Uni Experience and Q&A

[Dan Shipway]

Okay guys, I wanted to make this thread as a chance to share my experiences on an undergraduate level sound engineering course and as a chance for you to ask any questions you may have regarding tech, production, digital audio etc.

What does a pad switch do? Why is a ribbon mic good for a flute?, What the hell is a mix and record bus on my 48 channel mixing desk that controls 2 pro tools sessions at one time? All of these I will do my best to answer to the best of my ability (kinda new to this so some stuff im not really too knowledgeable about some areas)

Keep being awesome and learning cool shit!
Dan

 

[Andrew Milner]

How should I go about double tracking a distortion guitar? I am curious in regards to the bass, mids and treble knobs.

How should I EQ my sound basically so that they complement each other well? My idea was to have a guitar track focused on the highs and one on the mids so that they blend together.

In short, how do I manage to do what James did in Sad But True? I heard he recorded like 4 guitars or something .

 

[Dan Shipway]

The first thing to note, which I was guilty of for a long time, is to turn down gain on each track. That will stop muddiness. EQ wise its probably easier to do everything post recording. I am assuming you are working with amp sims and therefore it should be easier to throw an EQ plugin after. I would try and boost the 500 Hz to 3.5Khz range for your mid focused guitar and the 8-10k range for your high focused guitars. Pan left and right and you should be off to a good start. Really its personal preference but these frequencies are your main points. The bands are pretty wide so try creating lots of different eq points in those areas and move them around to your liking

For tips on the process of double tracking, I have a forum thread that can be found here: https://syngates.com/threads/double-tracking-and-timing-issues.4790/

 

[Andrew Milner]

The first thing to note, which I was guilty of for a long time, is to turn down gain on each track.

That's a blasphemy and you know it .

I plan on using my amp directly. Not really a fan of amp sims, unless I am using my Metal Muff pedal.

 

[Dan Shipway]

Sorry for the late response, had to throw together a few drum mixes. Using a real amp shouldn't affect the process too much, a graphic or parametric EQ thrown in should do the same. I will need to test it however.