Some thoughts ..

Don’t obsess over the bottom end. Yes it’s important for a great guitar sound but… most engineers will completely removed what’s under 80-100Hz to make room for the kick drum and bass. A fat, huge guitar sound does not come from the bottom end, it comes from harmonic variance and a good arrangement, read on….
In this case arrangement refers to what and when one or more guitars play. Let’s take the case of two guitars. You can choose to play and record the same part, pan them hard left and right and call it a day, which works well for a band like AC/DC. What???? Contrary to popular belief, AC/DC does not record their parts this way. Take some time, put on the phones and listen to what is really going on. There certainly is the power of two guitars there but Angus and Malcolm are playing different inversions of the same chords and more often than not Malcolm will leave space in the form or rests which tricks the listener’s brain into hearing “big”.

Another interesting aspect of great guitar sounds is the great overdrive and distortion sounds that can make everything huge. The more dirt, the better right? Well, um, no not really, at least in my opinion. I’ve always found less distortion to be “bigger”. As fun as it is to crank up the overdrive and get all that really great sustain, fuzz, or distortion, it doesn’t make for very lively rhythm parts, especially when playing with others. To me they all sound squished and heavily frequency limited. I prefer the just on the edge of grit sounds you hear bands like the Foo Fighters, AC/DC, Stone Temple Pilots etc use. “Just a second… What did he say?” That’s right folks, these bands all play with sounds that are really not as dirty as you think. The illusion of depth and “big” they achieve is a result of two or three guitars slightly overdriven playing together as one (perhaps with different parts). It sounds like each has more distortion than they really do, but I wouldn’t lie to you, there’s not that much there.

In other cases truly interesting guitar parts happens when the players use very different parts. I’ve played in bands with three guitar players for a number of years and if I’ve come away learning anything, it’s to stay out of the way of the guy standing beside you. Don’t play the same part with the same sound if you want to be heard. Find some other real estate on the fret board and make that your own. If I play an accent on a downbeat and then a rest, while my band mate plays through, it’s going to be much more effective than both of us playing the same or different things all the way through. THIS is arrangement and it’s used to hold the listener’s attention. You couple this with different guitars and amps for each player and you have a much more memorable and interesting experience for the listener plus it’s challenging as a player.

Another studio trick I’ve used in the past to put definition back into a “difficult” arrangement is to add some acoustic guitar underneath the electrics. Used sparingly, acoustic guitars can add attack while at the same time softening up electric guitar parts that may be too brash or strident. You should definitely spend time experimenting with this under arpeggios and certain rhythmic figures. A great trick from the country side of recording is to capo up high on an acoustic and play the capo’d inversions of the chords down lower. This works and is heard in many types of folk and rock music from Blue Rodeo to Rush.

I hope these few ideas may help you develop some new techniques for recording and overdubbing electric guitars. There are many aspects to the recording/arrangement process which is what makes it fun and open to experimentation. If you have any comments or questions please email me smog@rogers.com