making a single guitar sound huge for a punk band

[CrankyRayHanky]

I've been recording my own stuff for a awhile...but this past weekend I acquired my first client. A 3 piece punk rock band: crunch guitar, bass, drums, vocals.

They needed a demo quick and cheap. My question involves the axe...
I threw a 57 up on the cab and came away pleasantly surprised at the results. Usually I'll doouble track, triple track, track infinity on my own guitars- but in this case they don't have the $ to put into it.

I'm not big on the idea of just one guitar panned somewhere in the mix, so I duped the track, panned the 2 hard L & R. I eq'd differently on each track, I moved the dupe track into a microdelay, and liked the results (though I'll probably keep the primary track louder).

I'm I on the right track here? Any other tips would be greatly appreciated as I get my feet wet in this business.

[e-cue]

I'd go the reamping route. The Little Labs PCP is killer for this because you can blend into different amp/cab combo's. I haven't done it in a while, but most often (depends on the track, etc) I set up a Mesa dual rect, a Marshall JCM-800, and Z Vex nano into various cab setups. Mic each one accordingly with them set up in a crescent moon shape, then I go for 2 room mic's usually at a pretty good distance. While the natural tendency is to compress the hell out of these room mics, I suggest you just listen flat, as overcompression on this can really start to make your guitar take up too much space in the mix. HPF all of them.

On the cheapness, using amp simulation plug in's should help. I've been doing it quite often with the Massey THC plug in (mult, bring the signal up under the original track).

For something more subtle, try ping pong delay. Try panning the guitar one direction, send it into a mono spring reverb and pan that opposite.


If you go another route, be wary of unpleasant comb filtering. There's plenty of options.

[mrface2112]

the way you did it (copy, paste, slide) will certainly work, but i've never been overly happy with the results personally. if it works for you, then roll with it.

in cases like this, though, i tend to just put two mics on the guitar amp (check for phase coherency) and pan hard L and R. i tend to use two different mics for this (say an sm57 and an LDC or ribbon) to give a little character.

another route is to split the signal with an ABY and send the guitar to two different amps mic'd accordingly.

for cases where i have to live with 1 amp with 1 mic, i pan the amp hard L and send a short delay (less than 20ms) hard R. This gives the impression of 2 guitars.


cheers,
wade

[somedude74]

Stick a limiter plug on it, and crank the F out of it.