Recording Guitar with Axe-Fx III

Crash Monarch

Crash Monarch

Member
I am an experienced guitar player with only a few years experience recording with ProTools. I also believe I'm still a long way from unlocking the Axe's full potential.

I had been recording my guitar parts (guitar into Axe FxIII into ProTools) two tracks at a time: One stereo track using effected sound from the Axe, and one mono DI track that could be later re-amped if necessary. I would record the two tracks simultaneously, so they were the same take. I had been very satisfied with the guitar sounds in my recordings while using this method. To this point, the re-amping potential was there but I actually hadn't felt the need to do that much since the Axe sound I recorded was so great.

Recently, I gave a rough mix to a friend of mine who is an experienced mixing / mastering guy. One of his criticisms was of my guitar. He says even though I'm using a stereo track (the one wet with Axe sound), I'm not getting a truly stereo guitar sound. He says maybe the effects coming off the Axe are in stereo, but the guitar is sounding 'up the middle'. He is recommending I change my whole approach to recording guitar. He recommends two mono takes of the same guitar part, panned hard L and R. He also recommends no time based effects on the recording, saying I should add these to the guitar using my Aux Reverb and Aux Delay channels.

Though I appreciate his honest criticism and his experience, this has me confused, dismayed, and a little depressed. Why did I buy the Axe if I'm only using it to model amps? The primary reason I bought the Axe was to make recording guitar easier and to make it sound better.

So, all you experienced Axe users.....what do you think about all this? What approach do you think is most effective? How can I get the full recording potential out of my Axe while recording in ProTools?

Thanks for your time everybody!
 
Printing with effects was often avoided in the past because if gave you more options later in the process. For example, if you recorded with reverb and later decide you don't like that reverb or it doesn't fit the mix, you were kind of stuck with it. That is not the case with the Axe FX, because you can easily reamp the track and change the effects or amp tone and re-record the track any time you want. You just have to do that tweaking on the Axe FX or in Axe Edit instead of in Pro Tools. Different means to the same end.

As for the stereo thing, guitar is typically a mono source. There are many different ways to spread that between stereo channels. Double tracking as he suggested is just one of them. It depends entirely on what you are trying to achieve in your mix.
 
I think, your friend is mostly right. I would most often record my guitars dry, because it is much easier to determine the need for reverbs and delays during the mix phase. However, It is possible to record the dry signal from the amp, a DI signal, AND the wet signal on a separate track. Then you get mix ready sounds, and the engineer gets wet and dry signal on separate faders.

I think he is totally right that if you want a stereo sound, the best approach is to double track the guitars.
 
I have very little experience with DAW's, having never really been into recording.
So as an attempt to dabble, I got a new PC with Windows 10, put Protools on there, and also I have Reaper. But I can't get either of them to work with the Axe-Fx III. On Protools, there is no input detected, and on Reaper there is no output detected. I looked everywhere for a beginners guide to the settings required to make them work, but it's like a black art, as if basically nobody wants you to know how to set it up. Bizarre. Shouldn't this be made to be simple these days?
 
@Crash Monarch I agree that two mono takes (double tracking) will generally be wider and more divergent than a stereo track played with a single guitar; your friend is technically incorrect, however, in saying that the latter isn't "truly stereo".

I think you owe it to yourself to do some double-tracking experiments! Once you get beyond the basics of this, you will find loads of material on creative approaches including increasing the number of layers, changing sound settings on some tracks in a layer, using different guitars or tunings, etc. Sounds to me like you're at a fun place along the path of discovery, with lots of enjoyable results to come.

When creating a track stack in this way, most people will add "post" effects during mixing but not always. Pre-FX are another story!
 
Spread wet/dry is another common technique. Dry amp tone to one side and reverb and delay to the other. You can combine it with double tracking too, panning each doubled track's effects to the opposite side. Great for more ambient sounds but still has separation.
 
I track stereo and also pan those tracks left and right. I also record music doused in time-based effects, so I 100% have those on during recording. Trying to add those after tracking would be unwise for me.

I think your friends' issue is mostly with panning and double tracking. Guitars usually dont go straight up the middle on albums.

You can also go 200% stereo spread on some effects.

Try tracking a simple delay rhythm (stereo or mono), pan it 100% left. Make a new track, copy that track and pan 50% left. Record the same part (not copying) with slightly different settings (say add 10% to the mids) , pan 100% right. Copy that track to a new track and pan 50% right.

See how that sounds versus what you've tracked before.
 
To avoid the "Did I just buy the Axe-FX for only amps?" thing, just think a lot of hi-end studios rely on outboard gear for their FX, specially Delays, Reverb... You know the names: TC Electronic, Lexicon, Eventide... Once you recorded and/or re-amped your dry tracks, try to think about the Axe-FX as an outboard FX unit.

