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[Invisible Member]

In response to the "Too Sparse" thread I have had the need to understand getting the guitars to work.

The last metal band I tracked the guitarist kept claiming "were a live band" when we attempted to double track the rhythm. I was only able to capture a single track of guitar and yet he complained it wasn't up to commercial standards.  If it was the 80's I could have tracked one guitar ala Van Halens freshman effort and been done with it. But asking for BLS, Slipknot or Mudvayne densities from one track? I tried splitting off a safety but the players timing and use of chorus pedal created my favorite nulling effect. I tried using a efx unit that generated a "stereo image" and it sounded weak.
I thought that what ended up on the CD was ok...until I went back and listened again.

How do you explain tactfully that commercial standards require certain practices to be adhered to if you expect to meet those standards? and What are the most common problems and work arounds for tracking metal rhythms guitars?

Peace,
Dennis

[Fibes]

Dennis wrote on Wed, 02 June 2004 12:10

How do you explain tactfully that commercial standards require certain practices to be adhered to if you expect to meet those standards? and What are the most common problems and work arounds for tracking metal rhythms guitars?

Great post Dennis, a fucking nightmare is what you speak of.

I'd like to know how Ross and Michael do it, but it all starts with brutal honesty in my camp. If they can't take it then i let them do their own thing after i've beaten them up with techinal questions, cattle prodding and a host of other bags of sway in the hopes they'll come around.

Most guitarists nowadays can't double track to save their stripper girlfriends: My solution, multiple amps, multiple mics. I dig the in your face sound of one one guitar, one amp and one signal chain but unfortunately we need to spread some of this shit out or we have a center channel mudwrasslin' contest on our hands. Nip that crap in the bud, get mr. 6or7 string on the fast track to storage, put up multi mic/amp setups and use your wizard ways to coax the performance into something usable.

I remember during the Mixerman diaries blowup a guitarist I was working with was convinced that the Vox was "too vintage" and he didn't want it going to storage at all. We wrassled with his limp single recto tone for about a half hour until he went outside to smoke with the singer. He came back in totally psyched about the tone he was hearing, go figure, my hands and a flip of the Vox's standby switch was all it took. Once we got all of the right hand issues sorted out with his technique we were on our way.

Working with Indy artists is very different than working with legends. One typically requires a big overhaul and the other is a game of inches. The indy artists ankles usually have a better idea what they normally sound like than their ears.

[j.hall]

tracking big thick guitar tones.....

first thing to do is to set up a great amp in a closet somewhere int he studio that won't be noticed while the band is tracking

throw a DI on his guitar and say it's how you like to work, split it off to the amp in the closet and track that with his terrible distortion pedal and just mute your closet amp till mix time, or playback

i've done it at least 6 times......

convincing a band to overdub when they need to......

i must live in bizzaro world.  i haven't had a band or artist hire me to produce and or track in three years that was like that.  in fact, i can't remember the last time i've worked with some one that wasn't ready, willing, and able to try all the ideas we can come up with.......

closed minded players that force their own mis-placed conceptions of making a record onto the session are VERY frustrating.......

[John Ivan]

It seems to my that the guitar player should be able to double track his parts with out thinking twice about it. Multi amp and mic set ups are cool and can give you some choices later that could be cool. Blending can rule but, the guy really should be able to repeat the parts in his sleep. Do any of these guys work out with metronomes? I'm surprised this is a problem.

[Fibes]

ivan40 wrote on Wed, 02 June 2004 17:12

It seems to my that the guitar player should be able to double track his parts with out thinking twice about it. Multi amp and mic set ups are cool and can give you some choices later that could be cool. Blending can rule but, the guy really should be able to repeat the parts in his sleep. Do any of these guys work out with metronomes? I'm surprised this is a problem.

You're right, it shouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately in my world it is.

Making a metronome swing is essential to being able to play music. 4 out of 5 guitarists couldn't make it swing with a bungee cord.

[otek]

This is very, very different from player to player.

There are great guitarists who can't play the same thing twice to save their lives (Jeff Beck, anyone?) and there are those who play their parts in a very diciplined way, everything will sound essentially the same, time after time.

Usually, the "we are a live band" high-principle guys look at studio recording as if it were figure skating: they have to make it through the song, every time, all the time, and not fuck up once, in order to assume that nice smiling pose when the music stops.

90% of these guys can be talked into it by example ("Guys, Pantera, Steve Vai and King's X all overdub, and they're all amazing live acts") or by demonstration (track several guitars, play back with just one, and then add all of them). For the rest, you just have to make do with what they allow you, with stereo room mics, splits, multiple amps like Fibes said, or whatever. Also, if they plan to cut it with one guitar, the bass needs to be made absolutely huge to help it achieve the weight and size.

My method for tracking good rythm guitar overdubs.... Ok, go ahead and shoot me, but I found the "loop record" method yields great results - it only works on a DAW of course. Sort of cheating, but notice I don't give a shit. Music production is about results.

You set up a section, say, 8 bars of a verse, and set it to loop in your DAW (assuming you track on a DAW, or you are SOL).
Hit record and let it loop. Have the guitar player play the riff over and over. After a couple of laps, he will start getting into the groove, and because the loop repeats perfectly every time, he will hopefully find the pocket for this particular section pretty quickly.

