Jump to content

Recording a one-guitar band?


Recommended Posts

  • Members

Hey guys,

I'm possibly doing a recording with a one-guitar doom band, how would you record and mix that kinda sound? I want a live feel, not sure whether to double track the guitar or maybe do a single take then use a frequency spreader and send various frequencies to various panned positions in the mix?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

For that type of sound I'd definitely try double the guitars, at the very least. There will, very likely, be parts that need to be augmented even further (lower baritone-type parts, harmonic stuff, etc.). I recently produced a record for a band that has generous amounts of doom in their music, although that is not what they do exclusively, and we tracked the whole band (even the vocalist, in my booth) live. It gave us an amazing raw, gritty, thick vibe with an amazing energy around it that was a great foundation to build the rest of the overdubs on. They were a 2-guitar band, but we still felt like the whole production really came to life when we did some extra parts over the live ones to make certain parts bigger, but not to the point where they took over.

 

I've done one guitar-stuff before, but it's always been a sound that I don't equate with anything along the lines of doom. Options were usually something like a very old-school "creative panning" type thing like old Beatles records, or having a duplicate, but very slightly delayed, part opposite the original (sorta old Megadeth-sounding) and then the old Van Halen-type sound of having the track's reverb panned opposite it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I'll agree, for that type of music it would be best to add some overdubs. You could try recording his guitar dry, while also recording his amp and then reamping the dry track, but to me you need the slight variances in performance to make it really sound right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Absolutely - I'd definitely be double tracking and layering those guitar parts. I'd probably take a DI along with a couple of mikes on the amp for each pass too. The guitars will probably not be brutal enough to meet everyone's expectations unless you do. Doubled / layered / downtuned guitars are almost expected in that genre.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • Members

I'll have to look up re-amping as I don't have the tools at the moment. The guitarist uses a telecaster so I think what they're after is something that sounds enormous but comparatively clean, in the same way (though not with a similar tone) to the way Tom Morello sounds huge in Rage without too much distortion. So the double tracking and extra layers are a great idea, it always FEELS like there's more going on than there is in a good doom band IMO.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...