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Vintage threads from the first ten years
A/B...C? Boxes
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 3/25/1999 8:35 AM |
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Mike |
A/B...C? Boxes Hey all, trying out the new forum. I've done some recording, and I always track the distorted guitar tracks 2-4 times, for that fatter, warmer, heavier sound. By mixing up different amps, mics, rooms, distances, guitars, pickups, etc. you can achieve unique and truly big tones on each song/part. However, this is time consuming ($$$), especially for us ultra anal types who really want real tight set of overlain tracks (i.e. it takes us non-Clapton's a couple'a times to overdub tracks to get each good and tight). Plus the rest of the butheads in the band complain about you taking up all the studio time. I was thinking: wouldn't it be easy to just play 2-4 amps at the same time? Put each in a separate room and mike each with 1-2 mikes (watching phasing of course). Track all 8, mix to whatever tone, or elminate whichever tracks you don't want. Plus they're all totally tight. Do it twice to loosen it/fatten it a touch. The question--how do you do this? I've seen a/b boxes that split the signal to two paths, but what about 3-4 paths, i.e. one in and 4 outs, all working at once? This would probably be a simple procedure to wire up, but wouldn't there be a drop in signal coming from the guitar? Anybody ever made one of these goodies? Mike |
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| 3/25/1999 10:55 AM |
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GFR |
The fastest, cheapest way to double track is using a digital delay and a EQ. Send the dry signal panned to one side and a delayed version of it (~10ms to 30ms) to the other side. Use different EQs for each side and you've it double tracked. If you are recording in HD (eg with cakewalk) it's a matter of seconds. Just duplicate one track and slide the duplicate a bit, then pan each track to opposite sides. Listen to ANY guitar sound that Steve Vai has ever recorded to know how it sounds. |
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| 3/25/1999 11:40 AM |
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| anonymous |
One in, Four outs: http://members.aol.com/jorman/quad.htm | |
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| 3/25/1999 12:54 PM |
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| Mike |
thanks for the tips. I checked out the schematic, I'll give it a better look and maybe try to build it when I've got some free time. The engineer was into splitting tracks left/right, and delaying one slightly, as you described. This does sound very good. But one of the cool (and fun!) parts that this misses out on is the use of different amps/tones. Last time I recorded we used a Mesa boogie through a 4/12 for great low end, and used a marshall artist head through a 410 for overdubs to get brightness and beef up the low mids. The results were very nice, and I think adding some other amps in there would, at the very least, be fun, and certainly gives you more sounds to tailor your tone. Of course the down side is mixing, since it may take longer to find your tone since you've got different sounds on different tracks. Plus you've got a lot to carry. thanks for your comments! |
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| 3/30/1999 12:35 PM |
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| anony-2 | Hi, Jack. |
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| 4/8/1999 2:28 PM |
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| Warren |
Another simple way of using multiple amps is to plug out of input #2 of the first amp into the next amp. You have to lift the ground on one amp, which is not always desirable, but if you don't it will buzz and hum like crazy. I do this all the time mixing my Super Reverb with my AC30. Sometimes I'll put a delay pedal between the amps to thicken it up a bit, or on mix dowm I'll delay on the tracks. It sounds really good to me and I've never had an issue with the loading on the pick-ups. A guy who has really perfected this is producer Dave Jerden (Jane's Addiction, Social Distortion, Alice in Chains, Red Hot Chili Peppers...). He uses three amps to get one guitar track. He brings each amp up to a channel and then uses the band pass filters on his SSL-4000. One low pass at around 300hz, one hi pass at around 1k and the third is variable, depending on what he mids he needs. Now I realize that not everyone has an SSL in their home studio but alot of DAW's have filters that can get you there. Hope this helps, Warren |
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| 5/2/1999 10:01 PM |
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| MJ Harnish | If money isn't an object, take a look at Jester Enterprises' Hydra guitar splitter. It can split a single signal to multiple amps which preventing signal loss and without ground loops. Cool box but it's a bit pricey. (you can find a link to their website ) at Harmony-central. MJ |
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