Ideas For The Mix: Guitars - Pt 5

The guitar has a kind of grit and excitement possessed by nothing else. Brian May

When it comes to Guitarists and fitting things in a mix there's one sure thing you can rely on that every guitarist will say?  - "Let me just add one more guitar"

Despite there are only so many frequencies to share around with the other band members I've never met a guitarist yet who was into using minimal guitar parts. They will always be the one who will present the biggest challenge in trying to convince that they don't need 20 guitars playing on the left and right to create a wall of sound. In fact in reality it's quite the opposite.
 The trick here is good man management. You don't want to seem like your giving more attention to one member of the band over another but winning over the guitar player/s can seriously cut down on time wasted in the studio arguing about how many guitar parts a song needs. Decisions like equipment (guitar, amp, pedals) and tones (committing to a sound) should all be sorted out before even entering the studio. Sure it's fine if you suddenly and unexpectedly come across some random stroke of genius, always be recording, but within reason. The greater percentage of what's going to go down in the studio should have been ironed out in rehearsals, discovering whats working and whats not. But there are some constants that everyone should adopt into there playing.

Layering Guitars

 The whole emphasis of layering up guitars can best be shown by one of the greatest session guitarists that ever graced a six string ax in his video below "Layering Guitar Parts":

So many examples and tips from Tim he best describes the methodology required to create awesome guitar parts that can be utilised in any genre. Less is more especially when wanting to create big giant and wide guitar parts. Notice how Tim plays early tracks with no reverb allowing him to have it only added to solo parts. Also instead of playing roughly the same guitar part to the left and right he alternates with different chord shapes (add a capo for example), using single low end and high end harmonic guitar parts so the sum of all parts add together to create something really special.

Panning Guitars

When it comes to panning everyone automatically defers to thinking first two guitars panned hard left & right followed by another two panned 75 left & right. But if you go 100% left and right from the start of the track then there's no way of adding in further panning options to give, for instance on a chorus, that added width giving the track some dynamic change and stepping things up a level.
 Of course there are no set standards but consider having your main two guitar parts panned 40-60 left & right for the verse and then go full 100 left & right on the chorus for greater effect. Automation can be your best friend here.

Guitar Tone

Other things to consider are having distinct tones on the left & right especially on similar guitar parts. Try to mix things up by using different guitars (single coil, humbucker) different cabinets, mic position, using a capo, Eq's anything to make the left and right tonally different. You can test how well two guitars panned left & right work together by dropping your mix temporarily into mono. Here you'll notice if you can still hear two distinct parts, if one is drowning out the other or if one completely disappears. If that's the case select a different tone by utilising one of the above methods.

Watch the video below as I show and discuss adapting some of these methods into a mix.