How To Mix In Your Guitars (Reverbnation Blog Article)

Recording, Mixing and Producing
#1

I also thought this article might spark some discussion and/or debate.

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#2

Thanks Al, I’ve run across some pretty decent articles in Reverb. What a great site/resource for musicians!

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#3

I haven’t read the article, but in my experience guitars are one of the easiest elements to get right in a mix. Piano is pretty easy too.

Difficult:

Snare
Kick
Bass guitar

and of course the most difficult of all…

Lead vocal.

N.B. (I omitted Himalayan nose flute. Just don’t even go there).

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#4

Hi Al This is perfect for me/beginners. I always guess at mixing and hard pan two different takes. The only thing I wish that they would have included some EQ numbers to cut on muddiness. Thanks for this

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#5

That gave me a good chuckle. :slight_smile:

#6

He suggests duplicating the guitar track and having them hard panned, with another duplicate in the center for “depth and power”.

Please anyone who reads this, for the love of god never do that.

I like the ideas that he presents after that. But just double-track it. The real power and width comes from the minute differences in takes. Also, unless theres a really compelling reason to do it, I’d leave out the center track, except for leads or for effect… but it’s also a separate take.

Of course there are amazing examples of a single guitar track manipulated to fill the stereo field, and at the end of the day, do what sounds good… but duplicating tracks and panning them isn’t the path to what the writer is looking for.

(in my opinion)

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#7

Do you double or quad-track that to get that ‘wall of sound’ effect going?

#8

But just double track it. Does that mean copy the one guitar track you just did and put it on the other side? Or does that mean play the song again and put that second track opposite your first? Once in a great while I will copy the original track, throw it to the other side, and delay it a touch.

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#9

Definitely play the song again and use that as the opposite side!

Copied and delayed sounds cool too… like I said I think if it sounds cool then it IS cool. I just know from experience that a well played second take hard-panned will almost always sound better than a copied track unless that’s the sound someone is trying to achieve

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