part to an additional track. If you're working on a project that has only one guitar part, you can duplicate it with a phase trick. (provided you have a raw track for reamping, at least) 1. copy the raw track to another track 2. reverse the phase of that track 3. reamp the track through another amp 4. reverse the phase of the new track you just recorded. Even though it's the same performance, the variations in the amp itself will be enough to provide additional fullness. It's not the same as two performances, but it helps.
For gazey or dream poppish songs I often double track the left and right channels with the same part, different guitars and different (or models) Then I single track the same part and pan it dead center with usually a little less FX and a little les volume. I've found that serves to glue or bridge the parts together for a massive sound.
Double tracking guitars is such an easy step to get a great sound, especially for home recording. I remember being in a studio 20 years ago to record a demo with a power trio (I was on bass and vocals) and the guitarist could easily do every part in one take, he was just that well practiced. So they engineer had him do a couple takes as usual and then a couple more switched to his neck pickup. Just those tracks hard panned gave such a huge sound, without even overdubbing anything else yet. When recording on my own, I've done it a lot of different ways. Switching pickups, switching guitars, slight adjustment on the volume knob, different dirt pedal, tweaking the amp settings. They all work great, depending on what you're doing for and what's easy/convenient.
We recorded our first album this summer, at the drummer's house, while his parents went on vacation. The guitar was recorded with pedals that I plugged into the sound card, and it emulates an amplifier. We recorded for about two days and I realized that this was not for me. I don't know how to mix and master tracks, so we record demos from rehearsals on a dictaphone, there is no money to go to the studio. That's such a sad story. Greetings from Saint Petersburg
Greetings! That’s ok for it not to be for you, I will say If you have time, it’s worth watching some videos on mixing music as you will get better. You will learn what frequencies to take out and put in etc. But recording rehearsals on a dictaphone is still a great idea!
I normally record amps via Two Notes Torpedo Captor, which is handy as I can swap out speaker IRs to suit song or alter double-tracked guitars by having different "cabs" for the same amp .amp Of late, I've taken to also recording a clean DI for two reasons. 1) it's a cleaner waveform and I can use this to edit my playing closer to the grid; 2) for reamping later if I don't like choice of effects or amplifier later.
Yeah that’s a great idea actually! Nice one. Sometimes it’s a godsend to have a clean Di when you realise an amp sound isn’t quite right down the line. On my bands last 2 albums we’ve recorded bass completely clean Di and then reamped at a later date so we could do it at the same time as the drums without bleed.
@@thesethingsmakenoises all studios I've used have DI'd the bass all the time. I managed to convince one of them to use the line-out on the back of my Laney to blend in to add "tube warmth". Pity some bastard chewed the DAT when transferring it to CD for us. The best session with an originals band.
Great video Dan . I double the guitar parts but switch the pickup selctor for the doubled track gives me the whole tonal spectrum of my guitar if that makes sense :) and def agree wiht the Eq suggestion roll off the low end all the time in the mixdown
Also the Pumpkins Big Muff OP trick when double tracking where I sweep the tone to find the low "sabbath note resonance" track that as one track that and then sweep the tone to find a higher frequency "sabbath note" and track that as my double and pan them left and right .The two double tracked sound massive for the fuzz sound @@thesethingsmakenoises
It’s cool to see that you & I have nearly identical processes for home recording. I double my guitars on either side, but like you mentioned, I use different guitars. For me, the trick is knowing what tones I’ll get from each pickup style. So, I may go big & washy with P90s & a Big Muff on the left side, & then more reserved on the right side with PAF humbuckers & a RAT. Like you said, experimentation is key!
Just for fun I put hi-hat closed of my drummachine on right and open on hard left. On old Boss Dr660 copied the hi-hat to several pads with different panning and volume to get a rotary effect, with chorus on just hi-hat sounded pretty nice.
1) You don’t need to worry about plugins that’ll be used later when recording. It’s better to gain stage for mixing after recording. This will be better because it’s easy to get used to bad levels and stick with it, then wonder why your mix isn’t working. So it’s actually better when doing all these roles by yourself is to break them up because that’s what happens amongst professionals... the engineers involved into the recording won’t be involved with the mix and whoever does the mix won’t be mastering. It’s fresh ears each time and they’ll set the appropriate levels for their setups and approach. As long as it’s not too quiet and not clipping, your levels are fine. 3) Double-tracking sounds great with stereo playback, but the trade off is lower levels when summed to mono (Look into LCR mixing), so Kevin Shields often has guitar in the phantom centre, rather than panned, so it always retains its level regardless of system. 4) You’re recording, not mixing. Don’t try to get things perfect straightaway. Be prepared to go away and come back with fresh ears. Listen to live monitor mixes, quite often the individual is far louder in that mix and that’s what people need when they monitor themselves when they record, so it’s not going to be the perfect level.
