Three piece rock recordings with only one performance of guitars?

[robertshaw]

Originally Posted by avav179

there is an old thread where bob st.john 'talks' about working on extreme 'waiting for the punchline' or as he calls it 'extreme iv'. anywho, that album is pretty raw and simple - but sounds f*ck!n amazing. there are a few songs with only 1 guitar and it is still very full and does not feel like anything is missing (though most of that is due to nuno's amazing writing of guitar parts).
go search for that thread...

yeah but it's nuno
it may as well be VH

[chout]

Originally Posted by gregj

Check out the Minutemen: Double Nickels on the Dime

Great 3-piece album.
'Bout as simple and rockin' as it gets.

GregJ

YEEEEHAAAAHH!! ONE OF MY FAVORITES OF ALL TIME>>>>>>thumbsupthumbsupthumbsupthumbsup

[staticwhitesound]

Originally Posted by Edwards

You could also use two close mics on the amp. For example 57 and 421, or a condenser, and then pan those hard left/right.

Then you could put your room mic in center.

Another crazy idea would be to go Beatlesesque and have the drums panned hard to one side, the guitar and bass in the other, with the vocal straight up the middle. Or even that off to a side ala "Elenor Rigby's" old stereo recording.

Yeah, I've done both the 57 + 421 combination for L/R and the 57 + 421 + LDC room mic combination for L/R/C and they both worked great for me.

[blacklight_uk]

Used an interesting one on a recent mix. Try multing the bass to two tracks, one with a LPF (sweep around to see where you like it) and the other a HPF. Keep the lows down the center and hard pan the higher frequencies.

Sometimes a subtle chorus on the hard panned track can help to smooth it out if it sounds a little harsh. That way you can chuck the guitar down one side and balance it out with the bass on the other, but still keep the low end central.

[danbronson]

Originally Posted by gollumsluvslave

Even super-produced stuff like Vertigo by u2 (squashed as it is) is only a single guitar track panned hard left.

Doesn't sound like it but it is.

Wow you're right. It actually sounds really good (despite being absolutely slammed like you mentioned). There's a bit of stuff in the right channel at the end of the song, but most of it, including choruses, is just guitar in the left and lots of drum room sound/vocal delays to thicken things up. Really cool tone, really up front and surprisingly loud. Very interesting, thanks for pointing that out.

[Seamus TM]

Originally Posted by danbronson

In any case, we're set on a pretty up-front/in-your-face sound

mono.

sometimes everything mono (up the middle, anyway), except the reverb(s).

[Stevil]

You can also try having the guitarist split the signal between 2 amps.

+1
Killing Joke gets a monster guitar sound with a stereo rig. One guitar to 2 heads & Cabs.
guitargeek | geordie walker of killing joke
I saw an extrapolation of the same idea somewhere, (might have been The Police), one guitar split to 2 amps: one clean, one distorted, then both miced in stereo. Then they were panned, stacked & eq'd independently.

[avav179]

Originally Posted by robertshaw

yeah but it's nuno
it may as well be VH

that album sounds absolutely nothing like the cheese vh/extreme sound you are thinking about.
You should check it out, you will be surprised - it is very raw and the songs aren't about drinking and having sex with chicks, its actually a good album.

[Surbitone]

Haas delays can be very effective if you must do it this way - either on the vox if they're centrally panned, or the guitar. Try and avoid dead centre panning, even a smidge in either direction can make a massive difference. thumbsup

Also sticking a mic up facing a wall or summit, and panning it appropriately can work fookin' wonders.

[mtlin]

I love mono. With only a small number of tracks, why not?

[SICKRICK]

i had a band tell me the same thing. so what i did was put 4 different mics on the cab, 2 dynamics (57, 421) and 2 condensers (st77, and ma200) pan one condenser and one dynamic to each side. the result was nice ill post the track later so you can hear.

[Blast9]

IMHO stereo drums and mic'd bass amps in a nice room can "envelop" and gel the band in a really nice way

Originally Posted by blacklight_uk

Used an interesting one on a recent mix. Try multing the bass to two tracks, one with a LPF (sweep around to see where you like it) and the other a HPF. Keep the lows down the center and hard pan the higher frequencies.

great idea which works a treat thumbsup

other tricks mentioned:

close mic + room mic - Try different reflective surfaces for different songs, or try slap-back or "tape" echo on one side.

Omni mic - 2 amps... one further away

Try it "almost mono" Pan the close mic gtr down the middle and the ambient sound off slightly to one side

Originally Posted by surbitone

Haas delays can be very effective if you must do it this way - either on the vox if they're centrally panned, or the guitar. Try and avoid dead centre panning, even a smidge in either direction can make a massive difference.
Also sticking a mic up facing a wall or summit, and panning it appropriately can work fookin' wonders.

^ Yess!

Haas delay plus reamp/filter - try reamping the single guitar to another amp/amp sim + short reveb to create a "room sound" and make it much more distorted and thick, and mess around with a low pass filter so it almost sound like another guitar amp further away from an omni mic

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