Multiple parts - different guitars?

[ThirdTime]

I’m about to embark on my first acoustic recording project (home) and have a n00b question. I’ve got 2 acoustic guitar parts, I am assuming I’m going to get significantly better results if I play them on two different instruments to help distinguish them in the mix, but would really appreciate your thoughts.

[keith.rogers]

I would simply try both, and on both parts - just enough to "see" what you hear, and if it makes a difference. Then, you can decide.

It's always interesting to try things like just playing one track with a capo and the other not, or in a different position, so you have different chord voicing, too.

[Digression] A friend of mine told me, not so long ago, when I started recording more than just me and my guitar, that it required that I take off my guitar player hat and put on my producer hat . Ideally, you [the "producer"] will decide which will give you what you already are hearing in your head. Of course, you may not have that sound in your head yet, but experience is what gets you there, IMHO. It can be just that you're doubling a part, in which case I'd usually tend to switch instruments, but maybe your choice of instruments won't make a difference, or the part doesn't just work on one for technical reasons. Good luck.

P.S. (edit): Doug's post reminded me of something else I discovered after a year or so, which is that, probably most often, the second guitar part sounds better/different-er if someone else plays it (even on the same instrument)! (This is something to keep in mind when you have your recording "chops" in a place where you can record fairly efficiently, too, so you keep your friends happy...)

[Charlie Bernstein]

Nope. Though it's a nice excuse to buy more guitars. (As if a nice excuse were needed!)

What you usually* want is separation, and you can easily get that with one guitar.

DON'T:

- overplay on either guitar. The sin of many mostly-solo players is that we try to fill every beat with sound. Make a tapestry, not a blanket.

- use panning as a substitute for separation. Only pan after everything else is done.

DO:

- think in terms of sonic spaces. What space do you want each track to fill?

- vary technique. For instance, strum one and flatpick the other, or play down the neck on one and up the neck on the other, or harmonize notes, or record matching tracks just to fatten the sound.

- EQ your tracks differently. A background rhythm track might benefit from a narrow frequency range — high, low, or mid, depending. A single-note lead might want more lows or mids or highs, depending. A fingerstyle track might like, say, a tad less bass or a tad less treble. Or a tad more.

EXAMPLES:

I'm an amateur, but I've had lots of fun recording. On my vanity album, linked below, check out the following tunes:

- "Cowgirl's Lullaby" (track 11) has one rhythm folk guitar and one lead, with solo. I narrowed the rhythm EQ to let the lead and other instruments stand up.

- "Cora, Cora" (track 13) is two tracks of a hollowbody electric. The EQing isn't very different, but each guitar has its own job: one fingerstyle rhythm and one lead. An electric bass fattens it all up Jack Casady-style.

- "When the Wagon Rolls 'Round" (track 4) has a fingerstyle rhythm and a fingerstyle lead. I wanted them to blend, so instead of worrying about frequency separation, I just played sparingly on each so they wouldn't step on each other. (Fat bass again.)

- "Hard Rock Hammer" (track 3) is just a single guitar. No bass or other instruments. I mention it as an example of EQing fat and wide, but with the low mids scooped a bit to fill the sonic spaces the (low-ish) vocals don't.

- Likewise, "Laika's Lament" (track 19) is just one guitar, no vocals. It's as fat as I could EQ it. If it were more than just the one guitar, it would probably be exactly what you don't want to do.

Dreadnot: Good Ol' Days

------------

*Nothing is always. Sometimes separation is exactly what you don't want. Think of some Allman Brothers and Steely Dan recordings, where tight synchronized playing is the key. Or Grateful Dead's version of "On the Road Again," featuring some highly fun acoustic lead doubling.

You decide what's right for every situation.

[Brent Hahn]

A capo can make the same guitar sound different. Even if you don't want to be bothered with re-learning one of the parts, you can, say, tune down a whole step, capo back up that same whole step, and play the part the way you learned it, but on a guitar whose scale length is now a couple inches shorter.

[ThirdTime]

Thanks so much for the tips everyone, it is thoroughly appreciated.

[b1j]

I am working on an acoustic guitar recording of a piece written for piano. It will have about six separate voices, or individual tracks, though not all at once. I will use different guitars for their different timbres: 0-18 for the plaintive melody, high-strung Gurian for the second verse which is an octave higher, and then I have my choice of three dreads for the rhythm/harmony parts — first one, later two, and, in short bursts, three. I’d like them to blend, of course, but also retain distinct voices. Rounding it all out is an electric bass for the lowest part.

(At my rate, this might take a year (!). I hope not, but I can’t start it in earnest until I clear out two large work and home projects.)

But yes, I’m in favor or assigning different parts to different guitars.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by ThirdTime

I’m about to embark on my first acoustic recording project (home) and have a n00b question. I’ve got 2 acoustic guitar parts, I am assuming I’m going to get significantly better results if I play them on two different instruments to help distinguish them in the mix, but would really appreciate your thoughts.

If you have two guitars then no reason not to use them
BUT also consider all the other suggestions actually apply wether 1 guitar or 2
If you have two you could always Nashville tune one for a drastic difference

But one or two ---From counter rhythms, to one rhythm and one playing playing walking notes to the next chord , to different arrangements including one rhythm one riffs , to capo up and transpose one part

The suggestion of Don't overplay is a good one Remember it was Debussy who said something along the lines of "The music is the silence between the notes.

