3. MIXING STAGES

Now you can sit down nicely in the lullaby sofa behind the gourmet of knobs and zillion of jack called the mixer and watch the engineer mix your songs. Don't just watch, shout him (or her doesn't matter that much now) if the sound mixed not agreed your taste (I believe you have a Metal-Audiophile graded taste). Anyway, the guidelines are:

-Experiment with Delay effect.

First, bounce the tracks you get from splitting and/or DI-boxing signals as outlined above. Pan one bounced track of amp1 to the left about 75% and amp2 to the right 75%. Experiment with EQ (again, don't dial it too much) if the difference between two less noticeable or you want bigger sound. You have to turn slightly one amp tones to another prior to record remember? Now add a slight delay to the right channel to expand the stereo image.

The "delay-method" works best if you're single guitarist in the band and you couldn't afford more studio fees for overdub session (unless studio owner is your best friend).

-Mess around with Pitch Shifter-Detune Effect

Here's one trick to thicker the sound, same as delay rules above, only change delay effect with pitch-shifter to add a small amount of delay and Detune effect to fake the effect more convincingly than chorus.

By tracking different tonal characteristics and slightly different tune and/or timing, the audience will perceive as if two or three guitarists playing at the same time.

-Best is overdub

Remember overdub we talked earlier? That’s the best method achieving heavy and thick brick wall rhythm guitar sound. If you want to overdub, replay the existing track as guide, record exactly the same  riff to another new track. Interestingly, you can set slightly different tones in guitar amp, different level of distortion, or just change the cabinet, move around the mic, etc to make sound impression wider. From there, you might want to pan hard left existing track and pan right new overdub track. Of course, this effort leads to longer studio session and higher fees. Also your playing skill might have to be "almost-perfect" to play the same notes and style.

-The Solo

If solo incorporated, pan it center. Maybe you already know if solo have to be cut through in the mix, boost midrange of your amp/stomp-box prior to mix solo track. Now during mixing, you can add solo track with chorus effects and set the compressor to raise the solo out of the crowd. To get more dramatic nuances, apply stereo short-gated reverb. Remember when dealing with effects: less is more.

-The Raise of Amp Modeling

In the age where home recording are getting affordable, amp modeling offers economic solutions those who demands lots of sound variation from glassy clean, twangy tweed to growling distorted hi-gain. This setup below pictured one example of utilizing amp model either software plug-in such as Amplitube or hardware like SansAmp GT2, Tri-AC, Behringer GMX series (analog) to Line6 POD 2.0-XT-Pro, Behringer V-Amp 2-Pro-V-Ampire, Johnson J-Station, BOSS ME-GT series, Digitech GNX-RP series (digital), Vox Valvetronix, Marshall AVT-series (hybrid), etc damn they're soooo many on the market. By combining amp model and cabinet simulation from different vintage amps and cabinet stack, the tonal possibilities are endless.

In short, if you're using amp modeling, use at least one tube pre-amp in-front and/or tube compressor out-after to make it warm (in case you're curious, warm is term of sound which lack of harshness or coldness. This is pleasing sound created by analog/tube gear). Are the tube devices always pricey? Not so really. For instance, Electro-Harmonic black finger, which is a great tube compressor comes in a stomp box pedal offered at less than $200. Also, use a good AD/DA Converter, preferably with 192 kHz sampling rate and more than 100 dB dynamic ranges.

One good advice, if you're serious musician, save the money now and invest it to build home studio. With one PC, one AD-DA converter, one tube pre-amp, one dynamic and condenser mics and one sequencer/audio editor software installed, you already have a home studio! you can record anytime you want in your bedroom. When it comes to mixing and mastering stages, bring your saved works to professional studio. That'll save lots of money.

If time allows, BugJet will cover specific topic regarding amp modeling and how to build low budget home studio.