Multitracking Guitar

[Username™]

Hi, I'm a home recording noob, so please forgive the beginner question that has probably been asked many times before - to be clear, I have searched for an answer, but nothing I can find answers the questions I have precisely enough.

Anyway, my question is about multitracking and doubling guitar parts, and how many is too many - I know "it depends," but bear with me.

One of the sounds I'm going for is similar to the Dinosaur Jr. album Green Mind. On that album, there is a lot of acoustic guitar mixed in to accentuate to electric rhythm parts with the attack of the strumming. I know this is probably common to lots of artists but I just mention Dinosaur Jr. as a reference.

If I want to achieve a similar sound, I'm basically wondering should I double a distorted electric with a clean acoustic? Or should I double the electric part, as well as the acoustic part (i.e, 4 total tracks)? I don't want to get things too muddy, but I want to be able to, say, drop the electrics out for a section and I worry about the remaining acoustic track being too thin if it isn't doubled (and hard panned by itself, although that itself cousl also be done well, I suppose).

Sorry for the rambling, confusing question - I hope I'm being clear enough. Thank you.

[Drew Stephenson]

"It depends" is of course the correct answer here, but you knew that.

A couple of things I would suggest thinking about.
1) try double tracking both parts. It gives you the ability to balance things across the stereo field easily and, let's face it, it's easy to press mute!
2) Just because you've recorded a track that goes through the entire song doesn't mean it has to be there in the mix. If it's actually only needed in half of a verse, or just popping in on the second half of the chorus, then just use it there.
3) Have a think about what aspect of the sound you actually need. An acoustic guitar, for example, can have everything from the low boom of the body through to the high frequencies of the transients as your pick hits the strings. Most of the time I'd be very surprised if you need that full range. EQ accordingly depending on what you need.
4) It doesn't have to sound natural on its own, it just has to sound good in the mix. So again you can be pretty heavy on the EQ in the busier sections and just back off a bit if there's any sections where the sound is more exposed.
5) If you do have some guitar that is feeling a bit 'thin' then it's often easier to fatten it up with a subtle keyboard pad than with more guitar.

Smarter people will doubtless be along in a bit, in which case listen to them not me.

[Murray B]

From my own experience I would say that to work really well the 'double tracked' parts need to be really tightly in sync. This is no mean feat on a complex rhythm and can require very disciplined playing. When is done well you get a lovely wide / big guitar sound that remains friendly to conversion to mono.

Multi-part guitars can be a lot easier to do and still sound pretty impressive. A capo / inversion change here, a pickup / effect change there, perhaps a different guitar and Bob's your mother's brother.

However, I can easily get bogged down in creating a wall of sound from lots of layered guitars to then discover that I then start removing them later on cause there's too much going on

It's not much of an answer is it! I guess I'm on the same page as Drew, try it, see what works for the sound you want to make, sometimes less is more.

[The Elf]

Double-tracking and panning guitars works well. But doubling the doubles? I would never rule it out, but I find it quickly becomes a mush. It's important to me to hear the 'bite' of rhythm guitars, and that can get lost once more then three or four parts are smudging their attacks together.

One trick...

Always record a clean DI with your guitars - that gives you a visual timing reference (and a reference audio quantisation tools can use) to help in aligning the double.

Quite often I fing that creating a synthetic 'double' with a short delay/de-tune can work subjectively better than real doubles. Adding subtle secondary delays to the opposite pan can work well too.

Oh, and consider keeping wide-panned rhythm guitars dry-ish too. That works well in keeping them sounding tight.

[Drew Stephenson]

Just got round to having a listen to some of the tracks on that album and the acoustic guitars are really high-passed. They could practically be mandolins.
This gives loads of space underneath for the electric guitars to sit without things getting too mushy.
Though it's still fairly mushy obviously because that's their sound.

[Username™]

Thanks all - you've given me a lot of good ideas, and even more to mull over.

I think overall, I will just have to see what works with the song and the trial and error of home recording, and I'm sure I will probably record loads of different tracks and play with them in different ways, and end up discarding most of what I record in the end.

Yeah, the acoustics on that album are indeed very high-passed, with really no boom at all left, it's mostly string attack. You could probably get a similar effect just mic'ing up an unplugged electric, lol. I'm not sure I would go that extreme, but I do think I will have to cut out some bottom end to let things breathe a little.

Thanks again.

[Drew Stephenson]

You could probably get a similar effect just mic'ing up an unplugged electric, lol.

That's not an uncommon technique, give it a go.

[James Perrett]

From my own experience I would say that to work really well the 'double tracked' parts need to be really tightly in sync.

I'd strongly agree with this. A couple of years ago I had a multitrack from a producer who was known for a powerful guitar sound. The secret turned out to be 4 guitar tracks playing exactly the same thing in almost perfect sync.

[tea for two]

From my own experience I would say that to work really well the 'double tracked' parts need to be really tightly in sync.

I'd strongly agree with this. A couple of years ago I had a multitrack from a producer who was known for a powerful guitar sound. The secret turned out to be 4 guitar tracks playing exactly the same thing in almost perfect sync.

Something I do for my heavier pieces is layer combine the same Electric Guitar part processed differently.
This way I only play the Guitar part once.
Usually 3 layers of differently processed Electric Guitar is the most I do.

I have also done this for a mellow Acoustic Guitar piece where I wanted a resonating zingy top end.
Layered two differently processed Acoustic Guitar parts I played only once.

It's similar in principle to say combining Kick drums in Dance music, making a layered Synth lead / pad.