mixing three electric guitars

[Tommi]

I'm mixing a song with three distorted electric guitar tracks in it. All
tracks were recorded with a basic SM 57 close up to a small marshall
cabinet. I've mostly mixed songs with an acoustic and an electric guitar for
this band, but this time they're asking for a huge, Andy Wallace -style rock
mix.

The song consists of basic rock drums, bass, three guitars and vocals.

I've tried different things, but always seem to end up with a muddy mix with
some of the power I'm looking for, or a clean, separated-sounding mix with
only little or no power.



Could anyone give me any advice on how to approach this kind of situation?
What has worked for you?



Basically what we're after here is the linkin park, staind, chevelle etc.
kind of thing, with lots of power. I'm trying my best, but running out of
ideas soon.

I think the best so far has been something like this:

2 guitars panned hard left/right, one dead center. All guitars are hi-passed
at 120hz, all cut at around 4khz. Done some usual separation for the guitars
using a parametric eq. Bass and Bd in the middle, heavily compressed. The
problem is with the vocals, snare and one guitar all sharing the same
frequencies etc., As soon as I bring the vocals up it becomes soo muddy.

Thanks for the tips!

[Ricky W. Hunt]

"Tommi" > wrote in message
...
> I'm mixing a song with three distorted electric guitar tracks in it. All
> tracks were recorded with a basic SM 57 close up to a small marshall
> cabinet. I've mostly mixed songs with an acoustic and an electric guitar
for
> this band, but this time they're asking for a huge, Andy Wallace -style
rock
> mix.
>
> The song consists of basic rock drums, bass, three guitars and vocals.
>
> I've tried different things, but always seem to end up with a muddy mix
with
> some of the power I'm looking for, or a clean, separated-sounding mix with
> only little or no power.
>
>
>
> Could anyone give me any advice on how to approach this kind of situation?
> What has worked for you?

I think it's a little too late to do much. The fact you used the same setup
to record all three tracks is your biggest problem. There's nothing to
differentiate them so all your doing is getting a big buildup of the same
frequencies which just sounds like mush. You should have tracked using:

1) different guitars
2) different amps
3) different mic/preamp/mic position, etc.
4) different part/inversion of chord

Take some records that have the sound you like and listen to the individual
channels (left/right). You'll usually notice one or all four of the above
things. One guitar track is bright, one is darker, etc.,different tone,
they're playing different octaves/positions, etc. There's not much you can
do now except maybe try some EQ to differentiate them but I don't think
it'll help much. The best mixes start before the first note is ever
recorded.

[Ricky W. Hunt]

"Tommi" > wrote in message
...
> I'm mixing a song with three distorted electric guitar tracks in it. All
> tracks were recorded with a basic SM 57 close up to a small marshall
> cabinet. I've mostly mixed songs with an acoustic and an electric guitar
for
> this band, but this time they're asking for a huge, Andy Wallace -style
rock
> mix.
>
> The song consists of basic rock drums, bass, three guitars and vocals.
>
> I've tried different things, but always seem to end up with a muddy mix
with
> some of the power I'm looking for, or a clean, separated-sounding mix with
> only little or no power.
>
>
>
> Could anyone give me any advice on how to approach this kind of situation?
> What has worked for you?

I think it's a little too late to do much. The fact you used the same setup
to record all three tracks is your biggest problem. There's nothing to
differentiate them so all your doing is getting a big buildup of the same
frequencies which just sounds like mush. You should have tracked using:

1) different guitars
2) different amps
3) different mic/preamp/mic position, etc.
4) different part/inversion of chord

Take some records that have the sound you like and listen to the individual
channels (left/right). You'll usually notice one or all four of the above
things. One guitar track is bright, one is darker, etc.,different tone,
they're playing different octaves/positions, etc. There's not much you can
do now except maybe try some EQ to differentiate them but I don't think
it'll help much. The best mixes start before the first note is ever
recorded.

[Ricky W. Hunt]

"Garthrr" > wrote in message
...
> In article >, "Tommi"
> > writes:
>
> >I'm mixing a song with three distorted electric guitar tracks in it.
>
> You've succussfully identified the problem. Distortion takes up an
enormous
> amount of space. My advice is to cut the fat.

Definitely. If you listen to a lot of those crunchy Zeppelin tracks each
individual guitar is not distorted that much (and some not at all) and would
be considered plain tame on it's own by today's standards. But it's the
stack of them together that does it. Still each one is "distorted"
differently with a different tone and frequency range.

[Dik LeDoux]

Maybe don't put any of the guits up the center? Pick one that's carrying
the most important part of the musical load and then split it out to a
wide-panned feel by way of mult/delay/somethin' or other. Then wide pan the
other 2 guits as well. You'll miss some of the definition between the guit
parts, but they'll still be big and you'll have room in the center for the
vocals.

My .02

dik

[Steve]

Hello,

Remove the center guitar. You can send the center guitar to a stereo
chorus and split it off left/right and mix it in at a lower level with
the Dry L/R gtrs. That will thicken the sound of the guitars and get
it out of the way of the drums and vocals. Or, just add the guitar mix
the guitar in certain places in the song. Don't be afraid to pan it
out of the way. High pass at 80hz not 120. Distorted guitars very
greatly and since I haven't heard them, the focus frequency can't be
determind. Pay careful attention to the upper mids or high frequencies
of the gtrs. This is where I hear most engineers/mixers make a huge
mistake. Usually by allowing to much to pass through. Limit the ****
out of the lead vocal and open it up by adding 4-5k in eq to make it
pop. The snare should have a stereo reverb on it. Small tight room,
some predelay, just enough send to at dimension to the hit. It will
spread out and add energy to the mix. I can't comment on the
bass.......need to hear it. I usually use two tracks one
compressed/eq and one with nothing on it. Mix the two together in the
center.