Yeah fair play! Although whatever you can do at source is always gonna pay off later down the line. Mixers definitely set their own levels, but if you’re in that ballpark you can’t really go wrong on recording or mixing
@@thesethingsmakenoises Whilst true, the point is if you’re going to be both producer and guitarist, you need to separate the needs of both and do what is best when necessary. Not being at the perfect level straightaway isn’t going to ruin your mix n the same way every member of the band battling to hear themselves will or one member not having the experience of separating their instrument from the grand scheme of things will. The other thing to get used to is if you’re layering, you don’t actually need each take to be a great tone. But some of the things that’ll be done later, like quite extreme filtering, isn’t really necessary when tracking.
In terms of guitar input levels; most interfaces have an instrument input switch, which has a different impedance to the line input. I would use this for a DI guitar which will be processed by an amp sim/VST. Leave the interface gain on zero or as close to zero as possible as that is a all the amp/pedal sim software needs and any additional gain added via the interface, will quickly muddy and overdrive the sound processed by the VST, which will loose definition. This also leaves the dynamics largely to the guitarist.
I'm a fan of fuzz pedals - but not of the Big Muff. Billy Corgan was lucky in that the Big Muff pedal that he bought just happened to be a version that fitted Siamese Dream really well. However, as Nuno Bettancourt has said: put a Big Muff with the gain at 9 o'clock in your pedal chain and it will add a nice low end warmth. So I've now blown the dust off of my Big Muff.
Don't try to record a part until you have it down really well! If you neglect to practice the part enough, you'll play it sloppily or tenatively and will probably have to do multiple takes to get it right. The problem is, every time you attempt another take, you lose a little bit of energy and you can feel this when you hear it in the mix. So, get the part down cold, then nail it in one or two takes.
Was setting up little Adam monitors thinking the pots were eq. Went through the whole signal chain till I double checked IF the pots were eq, they were volume 😅 For two days thought one monitor was dead...😂
Hi, good video as always, ¿could you make a video on how to use/route plugins into your pedalboard?, For example, i have plugins i really would like to hear before my pedals like a Reverse reverb from a plugin and a ds1 from my pedalboard after that plugin
Hey! I can have a look at this, although what might be easiest for you with latency etc is to record and out the reverse reverb plug-in on, and then run out of your DAW in mono (depending how many outputs you have) and then back in to your pedal board. So you’re basically running the signal from the computer back to pedalboard and then back to computer with the DS-1 added
For sure mate! Yeah it is, although I really don’t like the software interface. Used to have the RME Fireface800 and it’s software was bulletproof and so simple to use.
Regarding double tracking: copy and paste just adds volume. It COULD sound better than a single track, but that's because louder sounds better.
Try double tracking like this:
Record a distorted guitar, the same part with one guitar left, one right, one center. You can also have two left and two right. If you have one left and one right in the verse, bring in the center guitar in the chorus.
You can have one distorted guitar left and one right and double track those with one clean(ish) guitar on each side.
For huge sounds, don't use a lot of gain and record humbucker guitars on one side and single coil guitars on the other side. Using different speakers and/or amps could help the different guitars stand out and fill in different frequencies in the spectrum.
This is all great advice! Like you say, sometimes being more reserved with the distortion makes stuff sound bigger.
4:00 as a guitar tech you are absolutely correct. I always stress to people who bring me their guitars that it doesn’t matter what forums say or whoever they idolize play, as long as the guitar feels good to your specifications then its perfectly fine and ill to my best to set it up to their play style.
Thanks for that. Glad I wasn’t the only person thinking that haha!
Look at J Mascis as an example, dude plays with an action that most would consider stupidly high, yet he made it work because he's comfortable with it.
On doubling guitar tracks: It's true that you'll never play a part _identically_ twice. But also: the physical properties of the amp itself will provide variation. That simply can't be reproduced by copying the part to an additional track.
If you're working on a project that has only one guitar part, you can duplicate it with a phase trick.
(provided you have a raw track for reamping, at least)
1. copy the raw track to another track
2. reverse the phase of that track
3. reamp the track through another amp
4. reverse the phase of the new track you just recorded.
Even though it's the same performance, the variations in the amp itself will be enough to provide additional fullness. It's not the same as two performances, but it helps.
