U2 guitar tone

[shultzee13]

The scenerio:
I have three guitars playing in a rock song.

Guitar #1 Power Cords distorted.

Guitar #2 Straight rhythm guitar distorted.

Guitar #3 U2 delayed style guitar playing underneath the other two.

Does anyone have some EQing suggestions to bring out guitar #3? It seems no matter what I have tried that guitar is not clear. Maybe a certain plug-in thats good for this situation?

In the arrangement of the song guitar #3 is only playing underneath in parts to accent the other guitars, so this is not a problem throughout the song.

Thanks guys.

[solidwalnut]

Couldn't suggest eq'ing without hearing the guitars. Even then, if you can just find an eq shelf for each of the three...

Separation sometimes works best in the stereo field. More tightly focus the guitars in their own space in the pan field. Maybe then on the third guitar, you could go with a wide pan and possible some sort of stereo effect such as a chorus.

[tribedescribe]

I am pretty for sure the edge uses Dynamic Delay Ducking which preserves the clarity of his signal. I believe the Air dynamic delay would work for this. Below is a description from a site about the whole thing.

"I have come to the conclusion that the hole delay thing is down to his TC 2290, they are Dynamic with a ducking delay, and the delay you hear on where the streets have no name is impossible with out dynamic delay, It Makes scents to me that the song was created with these unit, I mean streets came out in 86 87 and so did the tc 2290. Ive tried all kinds of delays and the ones he uses for this song is definatley digital, and its really clear at the begining of the song on the intro, its got to be set to 50% 12 oclock mark, but when he breacks into the main riff the delay doesn't muddy the riff, why? because it becomes ducked, because hes using ducking delay on the TC2290 you really need a TC unit to play this song and to really enjoy it, as soon as I get the cash im getting two because the delay is a stereo delay so I should say you need 2 X TC2290."

[DrFord]

Distortion on Guitars is actually one of the most overused effects in Rock production. The more distortion on a guitar, the less clarity and presence it has. Just think of a rat pedal... yuck.

I may catch flak for this, but the cleaner the signal the better. Typically, in EVERY guitar recording session I have ever been to - and I am referring to Major label sessions - The guitarist is plugged into a D/I box, which goes into some sort of a nice mic pre (like an avalon class A) and is muted from playback, then recorded as a direct signal. The duplicate of the D/I box goes to the actual Guitar amp, and is the recorded often times by several microphones.

I have seen pro engineers like OG Killa use 3 different mics at a time, on the cabinet alone. You could mic the room in mono or stereo if you desired.

A typical 3some would be a Ribbon Mic for warmth, an Sm-57 for bite, and a u87 (large diaphragm condenser) for tone.

By Mixing these together, you get a full and custom sound. If the distortion is too heavy (it always is) you then mix back in the clean and dry signal, EQ out the bits you don't want, and use the clean D/I signal to give back the note definition and the clarity.

Now, there is a very common misconception in producing rock, there are only 2 guitar parts (lead and rhythm) so lets only record two guitars.

Wrong. Hyper realistic recordings are the name of the game, and in rock, since the 80's, producers have been stacking and stacking and stacking guitar overdubs to create the wall of sound.

In a typical rock session, I will have a heavily distorted Power Chord heavily compressed to create a bed, recorded twice and panned hard left and right. I then record the same exact part with a clean tone, panned direclty on top of the other.

The slight variance of the player between takes creates a nice natural phase or natural chorus and gives you a wide stereo spread.

That's 4 takes on just a supporting guitar (this is usually a chorus section). And this isn't even the Rhythm guitar.. this is just to give the chorus section lift.

There are no magic EQ settings for electric guitar, however I strongly urge you to mix them one by one against the lead vocal and bass. The lead vocal and the electric guitar share much of the same frequencies, and as such, the guitars need to be carefully EQ'd (subtractive) to work with the voice. I NEVER EQ the voice to work with the guitar.

Bass Guitar needs to fit with the electrics, so use 80hz high pass filters on your electric guitars. You will find that this alone will greatly improve your mix.

I personally also would recommend that you convince the Guitarist to allow you to give delay inside pro tools on the "u2" guitar. The mooger fooger analog delay works great, and the best part is it is editable post recording. This means you get a clean clear signal and a clean delay which can also be EQ'd / compressed...

Just remember, clean guitar is preferrable over distorted guitar... especially in the world of digital recording as Amp sims nowadays sound really great. you can always amp sim later, but you can never get the guitarist back into the studio to replay the same line, unless you have budget.

If you want to check out some heavily edited / mixed / stacked guitarwork... check out either "Turn it up" or "Trainwreck" off here.

http://www.reverbnation.com/TheHannahAndersBand

Now this is Southern rock, so the mix is a bit different as it is folk / country inspired, but you will get an idea for what I am talking about. This is the group I am currently in the studio with. "Trainwreck" has like 20 something guitar takes on it between Acoustic and electric... The "riff" has about 4 different amps on it, plus banjo, piano, fiddle and organ.

Just my thoughts.

http://www.groove3.com/str/from-drop-to-top.html

[shultzee13]

Thank you Dr.Ford. BTW - Drop is an awesome video. Thanks for the tips.

[DrFord]

Thank you thank you!!! Did you check out the HAB in the link I sent? I edited the F&*k out of the rhythm guitars. Like literally every note so they would have as much punch as possible, the same way I edit the rap vocals in drop.

[solidwalnut]

Dr. Ford--

Thanks for the tracking tips above. I have a nice room for recording my electric (it's called my house--it's 2/3rds stone tile and 1/3rd carpet!) and taking advantage of several different style mics at varying distances has really improved the overall tone of my trackings.

Steve

[shultzee13]

Yes sir DR!!!! I checked it out. Nice tone for sure for sure. Blew me away actually. Sounds like a ton of reamping as well.