School me - recording 'workflow' for guitars into a DAW

FarleyUK

OK, bare with me guys....

I've got all of next week off work, and plan to record at least 5 tracks. I'll be getting backing tracks with the guitars stripped out, and am comfortable adding them in to Studio One, setting up my interface etc.

I'm planning on recording three guitar tracks (at least) on each: 2 for the rhythm guitar (panned 75 left and right), and a centre for the solo and fills etc.

I have the choice of using my Kemper - and re-amping things afterwards - or using BiasFX or Helix Native.

However, I have quite a few questions around FX, and suggested ways / best practice for doing all of this:

1. Is it better to record dry guitars, and add wet FX afterwards via plugins?
2. If so, what plugins would people suggest for Delay and Reverb?
3. Any guidance on the best way to set each track's panning ratio? Is about 75 left and right correct? Or should they be fully panned?
4. What is the 'process' or suggested approach once the tracks are recorded? How should I 'master' the recording, and accordingly, which plugins...?

Thanks all!

Stuckfast

If the Kemper has a clean DI output, I'd use that and record both the processed and the clean signals. Then if you later decide you want a different sound you could run the clean track through one of the plug-ins.

When people send me tracks to mix I personally prefer not to have reverb or delay on the guitars -- they always put too much of the wrong effect on and it boxes you in at the mix. But there is a difference in the sound with the effect running into the amp rather than added at the mix.

Don't worry about panning ratio at this stage, but my advice is to pan everything hard left, hard right or centre. Intermediate positions are for indecisive people.

And don't worry about stage (4) now. The goal is to get the tracks sounding close enough at the recording stage that you don't need to do much mixing or mastering.

Bill_S

To answer your questions in order:

1. when you record, just get something that sounds good in your headphones and allows you to hear exactly what you are playing. It doesn’t really matter, because you can change all the plugins later to fit the mix. I have to say, I’m talking purely about software here as I have never used a Kemper.
2. I use the Studio One stock delay and reverb plugins. I have a load of paid ones from the likes of Waves etc, but honestly, the ones that come with SO are excellent for guitar IMHO. 
3. Use your ears re panning - when you record, I would pan them centre, then adjust when mixing. I have found anywhere between 30 and fully panned doubled guitars can sound great.
4. Mastering is a massive subject! I’m sure there will be plenty of advice from others. I use IZotope Ozone Advanced, took many weeks studying how to use and am still not as far on as I’d like, but it is excellent. For a quick and decent master, think about one of the autonomous solutions like Landr. Decent results and very easy.

Hope this helps. 

spark240

This is pretty much what I do, ...Studio One with Kemper, personally I tend to record with the Kemper FX on, but I’m happy with that method, ...I do record a DI as well for changes if required.

No. Of guitars , panning etc depends on the style of song I guess....I quite often record 2 Guitars hard LR panned, then another 2 maybe capo,d or a slightly different sound for more oomph in choruses etc.

sometimes a background acoustic pair can also work.

I generally get the mix as good as I can, then send to Project and bring in a limiter and probably Ozone elements .

FarleyUK

Cheers guys - I've not really played around too much on SO, so that's a learning curve as well; although it's thankfully pretty obvious so far.

Danny1969

Does Studio One have a playlist ?  if so there's no harm in putting wet takes and dry takes in the playlist and choosing which one on mixdown. As much as recording dry gives you more options you often get a better take recording wet because it sounds better and inspires you. Especially with delay as this is something you work with as you play. 

With mixing consider your audience, if this is something people are gonna hear on iPads and phones. shitty laptops then a mix that makes sense in mono is a good bet for FB and a higher quality stereo mix to upload to YT

Mastering ... you might find the BT is already mastered ... a lot are. If so then just treat the guitars so they sit nice within it. 

spark240

If you have the latest S1 version it makes great  use of scenes recall, whereby you can have multiple mixes on instant recall..

FarleyUK

OK, so I've spent all day recording a 3 minute song.... told you I was a n00b.

I only have the Artist license of S1, so cannot access project - and I can't afford the £280 upgrade, so used LANDR to master the track. Then uploaded to Soundcloud, and saw they also have a mastering ability.... d'oh!

Anyway, here it is - pretty chuffed with the end result so far!



Happy to take constructive feedback...

octatonic

That sounds excellent.

Personally I'd make the vocals louder and bring the snare up a tad too.
But this is a really great effort.

FarleyUK

octatonic said:

That sounds excellent.

Personally I'd make the vocals louder and bring the snare up a tad too.
But this is a really great effort.

Cheers!

