Most Efficient way to double guitars in logic?

[theEmbark]

So very often I find myself with a guitar track where I am happy with the tone but want to play with panning. Usually I will want to do something like double the track so I can pan the guitar 50% right and 50% left to create a wider stereo image.

What's the best way to do this? Create multiple tracks? Or just send the original track to multiple buses?

Thanks for any help,
Kevin

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[Boone777]

Double the track pitch a few semitones down or up add to that a delay on of a few millisecond. And yes pan hard right and hard left or not so hard to taste. After a while of listening to that kind of result you might find as many people that double tracking is simpler and has a really great feel to it instead of using those technique. It's a question of taste/time...

[theEmbark]

Hey guys,

Thanks for the replies! I think I left an important piece of the puzzle out of the equation. About a month ago I got into midi guitar due to some trouble with my left hand. So I am speaking about doubling midi guitar tracks. Everything above could be said for midi as well but with this in mind is there anything different you'd recommend?

Should I still use 2 tracks and humanize one different than the other to make it more realistic?

My thought for sending it to a bus was that I would have less instances of vsts open. That being said I didn't really think about some of the above things

Thanks again,
Kevin

[TEKing66]

One cool little trick that I use from time to time, with and with out effects, is to just copy the track, then shift is in time by between 20-300 milliseconds. In truth this is really closer to a chorus effect. But, if you add a bit of ever so slight pitch shifting, along with the time offset, it can add a lot of extra depth to a single guitar. Throw on some additional effects and it can even sound like two guitars, reamp it for even more diversion from the original.

[Chris-S]

in case you are using software amps:

a nice trick is to use different amps / amp settings / cab impulses for left and right.

[theEmbark]

Thanks for all your replies,

I guess at the end of the day I am just trying to come up with the most realistic sound I can using both MIDI guitars and MIDI Amps. I took some of the above advice but am looking for any other tips you may have. Here's a link to just a snippet. Only panning and volume have been adjusted. I have an Ample Sound Gibson panned one way threw an amplitube vox sim and a fender panned the other way with a fender twin reverb sim.

https://soundcloud.com/user-939630224/another-day-3

Thanks again,
Kevin

[LawrenceF]

Does Logic have track delay? That's what I typically do, duplicate the track and pan them and delay one track by 20-30 ms. You'll push the delayed one up in volume a tiny bit to balance them becasue the one that hits first always sounds a little louder.

If you're not bussing them and have two individual reverb sends, make sure you also pan the aux sends.

Check the result in mono and/or put a phase meter on the bus to make sure it doesn't go to crap in mono. I always keep a phase meter on my master bus for that, to solo stereo things and check them.

[theEmbark]

Does Logic have track delay? That's what I typically do, duplicate the track and pan them and delay one track by 20-30 ms. You'll push the delayed one up in volume a tiny bit to balance them becasue the one that hits first always sounds a little louder.

Check the result in mono and/or put a phase meter on the bus to make sure it doesn't go to crap in mono. I always keep a phase meter on my master bus for that, to solo stereo things and check them.

Yeah it does, here is the same track with about 24ms delay on the gibson/vox track:
https://soundcloud.com/user-939630224/another-day-4

Thank you,
Kevin


edit: I missed the second part of your post about mono - that is a good tip haven't thought about that. Usually in my mixing space I have a mono monitor setup for reference but where I am staying right now I just have a pair of $20 headphones. I will go back and check it in mono and make sure it didn't go to s***

[LawrenceF]

Yeah. Not only that, but lots of sampler patches like in Kontakt and similar have horrible mono compatibility. I find myself reducing the stereo width of a lot of them a little so it won't go (as much) to crap in mono.

Look at some of them (strings, pianos, etc) with a phase meter, you'll see.

[theEmbark]

Yeah it's amazing how many tracks really aren't mixed with mono in mind. I personally mix in mono first then spread it to stereo. I was really into kontakt for a while but I've kind of gotten away from NI. I still have it on my machine and it does somethings great. Some of the high end kontakt libraries are amazing but there are too many low quality patches being sold that are just awful. And to many instances of kontakt really tax my CPU (need to upgrade my computer).

I'll take a look at some when I'm in my studio this weekend .

Thanks again,
Kevin