Hi,

Faced with only a single mono guitar track and no chance of getting it double tracked or redone, how would you go about making it have a bigger sound in a mix without chorusing? I've tried copying it and then EQing both differently, hard panning and delaying one slightly,but I don't like the chorusing that this produces and it also tends to thin out the sound a bit (maybe I'm doing it wrong). Also tried Soundtoys Microshift and Alterboy but these also make a chorus type sound that I'm trying to avoid. I tried having the guitar mostly on the left and adding a single fast delay only on the other side but as it's only guitar bass and drums this leaves the right side a bit lacking. Anybody got any good mixing tricks to share or should I just make it mono?

Cheers!

 

I think you ran out of my tricks already, lol. I would try some mid/size processing and see how it goes. You could also try a stereo delay hi passed just to add a bit of chime to the upper frequencies (this works well with clean guitars).

Which btw, we don't know which type of guitar track you're having trouble with.

 

Try NuGen Audio Stereoizer, Waves S1 Stereo imager, Ozone imager,... Also duplicating stances of mono track and panning left and right with delay and little pitch shift will do the job. Use Stereo delay as well.

 

try run it through a guitar amp sim w/ cab. add slight reverb underneath.

I like the ADT idea above too.

 

Thanks! I just tried ADT and although it flanges the high notes in long held chords even with the lfo dropped right down, it's a lot better than anything I've tried so far. Followed it with Kclip to big it up and maybe I can get some dynamic EQ or something worked out to fix the flangey ringing bits, or just try to hide it with cymbals.

 

It's already recorded through an amp but I'll try putting a panned copy through just a speaker sim to see if it sounds any better than what I'm getting from ADT.

 

Reel ADT should work if you kill the central signal and just use the panned pair, play with it for a while, it works.......you could also try Revoice Pro with some subtle changes to the original, the presets are a bit naff but you'll get whatcha want with gentle tweaks, then try all the above again.

 

Yeah I tried Revoice and it's good apart from the odd bits where it goes flangey and chorusy. I got a good result from hard panning a copy through Recabinet and delaying it 1ms but I preferred the sound of the ADT version even with the flanging. The guitarist might just have to live with it.

 

And how complicated is that track? Maybe some buddy could track it again for you?

 

Try micing up your monitors with different mics, and mess about with the positions. Record the result and mix in to taste. Should give some stereo interest

 

You may have tried these but you never know. http://www.tenthegg.co.uk/tips/t016/

 

Re-amping and counterpanning. Haas Effect (just beware of comb filtering). Counterpanned short room reverb, or even a tad chorus.

But nothing beats dubbing. Even with just one track of guitar you usually have the guitar playing repetative patterns all over intro, verse, prechorus, chorus, etc. Just copy/paste these parts to a new track and counter-pan this new track against the original track. This way you get the ultimate - dubbing (doubletracking).

 

Last edited: May 11, 2018

If it's a distorted guitar, do the Van Halen trick. Guitar panned hard left (dry), plate reverb with long predelay hard right (100% wet).
Bobby Owinski does a variation on it with the PSP 2445 plugin. Try it. Might be just what you are looking for.

 

Revoice Pro has a doubler that I've tried on vocals and it did pretty good. If I remember correctly, I tried it on a guitar track and got good results.

 

Cut it up.

Usually pop songs have repeating patterns and parts. That way you can have two different takes of a verse, for example. If there's not enough material for every part of the song, be creative. Cut up accent hits with the right chord, put some delay on them etc. Then pan & treat to taste.

 

I have dealt with this problem as well. All the reverb and panning and reamping tricks in the world DON'T WORK here. The method which RIOT7 mentioned can work if there's enough material. The best solution for me is to just fill the space that is left with other guitar tracks. If the track is a melody or a solo, you can put it in the middle and play the basic chords left and right. If it's more like a rhythm pattern, you could pan that to one side and do the basic chord to that pattern on the other side. If you are unable to play the basic pattern, use Shreddage, Prominy V-Metal or UJAM guitars.

 

Lot of good answers on here already. What I would do is timestretch it with ableton's complex pro warp mode and pull the front early by 1/128-1/32 of a beat and pull the end late by 1/28-1/32 of a beat. That way it will alter the timing of one side without just plainly making the one side late. This gives a more transparent sound to me and doesn't make the guitar "lean" in any one direction. Also I would use a guitar amp sim and make 2 different amp sounds that are similar but different, and pan them opposite each other. Also if the guitar has a lot of repeptitive riffs I would cut up the riffs and hard pan those. Like if the same riff is played four times in a row, I would chop it up four ways, then pan them against each other in different ways. At the end of the chain I would use a waves doubler type effect, which just delays the right and left channel by a small amount and detunes it by a small amount, I would put that near the end. I would also maybe grab an H delay and use a very short (ms) delay and a lot of feedback, and use very small amounts of the warp function which I believe just slightly oscilattes the tuning of the delay. I make 2 different but similar versions of the h delay, hard pan them, and then layer that ever so slightly back in the original sound. Also as others have mentioned, the waves ADT is a great tool.

With all of this make sure to check mono compatibility. I would usually use all of these techniques. Work flow would likely be, time stretch> Waves ADT> Amp Sim> H delay> doubler.

 

Bass guitar
Common mistake is people try to make the guitars sound bigger, when it's the bass that really gives the punch/meat. Not sure what genre you are going for? But rock/metal, I have a DI bass and a distorted bass to a buss. Cut the bass from the guitar tracks and blend to taste

 

See this https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...rXsk7rfD-94yuL6LiwQ0QCzOYn2wlDLZhNhz6/pubhtml