Recording Guitar (using Sonar 4)

I just bought Sonar 4 and have been messing around with it for the last week. I'm new to recording in general and I haven't had a chance to explore and read about all the features of recording in Sonar, so bare with me.

One of the problems I'm having is getting my guitar sound to sound like it's more in stereo. You know that nice rich sound you hear on everyday music, especially on acoustic guitars. I've recording my guitar tracks in stereo its just missing that extra something.that makes it sound like it's coming from both sides rather then from the middle. And I'm not sure what I should be messing around with since there is so much to Sonar 4.

Should I be messing around with the panning controls? Or should I use two separate tracks, one for the left and another for the right? What about adding plug ins? I have been messing around with the Revalver plug-in from Alien connections to get a better guitar tone. Is that plug-in only a mono effect? Or perhaps I should be doing something like adding buses or more reverb. I haven't used buses so far as I am not familiar with them yet.

Any help or tips would be appreciated.

Note that I'm recording direct with a DI box for the moment but that I'm quite happy with the guitar tone I'm getting.

Some things that might help (Pity me I'm still using Sonar 3).

I double tracking:
Duplicate your mono track and pan hard left and right
Tweak the virtual tone by re-amping the tone of your double track
Tweak the EQ of on of the pairs
Add a little delay to one of the tracks. The exact amount will be dictated by the tempo of the song however it is quite easy to work out.

II Compression:
Squeeze those dynamics for a fatter Sound ! The Time works Compressor X that comes with Sonar is great !

Oh yes, if you haven't done the line 6 thing yet, Pods and Sonar work really well together !! You can pick up a second hand Pod V2 on eBay for about 200 bucks, well worth it !!!

Thanks for the info.

I have a quick question though...When I record my guitar track I see two waveforms show up in my audio track. Is this right? I assume this is a stereo recording were one is for the left side and the other is for the right side. Will this still work the way it is? That is to duplicate it and then pan it?

Yep, It is easier to split those wave forms and treat them as separate tracks. You can do this by bouncing to to mono tracks and archiving the original.

Ok I bounced the track into 2 seperate mono audio tracks. Now when you say to tweak the virtual tone (I assume you mean the plug-in effect?) and EQ settings, should I only be doing that to one of the audio tracks and not both? Because I adjusted one side to be slightly different from the other and what a difference that made. It really brought out the stereo effect I was looking for.

Here's another cool sounding trick I've learned.

On one of the mono tracks, slightly stretch it without any pitch compensation, so that it does slightly change pitch. This will create a doubling/chorus type effect when played with the other track.

You don't want to stretch it so much that it is obviously detuned.

Peace,
-Rick

Sounds great just watch out for flat spots caused by phase cancelation. Not always a problem but worth watching out for !

Thanks a million for all you help Dr Simon and Rick. I'm now able to get the stereo effect I was looking for. I never would have thought to do what you suggested Dr Simon to achieve the results I'm now able to get. What a cool audio trick. I'd say it's almost like an illusion for the ears.

Do you know of any books you could recommend with more of these sorts of tips?

Originally Posted by: audioanimalHere's another cool sounding trick I've learned.

On one of the mono tracks, slightly stretch it without any pitch compensation, so that it does slightly change pitch. This will create a doubling/chorus type effect when played with the other track.

You don't want to stretch it so much that it is obviously detuned.

Peace,
-Rick

thats a good idea, very Beatles (i think they did that for strawberrry fields)

the way I recorded my acoustic was to record one track with just the acoustic guitar not amped, and then record anotther track with the acoustic amped (playing the same song of course) and then mix the two

and if your not opposed to just putting as many overdubs as you want on a song, you can record an acoustic track, then record each chord individualy so that you just play the chord once and let it ring out with a 12 string acoustic or maybe an electric with slight chorus, and mix the two