[danbronson]

I'm recording a three piece rock band soon, the guitarist/lead singer wants a super simple approach to recording guitars (no doubling). I've always liked how double tracking guitars and panning them hard left/right frees up the center for kick/snare/bass/vox, but I can see the appeal to keeping it simple/authentic sounding and want to give this a try.

I'm not content to do the Van Halen thing and fill one side with reverb. This is an indie rock band. If there's any ambiance it'll be a short room sound. In any case, we're set on a pretty up-front/in-your-face sound anyway so I want to keep mics pretty close for the most part. I'm also not going to let the guitars sit on one side alone. Maybe some would be okay with that, but I would feel very uncomfortable listening to a mix like that.

So right now I'm thinking the best approach is to get a close mic on the amp and one back in the room, then pan them away from center to free up space. Or maybe both mics will be back a bit and I'll make sure there's a lot of absorption around to keep things clear sounding. I don't want to pull the mics too far back though. Hmm...perhaps I'll try an XY coincident.

Anyway, with all that in mind, does anyone have any suggestions for recordings I can check out for inspiration where the engineer faced a similar situation? Or any advice in general? What would you do? Hopefully we can get some interesting discussion going on this!