How to make Your guitars stand out in the mix

When I record guitar my guitar always seems to be buried in the mix. How to I make it stand out more and be thicker and have more mids without having a super scooped mid tone or a cocked wah sound. I play metal and would be looking for a megadeth rust in peace iron maiden powerslave metallica tone

Hockey39boy39 wrote:

When I record guitar my guitar always seems to be buried in the mix. How to I make it stand out more and be thicker and have more mids without having a super scooped mid tone or a cocked wah sound. I play metal and would be looking for a megadeth rust in peace iron maiden powerslave metallica tone

Could you please tell me how do you record your guitar and some of your gear info?

If you feel that your guitar lacks mids try to add more from the amp and not from eq.
Having a nice source helps you save some time editing later.

If your guitars seem buried and you want them to be thicker try quadtracking.
That means recording 4 seperate tracks and pan them accordingly (80/100 left - 80/100 Right)

One more thing: Cutting some mids from bass will also help the guitars to stand out.

I am waiting for your reply

Heloo I'll add some which I think is related to this post. I'm having a big problem when recording SOLO guitar, I mean crazy stuff like licks, leads and so on... What tips do you recommend to record it, cause Solo guitar I think must be in front of the listeners face and must be louder then other instruments. Or maybe it needs an EQ help to reach a good result.

P.S. Sorry for adding this post But i think it's related to this.

arnoldase wrote:

Heloo I'll add some which I think is related to this post. I'm having a big problem when recording SOLO guitar, I mean crazy stuff like licks, leads and so on... What tips do you recommend to record it, cause Solo guitar I think must be in front of the listeners face and must be louder then other instruments. Or maybe it needs an EQ help to reach a good result.

P.S. Sorry for adding this post But i think it's related to this.

Well kinda you answered your own question haha.

Let's go:
1) Especially in solos put a hipass filter so you can eliminate the remaining "headroom".
2) Try to boost the mids of the solo, so you can bring the guitar to the front.
3) You can also reduce the same frequency that you boosted to step 2 to your hard panned guitars.
4) Solo should be near center.
5) Use a little reverb to make it shine. (using too much puts the solo back and we don't want that)
6) Use 2 delays panned hard left and hard right. Send your solo to them but juuuust a little bit.
7) Solo should be a little louder yes.

The worst advice of a solo to be in front of the mix is to just... "turn it WAY UP"

You don't have to use all of them. Just try them and tell me what you've got!
I am waiting fellow



(hm i see a new topic on the horizon )

Let me add something important:

Playing the upper harmonics of a solo really help it stand out and add an interesting sweet sound

I am currently recording my guitar through my zoom audio interface. I am using vst plugins usually always amplitube 3 and I use impulses. On YouTube the video by fearcomplexmusic where he uses the amplitube modern lead amp with guitarhack impulses sounds amazing. I was wondering if anyone knows the impulses that he used because I am trying to get a similar sound to that. What vst do you usually put on your rhythm guitar tracks such as reverb eq tube saturation etc?

By the way, this is a great forum and thanks for all the help. Sorry I couldn't post a link to the video because I'm on my iPod.

Hockey39boy39 wrote:

I am currently recording my guitar through my zoom audio interface. I am using vst plugins usually always amplitube 3 and I use impulses. On YouTube the video by fearcomplexmusic where he uses the amplitube modern lead amp with guitarhack impulses sounds amazing. I was wondering if anyone knows the impulses that he used because I am trying to get a similar sound to that. What vst do you usually put on your rhythm guitar tracks such as reverb eq tube saturation etc?

By the way, this is a great forum and thanks for all the help. Sorry I couldn't post a link to the video because I'm on my iPod.

Thank you for your kind words

In many videos he uses:

JJ Powertubes (Folder) ->
Guitarhack JJ FRED 45-0 and
Guitarhack JJ FRED 45-1

He uses some real preamps too, ENGL 530 for example through an orange cab.

---
I add a bit of saturation, some basic eq like hi and low pass filters and here's what I do with reverb:

I have 3 tracks with the same reverb. Two of them are hard panned left/right and one in the center. The reverb tracks must be at 100% mix.
What I do is to send each intrument to 1 (or more if needed) of the reverb tracks and adjust how much to send from the send faders.

So each instrument has its own place of "depth" and makes the mix feels more like it's in a room.
In metal music subtle settings are usually the best choice but feel free to experiment!

Hope I helped. Waiting for your response

By "Three tracks with the same reverb"...
Do you mean that you have three seperate takes of the RHYTHM part?

J3FFR3Y2692 wrote:

By "Three tracks with the same reverb"...
Do you mean that you have three seperate takes of the RHYTHM part?

No no no. I mean...

Create 3 new empty tracks. Load the same reverb to each track and let the wet mix be at 100%.
Leave the reverb faders untouched

Send your instruments to one (or more) of the reverbs by the "send" fader.

Do you know how to send it? Need help?

yes I do need help

Let's say that you have a bass and 4 guitars.

You have 1 track for your bass, 4 tracks for each guitar and 3 tracks with reverb loaded (1 hard panned left, one hard panned right and one at the center).

You listen to your mix and you want to add some reverb to your bass for example. You WONT open your vst to add the reverb. Instead of it you send your bass track to one of your reverbs (middle is actually the best choice in this situation). When you send it you 'll hear your bass with 100% reverb.

