Guitar in need of ass

[Zachzaba]

I have been trying to "beef up" a guitar track for many a hour and am still not impressed with my efforts. I have tried doubling, hard panning, doubling a distorting one, delays,multiple reverbs. If anyone had any ideas I would be grateful.

Thanks

[basementproject]

When I need a beefy tone I like to run through a half-stack rig. Big cabs are bassier than little single-speaker amps. Close-mic a top speaker, right up to the mesh, center of the cone. Proximity effect, beefy stuff. Throw a room mic about 6 inches away from the speaker as well, if you feel the need. Play with it.

Edit: The above is assuming you can go back and re-record. If not:

You mentioned you've tried doubling, and delays. I don't know if you've tried this, but it's what I always do when I'm beefing strings. Create a bus send from the original guitar track, level out to an aux input. Run a short delay on the aux, 25-30ms or so. Mix the effect in to taste. Pan the original to one side, the send to the opposite. Make sure the signal of both tracks come out even. You can't really hear the delay using this trick, but you can definitely notice there's "something" going on to fatten up the guitar tone compared to the original.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

A good guitar, amp, room, mic, signal path, and player always helps but you probably know that.
What are you trying to do and what are you using to get there? I always find the guitar and amp make the biggest difference. What are you using? What kind of music are you doing?
Sometimes the rest of the arrangement take up the space needed to make the guitar sound beefy.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

P.S. Smal tube amps and humbuckers always work for me. Also 10 inch speaker. 12's are too sludgy and 8's sound harsh.

[RodC]

Acustic or Electric?

How was it recorded and how many tracks do you have?

[VelvetoneStudios]

This is a hard one without hearing the track! A few of my Go-To trix for BEEF are:
Running through 10" closed back cabinet for a tighter low end. I tend to notch out 400 a lot on guitars bass AND kick, cause I hate it, and it seems to clear up room for the real bottom. If it's a big rythm part a'la ACDC I'll pull the mic back to get some room, squish it with a comp and use low and high pass filters to avoid it sounding too good as Hi-Fi digital often does. If every track sounds perfect and hi fi my mixes come out crap. A mic that my amp builder gave me, an Audio Technica ATM63, is kinda a 57 ripoff that has a different bottom and a lower output that sometimes lets me get a little more girth from the mic's sound and having to use more preamp gain and therefore getting more preamp transformer color. It really is a tricky thing to get the guitars meaty and still have room for bass and kick in the mix, so I tend to end up with my soloed guitar tracks a little thinner than I track them. A trick that I picked up a few years ago is to double the track with a LESS distorted tone so the bottom is a shade rounder and pull the double down in the mix until it sounds fat but doesn't cluttter the mix.Check the first guitar on my MySpace page, it's alone at the beginning and sounds thin, but seems to fill up when the band kicks in...later in that track you'll hear a drop tuned guitar doubled with an acoustic. the real girth comes from the acoustic even though its back a ways. Good Luck, and if you still aren't happy,give us some more detail as to what/how you're cutting it and what your end goal tone is.
Thanks,

[RefD]

the trick i like is the "tough but clean" guitar (usually with a humbucker) doubling the heavy overdriven guitar.

can add punch, meat and definition.

[weatherbox]

Taking a big mean overdriven guitar and laying a 335 through a cleaner amp underneath for some definition and whoomp! always sounds great to me. Seriously distorted guitar often sounds sorta flat for me without it.

[kayagum]

Whatever distortion/overdrive you think you need live, scale back by a 1/4 or 1/3 when you record.

Also: use heavier gauged strings on your guitar.

[???????]

re-amp and use the mic with the most proximity effect you can find and stick it right up on the grille. Or you could always try dealing with the bass guitar (if applicable) and its relationship to the guitar track and see if you can reach some sort of agreement between the two.

[runrunrun]

Also: use heavier gauged strings on your guitar.

that makes such a huge difference, use the heaviest you can stand.

[VelvetoneStudios]

We use 13's for rythm guitars in studio. IF you do try this,put a twist on the neck or you might be looking at serious damage if the tension is set for 10's. Another string option that we use onstage, is "Light Top, Heavy Bottom" Less danger of torsion and a little extra junk in the proverbial trunk.
(We here at Tony C. and The Truth and Velvetone Studios would like to say a heartfelt "Thanks" to the fine,fine folks there at Ernie Ball)
Yeah, I'm an askizz!!!

[Zachzaba]

I actually grew up with mostly acoustic instruments but I'm actually helping a friend with a Clash sounding band with a slight folk twang.

They have a Vox combo (will check specs and name when I return) as well as an older Marshall stack. For the most part they have two guitar parts on each song....one very clean and bright....while the other is not to the extent of "all out distorted" but pretty close at times.

I have had problems with the clean guitar being somewhat bright but rather brittle.
Also in response, I have had some luck cleaning up the heavier guitar taking a 300-400 scoop out of it.

Thanks for the time.

[Judas Jetski]

Everyone tells me I'm an ass... maybe I should play your guitar.

[GooberNumber9]

If you go from 10s to 13s you might need to adjust the truss rod, intonation, and even widen the slots on the nut, depending on the guitar. I know I can't put 11s on my G&L again without doing some work on the nut, because the G and B strings don't go all the way down the slots and the intonation goes way off.

Back to the original question, if you took 300-400 out of one or more of the tracks, try boosting something below that, maybe 200 - 300. Right around there is your ass region, and it can be good ass or bad ass (or even badass), so you gotta be careful what you boost or cut. I've definitely boosted this on distorted guitars to give them more beef.

Todd Wilcox