This is awesome advice!! Great shout. ✌️
How do you reverse the phase of another track?
Right? I'm on reaper. I guess you just use a vst?@@killianmaduro3664
For gazey or dream poppish songs I often double track the left and right channels with the same part, different guitars and different (or models) Then I single track the same part and pan it dead center with usually a little less FX and a little les volume. I've found that serves to glue or bridge the parts together for a massive sound.
That’s a really good idea!
Double tracking guitars is such an easy step to get a great sound, especially for home recording. I remember being in a studio 20 years ago to record a demo with a power trio (I was on bass and vocals) and the guitarist could easily do every part in one take, he was just that well practiced. So they engineer had him do a couple takes as usual and then a couple more switched to his neck pickup. Just those tracks hard panned gave such a huge sound, without even overdubbing anything else yet.
When recording on my own, I've done it a lot of different ways. Switching pickups, switching guitars, slight adjustment on the volume knob, different dirt pedal, tweaking the amp settings. They all work great, depending on what you're doing for and what's easy/convenient.
It sounds really awesome doesn’t it mate!
We recorded our first album this summer, at the drummer's house, while his parents went on vacation. The guitar was recorded with pedals that I plugged into the sound card, and it emulates an amplifier. We recorded for about two days and I realized that this was not for me. I don't know how to mix and master tracks, so we record demos from rehearsals on a dictaphone, there is no money to go to the studio. That's such a sad story. Greetings from Saint Petersburg
Greetings to Saint Pete! Do you have any footage/recorded music from your rehearsals on vk?
@@dariagodina izvinite netu
@@grunge223 that's okay!
Greetings! That’s ok for it not to be for you, I will say If you have time, it’s worth watching some videos on mixing music as you will get better. You will learn what frequencies to take out and put in etc.
But recording rehearsals on a dictaphone is still a great idea!
@@thesethingsmakenoises Thank you, we're trying, haha
I normally record amps via Two Notes Torpedo Captor, which is handy as I can swap out speaker IRs to suit song or alter double-tracked guitars by having different "cabs" for the same amp .amp
Of late, I've taken to also recording a clean DI for two reasons. 1) it's a cleaner waveform and I can use this to edit my playing closer to the grid; 2) for reamping later if I don't like choice of effects or amplifier later.
Yeah that’s a great idea actually! Nice one. Sometimes it’s a godsend to have a clean Di when you realise an amp sound isn’t quite right down the line.
On my bands last 2 albums we’ve recorded bass completely clean Di and then reamped at a later date so we could do it at the same time as the drums without bleed.
@@thesethingsmakenoises all studios I've used have DI'd the bass all the time. I managed to convince one of them to use the line-out on the back of my Laney to blend in to add "tube warmth". Pity some bastard chewed the DAT when transferring it to CD for us. The best session with an originals band.
Great video Dan . I double the guitar parts but switch the pickup selctor for the doubled track gives me the whole tonal spectrum of my guitar if that makes sense :) and def agree wiht the Eq suggestion roll off the low end all the time in the mixdown
Thanks mate! Yeah 100% pickup can do the same thing. Great shout.
Also the Pumpkins Big Muff OP trick when double tracking where I sweep the tone to find the low "sabbath note resonance" track that as one track that and then sweep the tone to find a higher frequency "sabbath note" and track that as my double and pan them left and right .The two double tracked sound massive for the fuzz sound
@@thesethingsmakenoises
It’s cool to see that you & I have nearly identical processes for home recording. I double my guitars on either side, but like you mentioned, I use different guitars. For me, the trick is knowing what tones I’ll get from each pickup style. So, I may go big & washy with P90s & a Big Muff on the left side, & then more reserved on the right side with PAF humbuckers & a RAT. Like you said, experimentation is key!
Just for fun I put hi-hat closed of my drummachine on right and open on hard left.
On old Boss Dr660 copied the hi-hat to several pads with different panning and volume to get a rotary effect, with chorus on just hi-hat sounded pretty nice.
@@michelvondenhoff9673 that sounds amazing!
That sounds like you’d get an awesome sound from that setup!
Really enjoying your content
Thank you so much! That’s really kind 🙌
Just bought a loomer pedal and I just can’t get this thing to sound good in the recording. Your video helped. Thank you!!!
1) You don’t need to worry about plugins that’ll be used later when recording. It’s better to gain stage for mixing after recording.
