Recording Full-Sounding Guitar In GarageBand

[dearambellina26]

Hey I have an M-Audio Fast Track and the latest version of GarageBand, with which I've done a lot of recording, but something never makes that full cd quality guitar sound, where its surrounding you. If you have it panned in the middle it sounds empty and like its lacking fullness. Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[mbrizan]

Hey I have an M-Audio Fast Track and the latest version of GarageBand, with which I've done a lot of recording, but something never makes that full cd quality guitar sound, where its surrounding you. If you have it panned in the middle it sounds empty and like its lacking fullness. Any ideas?

Thanks

copy the track into a new track and pan it to the other side.

 

[CanadaRAM]

something never makes that full cd quality guitar sound, where its surrounding you. If you have it panned in the middle it sounds empty and like its lacking fullness. Any ideas?

Spend 10 years apprenticing in studios to learn the trade, then use a gazillion dollars worth of gear, including expensive microphones in an acoustically excellent studio, with vintage guitar amps and speakers.

Seriously ... recording is both a craft and an art. You need to learn how to do it, and you won't get it from a post on a forum. The sound you seek is the peak of the recording profession that has been refined for the past 60 years or so. It's kinda like saying -- "OK, I have Photoshop, now how can I get the same chiaroscuro effect like Rubens and Raphael paintings?"

There are all kinds of tools -- panning, delays, reverb, EQ, compression, chorus, multitracking the guitars, multiple mics on the speaker cabinets. Get some magazines like Sound on Sound, Recording, Electronic Musician, EQ (read the sticky posts in the Digital Audio subforum -- where this thread should be posted). Then practice the techniques that you read about, until you learn how.

 

[bartelby]

Get some magazines like Sound on Sound, Recording, Electronic Musician, EQ (read the sticky posts in the Digital Audio subforum -- where this thread should be posted). Then practice the techniques that you read about, until you learn how.

Tape-Op is a great magazine too. You can get it free if you're in the US, UK or Europe.

Also experiment as much as you can. Sometimes accidents end up sounding the best.

 

[dearambellina26]

Spend 10 years apprenticing in studios to learn the trade, then use a gazillion dollars worth of gear, including expensive microphones in an acoustically excellent studio, with vintage guitar amps and speakers.

Seriously ... recording is both a craft and an art. You need to learn how to do it, and you won't get it from a post on a forum. The sound you seek is the peak of the recording profession that has been refined for the past 60 years or so. It's kinda like saying -- "OK, I have Photoshop, now how can I get the same chiaroscuro effect like Rubens and Raphael paintings?"

There are all kinds of tools -- panning, delays, reverb, EQ, compression, chorus, multitracking the guitars, multiple mics on the speaker cabinets. Get some magazines like Sound on Sound, Recording, Electronic Musician, EQ (read the sticky posts in the Digital Audio subforum -- where this thread should be posted). Then practice the techniques that you read about, until you learn how.

Well I'm not looking to master it or anything, I know that, I'm completely aware, but I'm saying with the amateur equipment I have, after trying:

-One track panned in the middle (0)
-Two tracks panned in the middle (two 0's)
-Two tracks, one panned all the way to the right (+64) and one panned all the way to the left (-64) But recording the same music over on the other ear because if you just double the same exact track it sounds the same as the first one up there ^

As different options for guitar tracking, I want to know if there are any quick ideas that I haven't tried, or that could improve my sound.

 

[bturville]

if you can be bothered double tracking (ie rerecording the takes) and panning them, that often improves the sound.

or an easier way is to delay one track by a few fractions of a second, and then pan each. pretty standard i think...you can find mountains of tips and information online. are your recording acoustic/electric? amped with a mic, or just straight in?

 

[dearambellina26]

if you can be bothered double tracking (ie rerecording the takes) and panning them, that often improves the sound.

or an easier way is to delay one track by a few fractions of a second, and then pan each. pretty standard i think...you can find mountains of tips and information online. are your recording acoustic/electric? amped with a mic, or just straight in?

I'm recording straight in. And that delay thing's a great idea! How would i do just a fraction of a second, would I have to AUDelay and manually enter the number of milliseconds or whatever in?

 

[tremlock]

when ever i record in garageband i always record 4 takes...and use 2 or 3 different presets and a little different delay...it give a monster huge sound...like a metallica black album sound...

 

[CanadaRAM]

Just duplicating the track and panning it will make no difference.

Two identical tracks panned -64 +64 are no different than the single track panned center -- you have equal volumes of the very same waveform coming out of each speaker.

What gives humans the sense of space, that they are in a room or an acoustic environment, is that each sound produced arrives slightly differently at each ear -- different in terms of the time of arrival, the spectrum (tonality) of the sound, and the additional reflections from the room's surfaces, which arrive after the original sound.

So in order to create this illusion of space, you have to add appropriate amounts of delay, equalization, and reverberation differently to the L channel and the R channel.

As mentioned before, one way to do this is to record two different performances of the guitar part -- doubling -- where the player tries to duplicate the original part exactly. Of course the player can't, at the waveform level, there will always be tiny differences in timing and tone. This can create the illusion of a larger guitar sound, or a 'chorus' of guitats, as the two waveforms interact with each other.