I'm also experimenting with this, sending my recorded dry tracks to the Axe for FX only and still on the trial and error phase, but the results seems to be much better that recording wet tracks from the beginning.
 
Crash Monarch said:
Though I appreciate his honest criticism and his experience, this has me confused, dismayed, and a little depressed. Why did I buy the Axe if I'm only using it to model amps? The primary reason I bought the Axe was to make recording guitar easier and to make it sound better.
Click to expand...

It depends on what result you want to get. If you’re aiming to get a professional (or as close as possible) mix/sound, then yes: you should record your tracks dry and apply ambience effects via Aux channels. That makes it a lot easier for the audio engineer to find the right amount of, say, reverb or delay. Sometimes it requires quite a bit of tweaking while listening, before committing for the final sound.

That said, you can do all of this with your Axe-FX III as well. While reamping, you can change the effects blocks setting to achieve the result. That of course takes more time, as you need to reamp e re-print all the guitar tracks with different settings, and maybe more than once. A lot faster and easier to add reverb and delay with DAW plugins. IMHO.
 
Everyone has an opinion, and while I'm sure your friend's is more credible than many, ultimately it's you who needs to be happy with the tone you're getting.

As mentioned already, one thing that helps is hard panning guitars L/R. I will say you should be careful with the amount of effects used when recording, with the Enhancer in particular being one you should try to recreate naturally in a recording rather than using the effect (my preference as it tends to sound a bit wonky when I record with it). With that being said, the delay's are usually fine to record with, then you can add the necessary processing/mixing (EQ, Reverb, Compression, etc.) afterwards.

To sum it up, I wouldn't necessarily say you should go completely dry and use your DAW's effects for mixing, but I wouldn't use all the effects in a preset when recording either. Just be selective and use your ear. If it sounds good, it may just be good. Sure there are likely some tweaks to your presets, settings, and so forth that could be made that would adjust how your tone is perceived, but a lot of the engineering trickery can be accomplished after the fact once your tone is 70-80% there already. Recently I've been looking to possibly revamp my recording process as well, as lately my guitar is tracking rather thin and sterile. I'm sure it has something to do with the settings. But don't overcomplicate things, guitar engineering and recording is complicated enough already.
 
Personally I feel like it depends on who's mixing it too. If I'm working on a track that I know I'll be working with, I'll print effects to the take and reamp if needed, with it being only me that needs to take extra time to adjust it. However, if send that to someone else to mix, I'd ask if they want effects printed or dry. In regards to stereo, the double tracking (or quad tracking) will give you a wide sound. But a stereo effected signal is still stereo. A lot of times stereo in guitar is also in reference to using two different amps and cabs at the same time. Which the Axe can do really easily.
 
I've created templates in Reaper that allow me to reamp two "mono" tracks at once. I record a left part, then an identical right part, then setup a preset with identical (or non-identical) amps and cabs, each path only processing one of the guitars. I can reamp the two hard-panned parts at once, and add effect to them in the mix. I sometimes then add a third part in the center afterward with a slight chorus (100% mix, triangle lfo).

I don't quite understand the original post. Reamping and recording with the Axe is extremely easy and versatile. Also, the latest "Stereoizer" Enhancer mode is a great way to have a single guitar sound "not up the middle" without sounding chorused. I use it a lot for solos.
 
Where is your Cab block in the chain? Is it set up stereo? You could be putting stereo effects in front of a cab block which is set up mono. It took me a while when I first got my AXE 3 to figure out why everything sounded mono even with a ton of stereo chorus on. Anyway, I double track everything dry, pan hard left and right, and effect latter. Better, bigger sound with more mix control.
 
Your friends advice has nothing to do with the Axe Fx. It's a very well known and basic method of recording guitar. If you are expecting a shortcut to the dynamics of layering tracks, the Axe does have options.
Some albums have 4 tracks or more of the same part to make it sound bigger, sometimes using a combination of different amps (to that effect, the Axe will help as you have many). I like to create presets with dual amp channels, for example I have a customized Petrucci rig preset with a Recto amp added to the iic+ to fatten up the sound. The stereo enhancer helps as noted above, but the dynamics of layering uniquely tracked parts is something you have to try and see if it helps.
Some artists only use a mono track and it works perfectly fine. Have fun experimenting to find something that sounds good to you.
 
For rock and metal, it's been common practice in studios for decades to record rhythm guitar parts twice (both in mono) and pan one track hard left and the other hard right. That's what's referred to as double-tracking. If you compare the result to a guitar recorded once in stereo, you'll find that double-tracking creates a far wider stereo image, adds more depth and definition, and thickens up the sound. You don't have to record guitar parts in mono when double-tracking, but that's the standard convention.
 
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