This will be better because it’s easy to get used to bad levels and stick with it, then wonder why your mix isn’t working. So it’s actually better when doing all these roles by yourself is to break them up because that’s what happens amongst professionals... the engineers involved into the recording won’t be involved with the mix and whoever does the mix won’t be mastering. It’s fresh ears each time and they’ll set the appropriate levels for their setups and approach.
As long as it’s not too quiet and not clipping, your levels are fine.
3) Double-tracking sounds great with stereo playback, but the trade off is lower levels when summed to mono (Look into LCR mixing), so Kevin Shields often has guitar in the phantom centre, rather than panned, so it always retains its level regardless of system.
4) You’re recording, not mixing. Don’t try to get things perfect straightaway. Be prepared to go away and come back with fresh ears. Listen to live monitor mixes, quite often the individual is far louder in that mix and that’s what people need when they monitor themselves when they record, so it’s not going to be the perfect level.
Yeah fair play! Although whatever you can do at source is always gonna pay off later down the line. Mixers definitely set their own levels, but if you’re in that ballpark you can’t really go wrong on recording or mixing
@@thesethingsmakenoises Whilst true, the point is if you’re going to be both producer and guitarist, you need to separate the needs of both and do what is best when necessary.
Not being at the perfect level straightaway isn’t going to ruin your mix n the same way every member of the band battling to hear themselves will or one member not having the experience of separating their instrument from the grand scheme of things will.
The other thing to get used to is if you’re layering, you don’t actually need each take to be a great tone. But some of the things that’ll be done later, like quite extreme filtering, isn’t really necessary when tracking.
Great to be back to watching these weekly videos! Gonna binge-watch what I've missed 🙌
Thanks Daria! Appreciate it!
In terms of guitar input levels; most interfaces have an instrument input switch, which has a different impedance to the line input. I would use this for a DI guitar which will be processed by an amp sim/VST. Leave the interface gain on zero or as close to zero as possible as that is a all the amp/pedal sim software needs and any additional gain added via the interface, will quickly muddy and overdrive the sound processed by the VST, which will loose definition. This also leaves the dynamics largely to the guitarist.
I'm a fan of fuzz pedals - but not of the Big Muff. Billy Corgan was lucky in that the Big Muff pedal that he bought just happened to be a version that fitted Siamese Dream really well. However, as Nuno Bettancourt has said: put a Big Muff with the gain at 9 o'clock in your pedal chain and it will add a nice low end warmth. So I've now blown the dust off of my Big Muff.
Ohhh that’s interesting. Personally I love the big muff. With some overdrive in front of it I think it sounds awesome.
Corgan has about 200 Big Muff
To save time double tracking, there's a pedal called TC Electronic Mimiq. Worth its weight in gold 😊
Honestly, this is great advice for every genre, from shoegaze to jazz to metal to pop. Great video bro.
Thanks so much mate!
Don't try to record a part until you have it down really well! If you neglect to practice the part enough, you'll play it sloppily or tenatively and will probably have to do multiple takes to get it right. The problem is, every time you attempt another take, you lose a little bit of energy and you can feel this when you hear it in the mix. So, get the part down cold, then nail it in one or two takes.
A amp recording tutorial would be amazing!
This tbh..
I second this
Noted! What sort of thing would you want, just like where to mic, what positions etc?
you are my go to guitar youtuber
Thanks so much mate!
Was setting up little Adam monitors thinking the pots were eq. Went through the whole signal chain till I double checked IF the pots were eq, they were volume 😅 For two days thought one monitor was dead...😂
Hahahha! I do similar stuff all the time.
Hi, good video as always, ¿could you make a video on how to use/route plugins into your pedalboard?,
For example, i have plugins i really would like to hear before my pedals like a Reverse reverb from a plugin and a ds1 from my pedalboard after that plugin
Hey! I can have a look at this, although what might be easiest for you with latency etc is to record and out the reverse reverb plug-in on, and then run out of your DAW in mono (depending how many outputs you have) and then back in to your pedal board.
So you’re basically running the signal from the computer back to pedalboard and then back to computer with the DS-1 added
Level. Massive issue. Get that wrong and you’re screwed. Also audient. Brilliant interface.
For sure mate! Yeah it is, although I really don’t like the software interface. Used to have the RME Fireface800 and it’s software was bulletproof and so simple to use.
Why do you have this little green Thing on ur blue Jazzmaster? Love your Vids, but keep asking that myself...😂😊
прикольный носик
Drop D and go!!!🎉
🤘🤘
The intonation is really bad on my Precision copy. Melodyne sorts.that out LOL.
Haha I mean there is always that!