To Quad or not to Quad?

I'm new to this, so I might be embarassing myself asking something like this...but...

Let's assume that you have three guitars in your band, of which the two guitars play in unison for the most parts of the songs and the third adds an additional layer of arpeggiated themes, leads or chords, but from time to time all the guitars may play in unison, or maybe each will play something totally different, or play the same riff and harmonize the ending lick of the riff in a different way (let's say the first guitars play the lick the second plays 4ths and the third plays 6ths). On top of all that there are solos too...

...so...what do I do????

Quadtrack and pan the two guitars that mostly play the riffs and put the guitar that plays the extra layer in the center?...Assuming this might occur even for the whole duration of a song, wouldn't that overburden the mix? And what happens when all three guitars play the same riff but resolve in a different lick (like what I described above)? Total chaos? The dead will rise from their graves? Do I switch momentarily from quadtracking to ,let's say, tripletracking (if there is such a thing) and then back again to quadtracking when that riff is over?Is that an option? Or stick with quadtracking the two guitars, putting the third one in the middle resulting in a total of five guitars playing the main body of the riff and potentially killing small animals in a 100m radius with the way it will sound?

I'm asking this, cause doubletracking sounds too thin and most of the songs are mid tempo speed with occasional speed bursts .So I'm looking for the right balance to achieve this kind of layering implementing quadtracking and retain the thickness of the sound. And no, it's not instrumental music, there are vocals on top of all these layers there too...

....or should I give it a rest and go drink a beer or something?...

That idea about the beer sounds nice

Don't know about the tracking... Maybe trying quadtracking only the rythm guitars, so that you can end up with 5 guitar tracks, the usual 100%-80% panning L/R for the quadtracked guitars, and maybe the lead in the dead center of the mix.

I guess it's all experimentation, if you feel comfortable layering so much guitar tracks, then go with it.

Sorry i'm not an expert, and possibly not the most qualified guy in the forum to give proper advice.

But hey sharing a beer is always good

As FearComplexMusic mentioned:

"Only Quad Track (4 individual performances, 2 panned left, 2 right) if you're tight. Anything other than tight as nails tracking can and will lead to a weird phasey hollow sound. Also, I find dual tracking (with more gain per track) works better for the super fast technical stuff, quad (with less gain per track) for the slower heavier chunky palm mute material."

Quadtracking the rhythms and adding the extra-lead guitar to the center sounds a nice idea to me.
But it will be a pain in the ass with so many layers and vocals too. But you can fix that:

Equalizer!!!

If the vocals are buried into the mix cause of the guitar layers find what frequencies the vocal needs to be on the top of the mix and instead of boosting them... Go and cut them from your guitar group. That the way the vocals wont change tone, the guitars will make some room to the mix and you'll have quadtracking (fat guitars) and clear vocals.

Sometimes panning the guitars 85% with Dual-tracking and adding delay to one guitar (about 12 to 25%ms) can really help them to be fat.

Try all the above and please let me know if the above work for you. If not we'll try more.

NickChaos wrote:

I'm new to this, so I might be embarassing myself asking something like this...but...

No you are not.

Wolfshade wrote:

Don't know about the tracking... Maybe trying quadtracking only the rythm guitars, so that you can end up with 5 guitar tracks, the usual 100%-80% panning L/R for the quadtracked guitars, and maybe the lead in the dead center of the mix.

Lead guitar can be placed near center too not only dead center. Sometimes its even better cause bass and vocals are dead center and compete each other. Its all about balance with the frequencies and space

experimentation baby!

Ah...maybe...I should convince one of the other guitarists to pick up a different instrument, like an ukulele, a banjo, or something like that...

Thanks for your replies, this forum is really fuckin' awesome, I'm gonna try some of the stuff you suggested.

I'm concerned though, cause I'm currently listening a bit more carefully to Periphery, which have quite a similar layer thingy going on, only to find out that that extra layer of guitar tends constantly to get completely lost behind the vocals and the rythm guitars, creating only a vague ambience, and is just highlighted from time to time (usually when the other guitars are resting), which is what I want to avoid...I want that third guitar to be treated as a rythm guitar too, not just a lead...Maybe what I'm going for is implausible....

NickChaos wrote:

Ah...maybe...I should convince one of the other guitarists to pick up a different instrument, like an ukulele, a banjo, or something like that...

Thanks for your replies, this forum is really fuckin' awesome, I'm gonna try some of the stuff you suggested.

I'm concerned though, cause I'm currently listening a bit more carefully to Periphery, which have quite a similar layer thingy going on, only to find out that that extra layer of guitar tends constantly to get completely lost behind the vocals and the rythm guitars, creating only a vague ambience, and is just highlighted from time to time (usually when the other guitars are resting), which is what I want to avoid...I want that third guitar to be treated as a rythm guitar too, not just a lead...Maybe what I'm going for is implausible....

sounds like automated reverb to me.
as you know reverb push the instument "back". less reverb or no reverb is more "to your face" sound. thats what they are doing:
they change the settings in certain parts of the song (as volume, reverb and stuff) and bring them back to normal when this exclusive part is over.
This is automation.

what you want to achieve is easier. cause you wont need to automate things.
if you want to treat the 5th guitar just like the others just use the same settings of reverb as the other guitar layers.
Well not exactly the same but dont not make it so different, get my point?

Waiting for your response

well..quad tracking needs really tight playing not to occur "phase" problems, if you are not a Petrucci or something and still insist on doing quad tracking, try making it thru simple songs first, like 2-3 chorded Hardcore songs (no offense ppl, i'm a hardcore fan as well, but its nothing more than 3 chords at all ) then improve it by the time

i am not tight (yet) so i think i will go with dual-tracking

no worriez, u can improve yourself in a short time