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Tips in Mixing Electric Guitars using "Double Tracking"
Technique
by: EMERSON MANINGO on May 9, 2009 in Music Mixing
One of the key elements in rock mix is thick and heavy guitar sound. One of the effective ways
to accomplish this sound in the mixing process is through a technique called as Double
Tracking. In this post I will illustrate how to double track guitars in the mix with the objective
of making it heavy and thick.
Bear in mind there a lot of ways to thicken the guitar sound. Double tracking is one of the easier
ways. Double tracking is slightly different from recording overdubs for guitars. In this tutorial,
you can do double tracking without re-recording. Meanwhile you should do a re-recording or do
several takes when you are performing an overdub with the guitar.
There are other things that you can do to thicken the guitar sound but these are not covered in
this tutorial:
a. Compression on guitars to make it sound thick.
b. Applying effects such as maximizer to increase loudness.
c. Parallel compression.
If the guitar sounds thin and weak, it will tend to affect the commercial appeal of the song
especially if it is being marketed in rock and alternative genre. It is highly essential to mix things
right.
Recording the guitar properly for Double Tracking
The following are the important requirement before you can double track the guitar in the mix:

Photo credits:
http://www.penmachine.com/musicpages/cheapguitar2005.html
1.) Aim for a great guitar sound in the recording. If you are recording guitars with effects, make
it sound great with your guitar amps first before hitting the recording button in your DAW. Other
things that can influence the sound of your guitar in the recording are the environment. For more
spacious guitar sound, you might want to put the guitar amp in a bigger concrete live room. This
will naturally capture the reverberations present in the room.
You can refer to the following tutorials for properly recording your guitar:
a.) Observe proper gain staging when recording guitar even if you are recording guitar for rock,
alternative or even heavy metal music, there is no excuse for clipping and distortion in the digital
recordings that results to poor guitar sound.
In this aspect, make sure you allow some headroom in your recording to make it breathe during
the audio mixing process.
b.) Learn how to record distortion guitars -using a guitar amplifier still sounds best compared to
simulation plug-in. However do things correctly when you are recording the guitars using an
amp.
In that tutorial, you will only need to record one guitar player performance with two
microphones aimed at the guitar amplifier cabinet. In this type of setup, you will automatically
get double tracked guitars which makes easier for you to mix later. See signal flow diagram
below:


Also with this type of recording technique, you do not need to record the guitar twice. Record
with the best distortion tone you need. Do not record it yet if you are not yet convinced of the
distortion tone; much better to experiment with a live band before starting to record the guitar.
The overall purpose is to have a clean and final recording ready for mixing. Remember it is not
advisable to fix the distortion tone in the mix; it makes the mixing process to be complicated.
c.) If you only have one microphone, you can still follow the above steps except that you will
only be creating one track in your DAW. It will be double tracked in the mix (to be illustrated
later).
d.) If you do not have a microphone, you can record the clean guitar using DI method (direct to
your audio interface).
2.) Double check the tuning of the guitars. Very easy to do but often overlooked.
The proper double tracking mixing steps
If you are only recording one guitar track (using one microphone), start with Step1 until the end.
If you are recording guitars using two microphones (thus you have two recorded tracks in your
DAW) start with Step3.
Step1.) Start with placing the 1st track in Track1 of the mixing session. This is the original guitar
recording.
Step2.) Create Track2 of in your DAW mixing session. Simply copy and paste the wav file in
Track1 to Track2.
Step3.) Pan the Track1 to -75 units (left). Depending on your DAW/mixing software, this could
be in %, for example if the maximum left pan setting is 100% so it will be 75/100 or 75%.
Step4.) Pan the Track2 to 75 units (right)
Important panning tip: How to pan guitar in the mix?
Step5.) Now to get that wide thick sound, you can apply 5ms delay to one of the guitar (either
left or right) (mix 100%). This delay may not be necessary if you are recording guitars using two
microphones because there is a natural delay captured between these microphones. However feel
free to experiment with the sound.
Step6.) To even make it heavier, do not anymore apply reverb on any of the tracks (it is highly
important that the reverb is from the room and amp based reverb that will be realized during the
recording process). It is because if you start applying reverb on the guitar, it will tend to sound
weak and far. Since you are mixing for rock, it is important to get the in your face guitar
sound.
USEFUL REFERENCE: If you are looking for more information relating to Step1 to Step6, you
can read the following tutorials:
Developing wide stereo ambiance sound in your recording
How to apply reverb to a mix?
Step7.) EQ it properly, do not cut too much bass in the distorted guitar, it will help add the
heaviness sound.
Step8.) Cut 1000Hz and 800 Hz at Q=1.4(start with -3dB then gradually increase until you get
the desired sound) on any guitar to make sound so clean and avoid the cracking sound.
Step9.) Adjust track1 and track2 volume and stop when it is loud enough for the guitar tracks to
be heard, not dominating the vocals.
Step10). Cut 3000Hz with around -6dB and Q of 1.0 for both guitar tracks. This will improve the
guitar clarity in the mix. Optionally for heavy rock and alternative music, you can start with -3dB
to still get that strong mid-range guitar overdrive tone.