Good luck
Steve



"Tommi" > wrote in message >...
> I'm mixing a song with three distorted electric guitar tracks in it. All
> tracks were recorded with a basic SM 57 close up to a small marshall
> cabinet. I've mostly mixed songs with an acoustic and an electric guitar for
> this band, but this time they're asking for a huge, Andy Wallace -style rock
> mix.
>
> The song consists of basic rock drums, bass, three guitars and vocals.
>
> I've tried different things, but always seem to end up with a muddy mix with
> some of the power I'm looking for, or a clean, separated-sounding mix with
> only little or no power.
>
>
>
> Could anyone give me any advice on how to approach this kind of situation?
> What has worked for you?
>
>
>
> Basically what we're after here is the linkin park, staind, chevelle etc.
> kind of thing, with lots of power. I'm trying my best, but running out of
> ideas soon.
>
> I think the best so far has been something like this:
>
> 2 guitars panned hard left/right, one dead center. All guitars are hi-passed
> at 120hz, all cut at around 4khz. Done some usual separation for the guitars
> using a parametric eq. Bass and Bd in the middle, heavily compressed. The
> problem is with the vocals, snare and one guitar all sharing the same
> frequencies etc., As soon as I bring the vocals up it becomes soo muddy.
>
> Thanks for the tips!

[Tommi]

Thank you so much to everyone, the mix sounds a bit better now.

I just realised that the guitarist had been using an effects pedal
compressor all the way, every guitar track had squashed dynamics even when I
began mixing. I listened to some Randy Staub's (Nickelback, 3 doors down
etc) mixes and instantly noticed that they all had guitars cut over about
5khz. I still hi-pass at 120 because the song is in A though. Anyway, thanks
for the tips everyone, I will continue to work on this monster to try and
make it better.

[Edvard Puskaric]

On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 06:49:48 +0300, "Tommi" >
wrote:

>I still hi-pass at 120 because the song is in A though.

I'll go to bed now...

[Tommi]

Two guitars, either one of them doesn't play anything below an A note of
110. :p


"Edvard Puskaric" > wrote in message
...
> On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 06:49:48 +0300, "Tommi" >
> wrote:
>
> >I still hi-pass at 120 because the song is in A though.
>
> I'll go to bed now...

[Edvard Puskaric]

On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 07:56:53 +0300, "Tommi" >
wrote:

>Two guitars, either one of them doesn't play anything below an A note of
>110. :p
>
>

You're forgetting about harmonics and speaker cab resonances which go
well below this frequency. Don't roll off frequencies based on
calculations. Use your ears. If the guitars sound the same rolled off
at 120 as they do rolled off at 70-80, you probably need better low
frequency capability in your monitors or different placement or both.

Ed

[LeBaron & Alrich]

Tommi wrote:

> Two guitars, either one of them doesn't play anything below an A note of
> 110. :p

A little too much thinking about this and not enough listening? Or
something not making it through your monitor chain?

Heavily distorted amplified guitars almost alays present quite a lot of
sonic information well below the theoretical spectral position of the
fundamental of the lowest note played. If those guitars sound the same
to you with or without a 120 HZ hi-pass filter inserted, then either a
lot of information was lost in the initial tracking, or your monitors
and monitoring environment are giving you something less than a full
picture.

> "Edvard Puskaric" wrote...

> > "Tommi" wrote:

> > >I still hi-pass at 120 because the song is in A though.

> > I'll go to bed now...

--
ha

[Tommi]

Yes, I am aware of this fact. I run an FFT analysis on every track before I
start mixing, I also think I'm listening well, I guess should tell you guys
the way I see this:
If the song is in A major, there's not much point in keeping the
subharmonics which are causing dissonances. For example, sometimes it sounds
good to keep the subharmonic of the fifth(in a case of A that means an 80hz
E note)sort of rumbling below the fundamental. The next subharmonic I'd keep
would be an octave below(A of 55hz). It just doesn't sound good to keep
something like a subharmonic of a minor third when the song's in major. The
SM57 doesn't even extend so low very good.

As I said, I had some problems in getting a powerful sound when doing too
much separation, and if I kept the all the guitar frequencies occupying the
bass range, it just sounded awfully muddy. The reason mixing is important
IMO is that you have to do some separation between the 20 tracks recorded
because of the masking effect, not because you want the 20 tracks to sound
like the real situation where they were all recorded in a small room(that
rarely sounds good!). If I'd want to do that, I wouldn't mix them at all.
This is where arranging comes to the picture: when arranging, you simply
have to think of the sound spectrum as a map where everything is in its
place, roughly. When arranging a song with many melodies and harmonies, you
can't think that the subharmonics of a piccolo flute extend to 300hz and so
you can't put a cello playing something in that frequency region, you have
to keep some sense in that.

This song with 3 distorted guitars has been a taughtful lesson about all
this for me as well as the band, maybe next time they won't bring me 3
tracks all recorded almost exactly the same. Thanks to you guys for the tips
and opinions once more!



"LeBaron & Alrich" > wrote in message
.. .
> Tommi wrote:
>
> > Two guitars, either one of them doesn't play anything below an A note of

> > 110. :p
>
> A little too much thinking about this and not enough listening? Or
> something not making it through your monitor chain?
>
> Heavily distorted amplified guitars almost alays present quite a lot of
> sonic information well below the theoretical spectral position of the
> fundamental of the lowest note played. If those guitars sound the same
> to you with or without a 120 HZ hi-pass filter inserted, then either a
> lot of information was lost in the initial tracking, or your monitors
> and monitoring environment are giving you something less than a full
> picture.