Fattening Guitar tone

[LesStrat]

Listened to the first mix last night.

He took the position 4 track and pan it left/right.

He pretty much centered position 2 track.

That focused the track with the Strat honk, and added body to the tone with the stereo panned darker tracks.

Yes, beau, he does add “x” ms offset when needed. I’m pretty consistent when I play the same part again, so it’s usually needed.

 

[Solarflares]

I use small dark-room emulators in DAW to thicken the single guitar track, and make it stereo, in a narrow band.
Then, any longer ambient reverb is panned wider to create space.
I consider the stereo track to then be a bubble. I use EQ and compression to bring it forward or back, then that bubble has to live in a larger bubble of ambience - which itself has it’s own depth and presence. In this way I can make guitars note-ends recede into the distance, or remain up-front and alive.
I do record with two different amps, and of course double parts a lot. Sometimes a clean guitar mixed with distorted. It’s all fair game.
But a basic valve-driven short spring reverb, set low, will initially thicken any guitar tone for recording.

Frank Zappa used a box called the Wagnerian Emancipator. This gave him two distinct de-tuned signals, and was quite unique and wonderful sounding.
Check this out…

This was obviously a guitar part recorded at a fantastic gig in the late 70’s. He later sketched a new backing track, and then spent hours on the floor, cutting and glueing together pieces of guitar-solo tape, until he was happy. Utter genius.
The speed in which Joe’s Garage was conceived and mastered is mind-boggling, and Frank released 9 albums that year!

 

[Securb]

I would call that the guitarist stealing the bass guitar's frequencies.

I can see how that could be a problem with some music though. Point taken.

Point taken, I do play a 7-string and EQ pretty low.

 

[Binnerscot]

This will be obvious to some, and new to others. I’m not the expert, but I’m finding useful tricks and techniques.

We are listening to a track we recently recorded, and the guitar tone is HUGE.

What did I do?

I double tracked. Same tone. Same signal path.

Different guitars.

We have recorded a couple of others that I used different tones with different guitars. I’m getting fantastic tones.

My next challenge is a clean strat riff. I’m thinking of doubling an acoustic. What do you think?

Even the thrash guys double acoustics underneath high gain electric parts to punch through in the mix. I'd say there is no wrong way to do it, but there is the way that works for the intended outcome. Let'r rip.

 

[LesStrat]

I concur. I thought it would be interesting to discuss different techniques here.

We’ve done this multiple ways over the years. Our recent efforts seemed to be working better for us.