Your Best Methods for Double Tracking Guitars?

Smeier_ch said:
Maybe some helpful tips:

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Thanks for posting this! The EQ trick is a new one on me.

For double-tracking rhythm guitar, in case anyone finds this useful ...

I’ve also played the same part twice, but one track the lower strings and the second track the higher strings. I’ll mute or dampen the strings I don’t want to hear on each take; sometimes cheating by using a piece of cloth or tissue under strings 6-4 or 3-1 - higher on the fretboard than the chords I’m playing. I’ll finger the full chords and just strum right through.

Another thing I’ve tried is splitting-up arpeggios into alternate notes. A simple example would be splitting an 8th note arpeggio and playing one track of the odd notes and the other track the even notes. It creates two overlapping quarter note arpeggios with one starting on the first downbeat and the other beginning on the second 8th note.

These ideas don’t always work and I haven’t used them in years. Used sparingly, they can sound kinda cool.

(After typing this, I realized this isn’t really what the OP was asking about!)
 
rushfan said:
One thing I like to do is have the same settings, but I might play with the highs - one will use treble to adjust the highs with the presence flat, and then vice versa - makes a difference, and they blend and separate well at the same time.
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Absolutely I’ve had really good results with that approach.. it kinda forces the sides apart from each other it seems when I do it that way.
 
Interesting how many posts I'm reading in this thread calling for very subtle differences in the takes, as subtle as a different guitar or no gear change at all. I've been doing the opposite, I think subtlety can be the enemy.

I have a higher gain, more compressed tone on the right playing more melodic and lead-y lines, and a more rhythmic tone with less gain and more brightness on the left. I use different amps, guitars, cabs, completely different tones and riffs, and it works for me in my style of playing.

However I see the appeal of keeping everything really tight, it's all about the sound in your head and what you want. There are times I want a tight tone to play exactly the same thing twice, sometimes switching these two techniques mid-song, so it really depends on your goal.
 
Repartee41 said:
Interesting how many posts I'm reading in this thread calling for very subtle differences in the takes, as subtle as a different guitar or no gear change at all. I've been doing the opposite, I think subtlety can be the enemy.

I have a higher gain, more compressed tone on the right playing more melodic and lead-y lines, and a more rhythmic tone with less gain and more brightness on the left. I use different amps, guitars, cabs, completely different tones and riffs, and it works for me in my style of playing.

However I see the appeal of keeping everything really tight, it's all about the sound in your head and what you want. There are times I want a tight tone to play exactly the same thing twice, sometimes switching these two techniques mid-song, so it really depends on your goal.
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Depends on what you are going for. With subtle differences you get more of a single cohesive tone that is big and wide. With more drastic differences it starts to sound more like two unique parts as opposed to one big one. Both are useful for different situations.
 
Thank you for all these great tips.

If you want to add a touch of reverb, do you record it at the individual tracks, from the Axe-FX, or do you send dry guitar tracks to a FX-Bus with a global reverb?

Most DAWs use stereo tracks by default. Do you set the tracks to Mono for the doubled guitars?
 
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Piing said:
Thank you for all these great tips.

If you want to add a touch of reverb, do you record it at the individual tracks, from the Axe-FX, or do you send dry guitar tracks to a FX-Bus with a global reverb?

Most DAWs use stereo tracks by default. Do you set the tracks to Mono for the doubled guitars?
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I usually add delays and reverbs in the DAW. Otherwise it can interfere with comping. Stereo tracks work fine for doubling. I always record at least 2 channel audio, one channel DI and one channel processed. So even though it’s mono, I put it on a stereo track.
 
Piing said:
Thank you for all these great tips.

If you want to add a touch of reverb, do you record it at the individual tracks, from the Axe-FX, or do you send dry guitar tracks to a FX-Bus with a global reverb?

Most DAWs use stereo tracks by default. Do you set the tracks to Mono for the doubled guitars?
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Great question... before I got my Axe FX3 I was using a Boss GT-001 which is their desktop version of the GT-1000... when I used that processor I would always put a medium room reverb at the end of the chain before going into my audio interface, and I got some pretty decent results double tracking in mono like that. Once I got my AX3, initially I tried the same approach with placing a medium room type reverb at the end of the chain before the output, and always recording a mono track in the DAW when double tracking. I found this to be sort of problematic and “phasy” sounding. I tried switching IR’s thinking that was the culprit, but same results. After a lonnng time of chasing my tail, I ended up taking the reverb out of the chain in Axe-Edit and just going Input-Amp-Cab-Output straight up. I’ve found this is much better for double tracking mono tracks into my DAW, and haven’t really found a better solution than this YET, but I’m sure there are plenty of other options.
 
I've made a quick take, for practicing. 3 tracks. Two panned 45L/45R, and one centered. No FX
How does it sound there? Please, criticize
 
Piing said:
I've made a quick take, for practicing. 3 tracks. Two panned 45L/45R, and one centered. No FX
How does it sound there? Please, criticize
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I'd recommend hard panning both tracks 100% and try adding a track up the center at about 1/3rd the volume.
 
Piing said:
Yes! It is getting better. Thank you.

First I tried 100L/100R and the center equal or louder than the panned, but that was not right.

This one is as you say: 100L/100R and center lowered
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Much better. I'd recommend lowering each panned track by about 1.5 dB to allow the center track to come up a bit, but that's just my preference.
 
I'm gonna go ahead and say there are no right answers. Plenty of commercially released songs recorded by popular bands have used different rhythm tones for each guitarist: Lamb of God, Slipknot, Mushroomhead, Sevendust... The biggest takeaway I can give when mixing rhythm guitars with two different amps is FOR THE LOVE OF GAWD, don't look at your meters; you need to use your ears when leveling the two against each other in the mix.
 
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