What are your favorite ways of widening guitars?

[UstadKhanAli]

Do you often widen mono guitar tracks? If so, what's your favorite way of doing it? Do you double the track and then EQ them differently and then pan them? Or apply different delays to achieve the widening (stereo delays, etc.)?

[Jeff da Weasel]

Do you double the track and then EQ them differently and then pan them? Or apply different delays to achieve the widening (stereo delays, etc.)?

 

Yes.

 

There's another way, but it invites problems unless the player is pretty accurate: you can have them play the part twice, using two different guitars. I did quite a bit of this on the last Zak Claxton album. When doing this, I make sure the tones are pretty distinct, like a humbucker-equipped LP and a Tele on the bridge pickup.

 

As you know already, the one thing you want to avoid is phase cancellation. In that regard, when I'm just cloning a track for doubling purposes, I find that by moving one of the tracks a couple of milliseconds forward or back in time really widens things a lot. I also don't pan them super wide... maybe 20 degrees in opposing directions.

[blue2blue]

I've used delays a number of times because I'm lazy but it's typically a mixed bag... if you get them far enough apart, time-wise, to sound like two different instruments it often tends to be rhythmically distracting or, worse, fakey. (I love much of Elliot Smith's work but some of the time-split guitars drive me freakin' nuts.)

 

So I'll sometimes use a subtle chorus with a little LFO action to help differentiate one of them from the other. Sometimes spreading them creates a hole in the middle. If I don't have something complementary to fill that hole, I've been known to use a sort of triple split, putting the now guitar in the middle and splitting two differently delayed copies to the sides. But that's really tricky and can end up a big mess.

 

The best way, of course, is to do multiple guitar parts. For me, the slop factor can be intimidating -- so every once in a while I have to go back and listen to the first track that I really became aware of the stereo-split acoustic guitar thing: "Andy Warhol" off Bowie's Hunky Dory. And those guitars are mighty loose. (I don't know what mic Visconti used on that but to me it always sounds like an SM57; and, indeed, I've had good luck using a '57 for such percussive acoustic guitar parts.)

 

Another excellent trick (in the right context) is mixing a Nashville-strung guitar in there. The great thing about Nashville tuning is that you play it with standard fingerings, but replacing the bass strings with strings an octave up gives a really different, chimey effect.

[Jeff da Weasel]

Another excellent trick (in the right context) is mixing a Nashville-strung guitar in there. The great thing about Nashville tuning is that you play it with standard fingerings, but replacing the bass strings with strings an octave up gives a really different, chimey effect.

 

Here's another approach (for we lazy people who don't want to maintain a guitar with entirely an different string setup): play the same part but with a capo, and then use different voicings for the same chords. I like doing that.

[UstadKhanAli]

My favorite way of widening guitars before, when I was using analog tape, was two performances, like Jeff mentioned. I would set my tape machine two cents flat, track my guitar, then set my tape machine for two cents sharp, track my second guitar, and then pan them about two o-clock and ten-o'clock.

 

I was more thinking about widening mono guitars that have already been tracked.

 

Another obvious if often undesirable way is to apply a stereo chorus to a mono guitar track. I've actually done this before with an acoustic guitar track and it sounded beautiful in the context of a very pretty ambient sort of song, but this is not usually something I do.

[blue2blue]

Here's another approach (for we lazy people who don't want to maintain a guitar with entirely an different string setup): play the same part but with a capo, and then use different voicings for the same chords. I like doing that.

Yes, an excellent trick. Of course, you have to do all that brain work, figuring out the transposition. Whew...

 

 

 

But it sounds like Ken's hard on the laziness tip and wants to make that one guitar track work extra hard...

[Lee Knight]

I take a DI along with my amp mic. The DI will later be reamped with a different amp and pedal setup and typically be distance mic'ed and panned off from the original track. The reamp might be captured with a Blumlien or spaced pair or just mono. But that mono room reamp will be panned off somewhere, depending on the current mix and arrangement.

 

The capo and different voicing thing gets used a lot around here, as well.

 

Sometimes just straight double and wide pan. That's a great sound for a tried and true effect.

 

And the Gear Mike faux split MS technique is great. Cardiod on the close mic. Move a fig 8 back in the room and set to pick up the side like traditional MS. In other words, MS but with the mics separated. Close and distance.

[Beck]

For rhythm I usually play the part twice on both acoustic and electric guitar. IMO for acoustic especially it still gives that lush liquidy bigger than life spread across the sound stage that makes the music surround you. I

[Jeff da Weasel]

 

If you have decent synth-based guitar sounds, which I do on my Kurzweil K-Series synths, it creates a remarkably convincing guitar strumming effect using subtle MIDI delay.

 

 

Ew! Why not have sex with a blow-up doll while you're at it?

[blue2blue]

 

I have no problem using MIDI guitar simulations -- on those rare occasions when they can work in a song. I usually bury them, though, since they typically don't sound very convincing to me when they're exposed. My approach to arranging is often a spaghetti wall-throw. What sticks...

