How many guitar tracks should I use?

[Money Shot]

I'm in the process of writing a new tune and I want the guitar to sound super brutal for this one. Not necessarily brutal but heavier than life sort of maybe. Most of the time I just do 2 tracks. Is 4 too much? I think someone once told me to do 2 l and r and a final one in either direction (3 tracks) but not panned as far or maybe further. I should prob. experiment but I thought it would be a good idea to get some advice before I start tracking.

What do you guys have experience with?

[TLTD]

My favorite sound has always been 4 tracks. 2 wide l-r. One as you stated (for me 34% to the right bumped up 200hz and mids and the 2 l-r lowered 200hz and raised 6000). The last one do the opposite pan (34% left or whatever hits your ear right with only the one that was panned right playing along with this one) BUT lower the volume (or pan away) of that one so it is sort of an extension of the other track that is already partially panned and keep it soft with any eq maybe even lower the volume of the guitar or level of distortion (but you can use chorus or other effects if you want). If you are strumming (and not palm muting riffs), you could even consider using acoustic or clean electric guitar to accent.
You probably already know to keep away from reverb, chorus etc especially on the first two. You could probably play around with fx on the quietest track, but not the others unless you were to say use a different wah position for a new tone.

[uab9253]

I think if you go much beyond 2 per side, when they part is basically doubled, you risk losing clarity unless you are one badass player and can keep it perfectly sync'd up. Of course just copying the parts and panning them falls short too. Too much makes the attack a bit blurry and you start to get some phase cancellation going on. Sometimes less sounds bigger. I just did a mix with one on each side and the guitars sound huge. I always make sure to use different guitars AND amps when I do that. I'm partial to a Strat on one side and a Les Paul on the other.

I used to love to tone that Max Norman got with Randy Rhoads by having him double his leads. It is harder to do than it sounds. But what a killer tone.

[TLTD]

I knew one person on guitarwar.com that always used 4 tracks. It sounded well worth it. I think his screen name was ClintusMaximusATH or something. He and I were Vanden Plas fans, I ALWAYS wanted to get that sound then noticed he was right on with it and found that he always uses 4 tracks for rythm. I don't recall what he did to each but it does make a difference unless you have an Eventide harmonizer to dupe the tracks, you have to be really tight and lay all 4 and make sure they aren't fighting each other.

[Vulconizer]

For thick, heavy guitar sounds, I have gone with 4 tracks of the rhythm part. Pan 2 per side, all the way.

[rorry]

im thinking no matter how many guitar tracks you do they have to sync up to stay powerfull. remember a miked up cab will have a slight delay over a DI'd signal if you do em both at once so dont forget to compensate.
1 or two tracks should do the trick. Get the source right,get the mike right, get the mike in the right place. get your signal chain right. good too have that handy DI too. right. right.

Need to sleep. Been going full hack for weeks. learnt alot though.
cheers
ps
hope to hear some wicked stuff of yours soon..please post

[uab9253]

Originally Posted by TLTD

I knew one person on guitarwar.com that always used 4 tracks. It sounded well worth it. I think his screen name was ClintusMaximusATH or something. He and I were Vanden Plas fans, I ALWAYS wanted to get that sound then noticed he was right on with it and found that he always uses 4 tracks for rythm. I don't recall what he did to each but it does make a difference unless you have an Eventide harmonizer to dupe the tracks, you have to be really tight and lay all 4 and make sure they aren't fighting each other.

If you mean Vanden Plas the car, count me in. I have a baby Jag that I adore and is 5 payments away from being mine. All with only 35K miles. Sweet.

[KillerV]

I've had all sorts of different approaches work for different songs. Sometimes what you think will sound monstrous sounds small and, ver often, the other way around too.

A clean part or acoustic part panned right (ie correctly, not as in L or R) can sometimes make guitars sound really big. Other times a 3rd part in the middle, but EQ'd so that it doesn't step on anything else works well.

When I do 4 parts with 2 panned L and R I usually do one set at the maximum amount of gain I need for the track. Then I'll have the 2nd set of parts with less distortion so that it's more punchy. I then add the 2nd set in so that they sound really big combined.

Any extra parts you add in need to be really tightly sync'd or your tracks will turn to crap.

[Money Shot]

Nice, I definately got the answers I was looking for. I'm still in the process of getting the drums down. I'll post when I'm done of course. I think I'm gonna try 3 to start with. And make it as tight as possible.

[brandondrury]

I want to say this. I was producing a modern rock band that needed big, mean guitars. The dude had a Les Paul Standard and we were running through my Rivera Knucklehead on 10 through a Royer R121 > Vintech 1272 > Mytek AD96. With this rig, we were doing 4 tracks.

One day he brought in a Les Paul Classic that was about 15 years old or so. The guitar with the exact same rig sound 100x meaner. We simply doubled and the tone was MUCH more aggressive than the previous tone even with 4 tracks.

So, my point is that layering is the cherry on top. It's not the meat. Get a HUGE HUGE HUGE track doubled. It should sound so big and so mean doubled that you wonder if it's worth tracking the other two tracks. Then add the two tracks.

For a long time I was against anything more than 2 layers. I developed this tendency because I was recording a lot of guitar players who sounded way too chorusy with 4 tracks. Recently I did a shootout of something here on RecordingReview.com and I got up to 10 tracks before it sounded chorusy. So while my playing is VERY loose these days, it appears that I'm consistent enough to layer if needed. With that said, I preferred the sound of just 4 tracks to 10 tracks.

Brandon