Applying EQ on guitar could just be the beginning of a series of EQ implementation in your mix
to get maximum clarity. For the rest of EQ settings, please refer to this tutorial:
Complete EQ settings to Start when doing Audio Mixing
Step11). If your effects are arrange serially below are the sequence of effects that will be placed
in each guitar:
a. Parametric Equalizer
b. Compressor
c. Reverb (optional) necessary only if the guitar tracks is too dry or recorded using DI method.
d. Delay (only on one track)
It is highly important to rely on your ears to decide whether the settings are working or not.
DEMO: Listen to mix below applying the principles above:
More samples and illustration are available at my works section.
Content last updated on March 12, 2012
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11 Responses to Tips in Mixing Electric Guitars using "Double Tracking"
Technique
1. Hapi Says:
July 10th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
hello hapi blogging have a nice day! just visiting here.
2. Emerson R. Maningo Says:
July 13th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Thanks for visiting man!
3. Burton Haynes Says:
February 10th, 2010 at 6:35 am
amazing stuff thanx
4. Bizzy Guy Says:
March 1st, 2010 at 1:06 pm
If your in a band or something too you can get 2-3 extra guitars in there playing the same
thing, iron maiden does it and they sound great. But I really like this blog it goes into a
lot of good detail how to thicken your sound great job!
5. Emerson Maningo Says:
March 2nd, 2010 at 7:18 pm
Hi Bizzy Guy,
I agree with you with adding extra guitars. Not only Iron Maiden does this, but I heard
that Billy Corgan (Smashing pumpkins) do this a lot of times during the production of
Siamese Dream album.This makes the guitar sounds really heavy in addition to some
tube screaming effects.
6. Kids Says:
April 25th, 2011 at 11:26 pm
Great post. Thanks for sharing this great tips.
7. Ben Says:
July 9th, 2011 at 10:49 am
The singing is quite nice but the guitars sound thin and fizzy.
If you have a good tone before pushing that record button then the guitar will mix itself.
All of these (ten) steps are just over-processing what should already be a huge sound.
Forget cutting frequencies and start playing with the tone control on your guitar- it makes
a huge difference and youll notice when you put your ear at the same level as your
microphone is to your speaker.
Play with the mics distance and use a mic pre-amp.
Use only the pedals you must (amp overdrive is always superior) and if you want a really
huge sound, pre-delay your reverb (works best with spring or plate).
8. Emerson Maningo Says:
July 9th, 2011 at 2:24 pm
Hi Ben,
Do not forget that you are not only mixing a guitar but vocals and other instruments as
well. I agree that the guitar sound thin and fizzy but its because I cut it to pave way to the
heaviness played by the bass guitar. And the guitar dominance in the mid-range has been
compensated by the vocals which is an important priority. You made a good point in
getting a good tone before hitting the record button. But take note again that the primary
objective of the guitar tracks in this song is to simply make the guitar sound good and
play the melody lines. It should not dominate the entire mix. Your suggestion will work
in a very heavy rock mix (such as in metal and heavy alternative) and other guitar-
solo/instrumental driven projects. Thanks for the feedback.
9. Cowboy From Hell Says:
July 23rd, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Wow, what you have explained here just happened to be the problem I was having with
my music, and I didnt know what it was, and here it is! So much simpler than I thought
it would be! One thing i have found though, when double tracking, i just record the one
track, double it and pan the same thing 100% left and right. This makes not too much
difference, so i follow your step of delaying a track 5ms. This makes my guitar sound
much thicker in the mix, but i get quite a bit of concentration on that side. So say i 5ms
delay the left pan, i canfeel or notice the guitar more on my right ear than my left ear. I
tried fixing this by lowering the delay to 3ms, but it was still happening, so i lowered the
volume on my right ear, and this has slightly fixed the problem. Do you know any more
conventional ways to remove this imbalance apart from lowering delay and/or adjusting
the volume of one side? I think you only notice this imbalance (even after shortening
delay and adjusting volume) if your really focusing, so its not a major issue, but im just
curious. Still a very very usefull post lots of thanks!
10. Chris Says:
February 6th, 2012 at 5:40 pm
Hi Emerson,
1. What would you suggest if there is two guitars/guitarists in the song. At times theyre
playing the same part & at other times splitting off into separate parts. Would you use the
same technique as above for each guitar, but keep the double for each panned to the same
side as the original, or would you suggest something different?
2. Also apart from compression at the beginning of the blog you mention maximizing.
Can you explain this technique more please.
Thanks a lot
Chris
11. Emerson Maningo Says:
February 7th, 2012 at 10:38 am
Hi Chris,
Having two guitarist is a lot easier to manage. I would do the following:
1.) Record them together but panned the first guitarist to the left (-75 for example) and
the second guitarist to the right(+75).
Todays multi-channel audio interface and DAW allow you to record two or more tracks
together.
2.) YOu do not need to apply delays that would artificially create the guitar ambiance. It
is because recording them together naturally creates the delays. Also take note that by
recording together, you are automatically creating double tracks of the guitar (one track
from each guitarists).
3.) Yes compression can make the guitar sound strong and thick. If you do not know
why. Consider an example of a rhythm guitar recording where the guitarist failed to make
a consistent volume or dynamics throughout the song.
So that results to some parts of the song having weak rhythm guitar parts. Since
compression can bring weak levels up and very strong levels down, it will stabilize the
dynamics of the guitar. So as a result, those weak rhythm guitar parts would now become
more audible in the mix. Finally the guitar sound thick, more clear and defined.
Hope you got a great guitar sound in your mix by following those tips. Good luck!
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