You dont want that so you open your IO (Inpout/Output) Window of your bass track and reduce the "send" fader so that your bass uses less reverb from the reverb track that you sent it.

In this case you save lots of cpu power and creating some space to your mix.

Do you need further information? I am here to help

Thank you. I understand now.

Guys..What i'm NOW doing for the guitars is, recording two separate tracks, and pan them "%85" !! This is the sweet spot, which i've found for my guitars..hard panning creates a hole in the middle of record, %50 sounds not really "stereo", 85 is the exact position for me to both filling the gap and not losing the stereo image..And dont forget to make "slip editing"

Admin wrote:

Let's say that you have a bass and 4 guitars.

You have 1 track for your bass, 4 tracks for each guitar and 3 tracks with reverb loaded (1 hard panned left, one hard panned right and one at the center).

You listen to your mix and you want to add some reverb to your bass for example. You WONT open your vst to add the reverb. Instead of it you send your bass track to one of your reverbs (middle is actually the best choice in this situation). When you send it you 'll hear your bass with 100% reverb.

You dont want that so you open your IO (Inpout/Output) Window of your bass track and reduce the "send" fader so that your bass uses less reverb from the reverb track that you sent it.

In this case you save lots of cpu power and creating some space to your mix.

Do you need further information? I am here to help

!!!
i never knew what sends where really about and didnt think they were important until now, WOW!!!! i think this is the best website/forum that ever existed and such freindly and helpfull people who own this site. cant thank u guys enuff

Slammer88 wrote:

Guys..What i'm NOW doing for the guitars is, recording two separate tracks, and pan them "%85" !! This is the sweet spot, which i've found for my guitars..hard panning creates a hole in the middle of record, %50 sounds not really "stereo", 85 is the exact position for me to both filling the gap and not losing the stereo image..And dont forget to make "slip editing"

I agree that hard panning creates a hole and when dualtracking 85% seems to be good choice yeah

When quadtracking this hole of the 100% hard panning is covered by the 2 added takes that usually are at 80%. So 100% isn't a bad option when quadtracking in my opinion.

Cool tip slammer!

Quote :

!!!
i never knew what sends where really about and didnt think they were important until now, WOW!!!! i think this is the best website/forum that ever existed and such freindly and helpfull people who own this site. cant thank u guys enuff

You made me blush hahaha!

Thanks my friend for all your kind words. You can't imagine how happy I am when a new member joins and shares his love for this music.

If you'd like to thank me and... help me, just promote the sites if you want. Just this, nothing else. Spread the word

Thanks again and let the music play

a nice way for laying rythyms on a heavier track is to have
one track with a little more gain and another that is a little drier.

think: a recto tone panned slightly opposite a marshall tone.

good example: Marco Sfogli's-theres hope

nowadays, i prefer panning 2 tracks hard, grouping them in one track and adding a Redline Monitor vst at the beginning of the chain

What it does actually is, makes your headphones treat like a pair of Reference Monitors, thanks to this little VST, your entire mix sounds more "centered", termly.. But if you have real monitors, u shouldnt use them, as it sounds like crap in the whole mix..BUT, me, as Slammer88 the Sound Innovator, tried this trick ONLY on guitars, and voila! MY guitars sound better than EVER! It doesnt only lose its stereo image/panning, but also comes from the center of the mix This trick can be heard in my latest demo named "mosh", in the topic named "Newest Mix"

Slammer88 wrote:

nowadays, i prefer panning 2 tracks hard, grouping them in one track and adding a Redline Monitor vst at the beginning of the chain

What it does actually is, makes your headphones treat like a pair of Reference Monitors, thanks to this little VST, your entire mix sounds more "centered", termly.. But if you have real monitors, u shouldnt use them, as it sounds like crap in the whole mix..BUT, me, as Slammer88 the Sound Innovator, tried this trick ONLY on guitars, and voila! MY guitars sound better than EVER! It doesnt only lose its stereo image/panning, but also comes from the center of the mix This trick can be heard in my latest demo named "mosh", in the topic named "Newest Mix"

so how do u apply this redline monitor to guitar tracks, im interested to know how it works. Any settings u can share please?
thanks in advance

by adding it as fx mate

Slammer88 wrote:

by adding it as fx mate

i mean like do u use it on each side like left and right or just on the left? or maybe right? or both and like what do i have to listen for? sorry to bother you mate

P.S I used to work with a guy from turkey who was a rigger on a gas plant a few years ago and his name was metin, always used to say mate
i thought aussies were the only ones that said that

u'll use it on group channel, in which u have already binded to separate channels

Almost every time I boost guitars around 500hz I find it helps, thickens things up a lot and pushes the body of the tone to the front. A cut around 250hz might then be required to keep things under control.

Hi

I also pan at 85-90%. It also helps if one side of your Ipod headphones fails on lonely walk home from the pub!!!

if quadtracking, how do you guys adjust the loudness of the 80-20 guitars?

wins0n wrote:

if quadtracking, how do you guys adjust the loudness of the 80-20 guitars?

you mean of the 80-80 guitars?
usually the same volume as the 100-100 guitars or a couple of dbs down in order for the mix to breathe!