panning guitar suggestions

[Tim ConnollyParticipant]

I have a project that is made up of Guitar, bass, drums and two vocals.  There are 4 tracks for the one guitar which is made up of two mics on the cab and two room mics.  There are no overdubs.  So the guitar tracks are all identical.  I am looking for panning suggestions or some other method to make the guitar interesting.  I am new at this so any help I can get I would be grateful.

Thanks, Tim

[Arthur LabusModerator]

Hi Tim,

what comes me first in mind: use one or a blend of the cab tracks panned to one side and use the room (or blend of) panned to opposite.

Probably adding a small track move/delay to the room track(s) could be necessary.

It always depend on the vibe of the song. Panning the cab tracks do not have to be that hard.

For "full" stereo guitars there could be the "cut out and move around" method used IF the material is repetetive. So you would technically have two guitars.

There are of course several plugins to creatae the stereo effect from mono tracks, jowever i guees you dont want that.

Arthur

[Tim ConnollyParticipant]

Hello Arthur,

Thank you for your ideas and suggestions.  Very helpful.  At this point I have the room tracks panned opposite at 60% and the cab tracks at 30% panned opposite.  I don't dislike this, but I am not sure this is the solution.

I will look into your suggestion of the delay on the room tracks.

Your guess is correct on that I don't want to use a plugin for creating a stereo track.  Not at this point anyway.  Looking for alternative ways and hopefully learning along the way.

Thanks again for your time and suggestions.

Tim

[Damien TremblayParticipant]

HI Tim, if I got it right  you have two close mikes on your cab and two rooms. The cab mikes will act as a single one in terms of stereo image. Depending on how your room mikes were positioned, Panning them and keeping the cab mike in the center could help widen the stereo image. Another old trick is to duplicate the close make tracks and hard pan the two and adding a few milliseconds  delay on one of the two. This trick has been used for years in hard rock and metal.

Hope it helps

Good luck

[Tim ConnollyParticipant]

Hi Damien,

Very helpful thanks so much.

Tim

[Steven BennettParticipant]

This is kind of an old thread and I'm sure you've figured out what to do by now but, along with what Damien suggested I would also pan the guitars wider than 30% and I would pan the room tracks wider than the close mic tracks depending on how big you need the guitars to sound.

[Tim ConnollyParticipant]

Hi Steven,

Thanks for the suggestion.  Yes, I did make a decision.  Not far off from your suggestion, actually.  I took the cab guitars and moved them out a bit more and the rooms all the way.  I was happy with the results.

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