If you do a section, stop, and start over, every time he starts over he will spend a few seconds adjusting to the groove, and the end part will usually be better than the beginning. With the loop method, the guitarist will be up-and-running when the loop starts over, and the beginning is going to sound better right off the bat.

The added bonus is that when the guitarist has played the loop 5 or 6 times over, he will have found the pocket so well that there will likely be two or more takes that are good. Presto - there's your overdub!

[John Ivan]

Yeah, I taught Guitar for while. { I don't have killer reading chops but I know some stuff} The big thing I tried to teach the young guys/gals that would come in that could already sorta play was, Music happens through time. It can only happen through time and if time  doesn't become second nature for you, you will struggle with every thing else. One kid who was a really nice guy and had cool ideas struggled with this a lot. I ended up spending half our lesson time,in the beginning, with a pair of drum sticks showing him the basics against a metronome. This was a big help for him and he plays his ass of {4 years later}. It ,of course doesn't have to be drums but I think tinkering around with another instrument can help a person feel better about sounding so bad at first. They kinda think, "well,of course I sound shitty time wise on this axe. I'm not a Drummer". Their time gets better before they know it because they aren't preoccupied thinking they suck on Their instrument.

[Ross Hogarth]

First of all and not the answer, I have thought that all musicians today should throw away their porno mags and their x boxes and get a fucking metronome for Christmas ...ALL OF THEM .... to reliant on our editing chops ....
so anyway
I recommend everybody who records particularly metal guitar if not any guitar at all, to buy a Little Labs PCP splitter. This box will split out to 3 amps and has a di and a tuner out.
When I make metal records and the player really can't double himself, I record with two different heads and 2 different cabinets. This creates an automatic stereo ,true stereo track of guitars with every performance.
Now, I must say for today's heavy sound it is important to be tight. All you purists and naysayers can say that this sucks but it is part of the sound and part of the genre. So the double kick drums tend to get chopped a bit and the guitars get put closer to the grid. LIKE IT OR NOT...if you want to sound like In Flames or Messhuguh (sp) or Korn or whatever.
One thing I do is get a really good performance and then double against that and try and beat it. Then I will later chop and move the double till tight. Heavy guitar is white noise so it is really easy to move. You would be surprised at the kind of edits one can make. I must say that in heavy metal, and no disrespect intended, there are more musical slackers than in just about any other genre.....I know I'll get shit for this but I do not work in Hip Hop and so I am talking about musicians not MC 's.
So anyway, that is what I do. I know what the job requirement is going in and like was said above, my job is about RESULTS !!
No one gets judged on the process, only the result

[Invisible Member]

Thanks for the great replies.  I realize my first mistake was "asking" if we could use my Marshall in conjunction to thicken where the triple R lacked. I should have split it out, called it a safety/scratch and never said anything in regards to my methodologies or reasonings.

I admit that my expectations were higher than what the guitarist could provide. Mainly the metro-gnome issue. I remember the guitarist telling me after we tracked the drums that he uses visual cues from the drummer rather than actually counting beats.
Kinda hard to overdub when you have an invisible drummer.

Im trying to get the band to put the final mix on their site. My work around for this since I lacked forsight was taking the scratch track and running it into a cheap reverb that had a wide stereo generator, compressed the snot out of it and brought it back into 2 new channels with some eq. I had to ride the faders to hide the really obvious timing problems. For the kick drum I had to mic a speaker in the live room solo'd and record that onto a new track because I mic'd it a little too tight.

The real cool thing is next time I have not only the tools, but examples of bands and engineers who use these techniques to make records. Thanks (side issue of working indies and demo's is credibility of how things are done in the eyes of the band i.e. bubba disn't do it that way)

For a listen.
prviouslt posted at the recpit
Rough mix samples, not final.
broken link removed


Thanks again for everyones input.

Peace,
Dennis

[otek]

Ross Hogarth wrote on Thu, 03 June 2004 06:49

I must say that in heavy metal, and no disrespect intended, there are more musical slackers than in just about any other genre....

I agree completely. And even Meshuggah do edit sometimes.... although (and this I can say with authority since I know the band personally) they sound damn near EXACTLY the same live and in rehearsal, as they do on record!    

[drumsound]

To go back to the first post for a bit...

If the band tells you that they want a "documentation" of their live sound and then tells you it isn't up to "commercial standards" I would call them out (in a nice way).  I would explain that they are asking for two completely different things.  I would explain that the "commercial standard" involves many guitars and tones.  That spread, girth and whatever other creative euphemisms I could come up with are achieved with multiple takes and tones.  I would then ask them to make a decision between an "documentation" of a live band or a record made to be up to "commercial standards."

[carne_de_res]

Ross Hogarth wrote on Thu, 03 June 2004 06:49

First of all and not the answer, I have thought that all musicians today should throw away their porno mags and their x boxes and get a fucking metronome for Christmas ...ALL OF THEM

i.couldn't.agree.more.

Gaetano Dimita,
Udine,Italy