Double tracked guitar effect idea-patch setup question

Billbill

Billbill

Power User
Ok, I know this has been talked about before but I've got an idea I'd like to share. Note that no external pedal gizmos will be used.
We all know how it's near impossible to get that tight double tracked effect live with only one guitar. Some patches can get close in stereo with some chorus, delay, enhancer ect.
If I get a 2nd FRFR cab and split the signal with the same patch but having one cab EQ'd slightly different with a slightly different delay setting on that cab than the other cab, I think it would be almost dead on! How would I set up a single patch to do that? It's kind of like having a single patch with two outputs but only half the signal going to the other cab which has different settings in that output! Make sense? What are some thoughts and opinions?
 
stereo outputs and hard pan things. or you could use the FX Loop block and Out 2 if you really wanted to.
 
Simulated double tracking is way better in stereo than in mono. Many people will tell you that stereo doesn't work for live audiences but I've heard it work in small and large theaters very convincingly, including effects like auto-pan, doubling, split dry and wet, and more. I've also seen artists grow to the point of playing small arenas, at which point they need to give this up and return to mono.
 
I have had great luck using just pitch block. I set voice 1 -9 and voice 2 +9, (I'm not in front of my AXE to look), and add slight delay on voice 2. Unlike chorus that tends to pulsate or change, the pitch stays the same widening the guitar signal, making it fatter and double sounding, (Think John Lennon vocals). I'm sure there are many ways to achieve this. but my rig is set to Mono and this works for me.
 
Tommy Tempest said:
I have had great luck using just pitch block. I set voice 1 -9 and voice 2 +9, (I'm not in front of my AXE to look), and add slight delay on voice 2. Unlike chorus that tends to pulsate or change, the pitch stays the same widening the guitar signal, making it fatter and double sounding, (Think John Lennon vocals). I'm sure there are many ways to achieve this. but my rig is set to Mono and this works for me.
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I think you forgot to mention that you are using the Detune type...
 
+1 on this. This is very similar to the settings EVH uses. Think the Balance album type modulation fx.
 
I run stereo whenever I can. Just sounds better to my ears. A touch of detune can fatten it up, but I rarely use that sound live.
 
Admin M@ said:
Simulated double tracking is way better in stereo than in mono. Many people will tell you that stereo doesn't work for live audiences but I've heard it work in small and large theaters very convincingly, including effects like auto-pan, doubling, split dry and wet, and more. I've also seen artists grow to the point of playing small arenas, at which point they need to give this up and return to mono.
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Why would they switch to mono?
 
unix-guy said:
Because it's very hard to make a stereo image work well in "large" setting. Most FOH is not stereo...
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So is it as if stereo in a rather large setting might add too much ambiance to an already sorta wider signal so they choose mono to tighten things up?
 
I think widening a signal via chorusing effects is fine for that purpose, but I don't think it's worth trying to make one guitar sound like two. The value of a twin-guitar approach is in the complementary playing and phrasing, not in the chorusing. I don't find it ever convincingly replicates two guitars, and it has no positive cost-benefit ratio for pursuing that.

Listen to EVH's detuned "wide" tone from the later years - it doesn't sound like two EVHs, it sounds like one EVH with a wet tone. I think the philosophical difference matters, and changes how you approach this.
 
Billbill said:
So is it as if stereo in a rather large setting might add too much ambiance to an already sorta wider signal so they choose mono to tighten things up?
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No... The stereo image is highly dependant on the position of the listener's ears and the sound source.

In a simple example, if you have a listener at the center of the left and right speakers (think of a triangle) they will get a pretty good stereo image. As they move further to the left or right, the stereo becomes unbalanced.

Now imagine this in an arena setting with many speakers in various locations, and lots of listeners... Almost nobody would get a good stereo image
 
Hello everybody, I have been experimenting with a Mimiq pedal in the effects loop, with two different amps up front, panned hard left, hard right. Mimiq dry and wet hard right and left also, in the simplest doubling mode.

Every time I engage it, it sounds good for a few seconds until it modulates, which is a very audible glitch and not good, including a tonal change for the worse. In other words, the glitching mostly negates the occasionally nice doubling effect. My Eventide H3000SE did this better. I'm guessing even it's ancient processor and programming is more capable than a small stomp box, as the H3000SE delay parameters include splice length and crossfade, things which I'm starting to think are much more important to creating a realistic doubling effect than it might seem, compared to pitch and dynamic variations.

Maybe any parameter modulation which hopes to mimic, pun intended, real variances in the time domain of a performance will have a hard time doing so if it's modulation is determined by a continuous linear function. Maybe each strike of the string is a new event, unconnected to the previous one, except through the decay/sustain it leaves behind which is ended by the next pick attack, which is a kind of millisecond splice and crossfade between the notes or chords. Maybe the notable tonal shift with the Mimiq modulation occurs because there is no or very minimal splice/crossfades, which then results in phase shifts?

I haven't used my H3000SE in a while, but I will be soon. IIRC, I had it set to a random value LFO generator which toggles between ms values in a range between 0 and 20 ms and holds them for random lengths, with the crossfades/splices between the delay times set for the longest/smoothest crossfades. I remember that while there were tonal differences during modulation, it was a lot less than what I'm hearing with the Mimiq. It will be interesting to compare them next to each other

Does any of this make sense? If so, then the questions become, how to best randomize delay times for realism, and how to finesse crossfades and splice lengths to minimize phase shifts specifically for a doubling program, I think?!
 
I use his technique in every patch, and although it's a great sound, it still doesn't sound like a double tracked guitar, IMO.
 
Almost only use stereo as we only play bars. Hava to admit that recording is easier in mono doubling the tracks. Still I wonder, question to M@: is Edge playing mono setup when doing all these great.arenas ?
 
There are several ways you can approximate a double-tracked sound. Each way involves separation.
  1. Separation in time — use a delay;
  2. Separation in space — pan left/right;
  3. Separation in frequency — use pitch shift/detune;
  4. Separation in tone — use different amp and cab sims, different effects...the sky is the limit.
Each of these things will help you get closer to a double-tracked sound, but there's no perfect substitute for actually recording a part twice.
 
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