Here I am doing just a very basic rhythm strum and some sparse accent riffs
The hard part was cloning myself 4 times to sing backup vocals

[Doug Young]

I think this is an artistic choice, depends on what you want. Do you want to fuse the 2 parts together so they're indistinguisable (tonally)? Or make them clearly different? Either one can work fine, depends on the music and what you're going for. Think of how an orchestra works - do you want a bunch of violins? Or violin and cello? Maybe flute and French Horns?

With the duet stuff I do with Teja Gerken, we're almost always looking for variety and separation. That can be that we're in different tunings, or capo'd differently, or it can be radically different guitars. We've combined high string 12 string with a baritone, steel and classical or resonator, even acoustic and electric.

I have a tune I haven't released yet that uses 2 guitars, and on that, I used the same guitar, same tuning, etc, but I recorded one part with a ribbon mic in XY, and the other with condensers in spaced pairs.

Lots of options, and it's all up to you!

[kellyb]

I think two very different sizes of guitar can be interesting, but having tried to get something interesting by pairing a dread to anything larger than a parlor, or RW and Hog, it never made any difference. In most cases, one guitar sounded better and I ended up doing both parts with it.

Playing in open C mostly, I usually try modifying it a little, playing it in open D down a step, or even in standard (but that rarely works).

[wbajzek]

Originally Posted by kellyb

I think two very different sizes of guitar can be interesting, but having tried to get something interesting by pairing a dread to anything larger than a parlor, or RW and Hog, it never made any difference. In most cases, one guitar sounded better and I ended up doing both parts with it.

A few years ago I got a new classical, as different as could be from the one I already had. I recorded an overdubbed duet with the two, and for the life of me I can’t tell which is which even though they seem super different when played back to back.

[kellyb]

Originally Posted by wbajzek

A few years ago I got a new classical, as different as could be from the one I already had. I recorded an overdubbed duet with the two, and for the life of me I can’t tell which is which even though they seem super different when played back to back.

There a lots of reasons to love expensive guitars, but it cracks me up when I can't decide if like the expensive or cheap guitar recorded more.

[wbajzek]

Originally Posted by kellyb

There a lots of reasons to love expensive guitars, but it cracks me up when I can't decide if like the expensive or cheap guitar recorded more.

Lucky for me these were both expensive guitars

[alexevans917]

I don’t think you’ll find too much of a difference recording two slightly different guitars (like a D18 and a D28 or something) with the same microphones, placement, and processing. That’s not a bad thing, though. Stacking guitar parts like that can sound like a massive (makes me think of older country performers who have 3-4 guys playing Martin dreads on stage—giant, giant sound.

If you want to, you can definitely create interesting contrast by varying guitar choices and recording techniques. A parlor through a ribbon mic might be cool for a midrange-y melodic fingerpicking part that you want to have stand out in the center of a mix, whereas you might double-track a strummed part on a J-200 through a small diaphragm condenser and pan those hard left and right on the chorus where you want a that kind of big jangle-y wash in the background. This is as much about recording technique as it is about guitar choice, however.

At a push, I’d say one good guitar and a few very different microphones would get you closer to these sorts of contrasts than a few guitars and one microphone, but it also depends on what you’re trying to emulate. It also depends on what you’re trying to emulate, though. Many modern recordings are probably creating contrast more through production choices (mics/processing) than, say, a 50s recording that might just be a few people playing live around a big RCA 44.

In either case, arrangement and playing are key—think about it like old Motown recordings. The snare drum doesn’t pop in those recordings because of any careful production techniques (the snare wasn’t even close miked); it pops because the other players made space around 2 and 4, so the drummer doesn’t have to fight for sonic space. The same thing applies to multi-guitar recordings. For one guitar to stand out, the other has to make space, and vice versa.

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by ThirdTime

I’m about to embark on my first acoustic recording project (home) and have a n00b question. I’ve got 2 acoustic guitar parts, I am assuming I’m going to get significantly better results if I play them on two different instruments to help distinguish them in the mix, but would really appreciate your thoughts.

If you have "two acoustic guitar parts" and they are truly two different parts then they will be easily distinguishable, particularly if you use panning to give them some diversification of sonic space within your song.

Unless you're using very different sounding guitars, like one steel string and one nylon then small details like microphone placement or microphone type aren't going to be apparent to the average listener if you're simply doubling your part.

Playing the same part as identically as possible, often with the same instrument and micing technique, is probably the most often used studio trick to thicken up a guitar part.

[Teja Gerken]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

With the duet stuff I do with Teja Gerken, we're almost always looking for variety and separation. That can be that we're in different tunings, or capo'd differently, or it can be radically different guitars. We've combined high string 12 string with a baritone, steel and classical or resonator, even acoustic and electric.

While Doug and I have done a lot of pairings of really different guitars, we've never spent much, if any, time choosing which guitars to choose on tunes that use two regular six-strings. Sometimes there are playability factors, like using a guitar with a cutaway if you're capoed up high, but it usually comes down to using whatever guitar we're currently into playing, which in my case tends to be one of two (a Martin OM or a Lowden O), though Doug has more standard guitars to choose from. But we've never sat down before recording and tried matching a bunch of different options, though maybe we should!

Teja Gerken
www.tejagerken.com