Recording Metal Rhythm Guitars With Amp Sims And IRs

SoundCloud:   / vafamottahedin  
Bandcamp: http://vafamottahedin.bandcamp.com
Twitter:   / vafamottahedin  
Instagram:   / vafamottahedin  
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7kEgK...

0:00 Intro
0:31 Overview
0:50 Disclaimer
1:11 Example
2:06 Dual Tracking
5:31 How To Create Tones
6:01 Signal Chain
9:02 General Rhythm Guitar Recording Tips
12:21 Outro

Here's my second home recording tutorial for beginners. This one is all about recording rhythm guitar, dual tracking, and using amp sims and IRs. This series will show you how to get started recording instrumental metal music at home as easily as possible, without breaking the bank.

Disclaimer, I'm completely self taught and I am probably wrong about some or a lot of this information.

In this tutorial, we'll go over how to get a great free rhythm guitar tone using the TSE 808 overdrive, Emissary by Ignite Amps, and NadIR with some free IRs. We'll also cover the specifics of how to dual track guitars.

Dual tracking guitars is a common recording technique for rhythm guitars. It's when you record two guitar performances, and hard pan each. One to the left, and one to the right channel. This will result in a much wider and larger sound than recording just a single, centered guitar.

Do not record one performance, and then copy and paste it to the opposite channel! Otherwise, you will have phasing issues and it will sound like one centered guitar.

To do this, create two mono tracks, hard panned in each direction. They must be mono because you want to push the entire signal to one side, whereas if it was stereo, you'd just split your signal in half.

Either apply effects to each guitar track individually, and have set their outputs to the main stereo out. Or, group their outputs to one separate an intermediate track, and apply the guitar effects there. This is called a bus or AUX track. There are pros and cons for each approach.

To create a tone, think about what a signal chain for a guitar played through a real amp stack would look like. You'd start off with effects like an overdrive pedal and a noise gate, followed by an amp head on top of the stack, then, into a speaker cabinet. Finally, you'd then have an optional effects loop with assorted other effects like reverb, delay, and so on.

For my free tone, I use:
Noise Gate (Logic)
TSE 808
Emissary by Ignite Amps
NadIR with 'Kick Studio - Emissary 6L6 Custom 4x12 V30 SM57'
EQ (Logic)

General Rhythm Guitar Recording Tips:
-Record your performances as tight and as clean as possible.
-Make sure punch-in performances sound good before, during, and after the punch-in.
-Quad tracking is also possible, but I don't do it.
-Consider turning down your gain.
-Don't just listen to your tone in isolation all the time. It'll sound much different in a mix.
-Keep your comparisons consistent, especially volume.
-Keep your tone simple.
-Don't copy settings from others, just use them as a starting point.

Hope this helps you get the best guitar tone possible!