[UstadKhanAli]

 

Ew! Why not have sex with a blow-up doll while you're at it?

 

 

So just to clarify, having sex with a blow-up doll is bad, right?

[Jeff da Weasel]

So just to clarify, having sex with a blow-up doll is bad, right?

 

"Bad" is subjective. But it's inarguably fake.

[Ernest Buckley]

Do you double the track and then EQ them differently and then pan them?

 

Yes.

 

If I`m really lazy, I`ll copy the track, paste it on another track and offset it a few mss.

[Ernest Buckley]

So just to clarify, having sex with a blow-up doll is bad, right?

 

Its sort of like using MIDI to replace an orchestra. Its sort of the same but its not... then again, I really wouldn`t know....

[blue2blue]

In the early 70s I felt like it was a lot hipper to use a fakey sounding string keyboard like the Elkasound stuff than to have a real orchestra -- which I saw as the mark of lame, mainstream pop or, worse, pretentious pseudo-classical rock. I also had a thing for organ-style rhythm boxes. My ears perked up every time I heard the tell-tale sounds of fake clavs and sidesticks. It was part of why I decided Shuggie Otis was so cool.

[UstadKhanAli]

Shuggie Otis is and always will be cool.

[Hard Truth]

I play into two amps located far apart and mic them separately.

[roomjello]

What about just a delay in a bus set to the haas zone(even with some modulation), Pan the dry gtr to say far left and send the signal to the haas delay panned 50% Left or center or more right to taste. This is called widening i believe.

[WRGKMC]

If you want different content coming from different speakers, some kind of time and frequency changes must occur or it remains mono sounding. Comb filtering the two tracks so different frequencies can make the instrument sound like its a different guitar being used to add separation in the speakers playback, especially in the 500 to 5K ranges.

 

Phasing, reverb and delay will make the sound hit the ears at different times making for a 3d effect vs a flat 2 dimensional sound.

 

The third is movement within the stereo field. One is to use a chorus which is basically a reverb/echo that has sweep to its frequency or time responces.

 

Annother can be It can be done with a combination of filtering and ambiance. Filtering some notes so they are stronger on one side than the other is pretty easy. I often target specific frequencies with an EQ so specific notes are stronger on one side than the other. You may have the higher leads notes comeing through one side, with highs boosted and lows cut. Root chords can be set to come through better on the other side if the lows present and mids cut. Then use some kind of ambiance so the lead notes come through with more spacious like its coming through a larger room, and leave the other side dry so it sounds right up close.

 

How well it can work in combination with ambiance and chorus is strictly an arrangement factor. If the parts stays in the root position, there will be no movement to the other speaker of course. For a lead part that works the entire neck its can a very neat effect. I use it quite often myself. Definately not your old boaring sound unless you really like mono.

 

I also been using autotune occasionally set for instrument and detuning one side up a cent and the other down a cent. This is simular to what you might do with vocals to get harmonies sounding bigger. Its a bit glitchey and doesnt always work. The last project I put it on one track only and it gave me a really neat effect.

 

I did have it on both tracks while I was busy doing something else, and noticed the sound jumped from sounding mono to a stereo spread during the song.

I have no idea why it did that other than the waveform itself had asymmetrical peaks common with string vibrations.

I may have been leaning on the neck and throwing the pitch off too which caused autotune to kick in differently and change the phase of the two tracks.

Kind of wild sounding though. If I could get it to sound mono like that during leads and spread during the vocals it would be pretty neat.

[Lee Knight]

What about just a delay in a bus set to the haas zone... ...This is called widening i believe.

 

Welll... la dee dah. I'm assuming we've all got that, Mr. Cool!

[the stranger]

Ew! Why not have sex with a blow-up doll while you're at it?

 

New GNFARB: Drum Machines & Blow Up Dolls

[philbo]

 

So just to clarify, having sex with a blow-up doll is bad, right?

 

 

Bad for who? The doll?

[philbo]

I think if you got the tone, widening shouldn't be needed. Depends a lot on the music style & vibe of the song, though, I guess.

[Beck]

 

Ew! Why not have sex with a blow-up doll while you're at it?

 

 

LOL very funny Jeff. The key is to blend with real accoustic guitars. And it's not about people sitting around trying to guess how people got a unique sound. It's all about sound shaping with the tools at hand. That could even be plugs (Not in my studio) but could be in someone elses. Perhaps you've never heard real guitars subtly mixed with synth-based guitar... or at least not heard it done right... or you weren't aware it was being done in something you liked. It's the same with any other instruments. I'll blend real piano with digital piano and other tones for a unique sound, real vocals with synthesized oohs and ahs to build a choir, real violins with synth pads to make something sweet. It's all about the sound. Can't remember who said it right off hand but, "If it sounds good it is good."

 

But again, I

[UstadKhanAli]

Let's hear something that you've recorded, Beck!!!