The drums, bass and vocals are on a single backing track, so I can't make them louder individually - however, I did apply a light EQ lift to try and bring them out slightly.

andy_k

I like it, I prefer to comment rather than critique, but for a first attempt at a very specific type of track, that sounds great.
I am only listening on a crappy laptop, and I do notice some of the guitars sound a bit choppy, if that is a word to describe the effect of tracks bouncing across from left to right? I appreciate that you have a good balance, but some of the riffing seems to have the effect of ping ponging, perhaps try a bit of reverb mixed to the opposite side, as EVH did, or maybe it is just panned too wide?
I know the original track is a very stripped down mix, and you have done a really good job of capturing the vibe.
It wouldn't hurt to try mixing it in another DAW, if you fancy trying something out. I keep promoting Reaper, and have spent the day working on an idea myself, it is a pity you can't do what you want in S1, because there are a lot of things that can be done with all sorts of plugins. Reaper is 'free and easy' to try ( that would be another cover for you to try, in the same vein)
I'd put my own mix on soundcloud, to have a listen, but you might laugh at me.
well done.

andy_k

Hope you don't mind. I'll post it anyway, its good to compare notes.


I had a basic 2 part idea and wanted to flesh it out, it was recorded onto a Line 6 backtrack, which is a handy little device that records everything you play as a Di, 24 bit, 44k file. I stuck it into Reaper, and found loops of the 2 riff ideas, which were built into a 3 minute thing with sections. I need to find a part 3, so I just tried to leave some room ready as a bridge.
I used SSD drums for some ABC parts, and also used a mix of 5 other VSTs to play the same parts, to allow me to try and create some scenes in the track.
I put my basic riffs through Midi guitar 2 to record some midi from the notes and used that to generate a rough idea for a bass line, this was played via Eurobass, through Kontakt.
I tried the same midi parts with a couple of other things, like Spitfire labs, and the melody started to make a bit of sense, so at this point my system was creaking, so I rendered audio stems of the parts, and built up a mix.
That was yesterday, so today I sat down and played through the track 3 times into my Line 6 backtrack to get a few live takes.
It is a bit of a pain to get the imported DI lined up, but it is quicker for me to do that than set up monitoring, the DI is recorded as an acoustic take-with no amp, so it is really just a sketch idea.
I put an instance of Overloud THU on the DI, basic plexi sounds, dry was mixed mono, and with a delay it was stereo. the 3rd track was a more overdriven sound, mono.
I did a bit of chopping up to get a better flow of the mixed tracks, and went a bit crazy with Bus compression, which makes the drums stand out a bit too much, and I use a Master track with some Slate and Fabfilter stuff on it to get some levels.
This was rendered out as a 44k 320mp3, and then Soundcloud does it's stuff.
The mastering on Soundcloud is a new feature, and I haven't looked into it yet, but I am nearly at my limit for free uploads anyway, so I will continue to do my own mastering on my machine.
It's not a finished track-by any means, and is just a way of hearing how the idea might work in a track--it's all practice.
let me know what you think.

FarleyUK

Cheers guys - just recorded another one - wanted to try re-amping but am knackered now so will save that for another time!

Slightly more straight-forward balls-to-the-wall rock this time:

spark240

Id be happy with that ;-)

IMC1980

FarleyUK said:

OK, so I've spent all day recording a 3 minute song.... told you I was a n00b.

I only have the Artist license of S1, so cannot access project - and I can't afford the £280 upgrade, so used LANDR to master the track. Then uploaded to Soundcloud, and saw they also have a mastering ability.... d'oh!

Anyway, here it is - pretty chuffed with the end result so far!



Happy to take constructive feedback...

I fucking love this song and you did it justice. Great job!

Snap

panning

I'm still learning, but I try to place things in their own place as if it were a stage. So if there is a couple of guitar parts, I have them a bit to either side of the centre, but not full pan. Bass in middle, maybe a touch off centre, drums and vocals dead centre. Don't think there is any great right or wrong, but if you have everything panned to the centre, it will be a bit muddy

FarleyUK

Thanks all - I've just realised that I can actually download each of the parts of the backing as separate tracks - which will make getting the balance better a lot easier!

FarleyUK

OK, just done a recording of another cover, where I tried to balance each instrument and vocals separately. Then put it through LANDR, and tried two different options - which version do you guys think is the better one?

https://soundcloud.com/daryl-greaves/highway-star-deep-purple-cover-by-daryl-greaves

OR:

spark240

FarleyUK said:

Thanks all - I've just realised that I can actually download each of the parts of the backing as separate tracks - which will make getting the balance better a lot easier!

Are you using Backing tracks.com?

spark240

Mmm...the first one has a little more low end on my Yamaha HS7...but I seem to prefer the 2nd one overall.

 Not much in it ...Id be happy with either.

FarleyUK

spark240 said:

FarleyUK said:

Thanks all - I've just realised that I can actually download each of the parts of the backing as separate tracks - which will make getting the balance better a lot easier!

Are you using Backing tracks.com?

No, got them from Karaoke-version.com