Threaded - 003 (a very good place to start)

Well, forget all that crap about building a good foundation as the first step. Err, it'll come in handy in the future I'm sure, but for the moment it seemed wise to start over with a guitar track or two. Thought it might be nice to begin the song with a nice slow build that kind of set the scene for the main riff. Recorded my acoustic/electric, playing all the way through the song with a click track supplied by Reason. (oh, and i changed the tempo to 130bpm just to speed it up a bit) Here's what it sounded like:
Threaded003a: GuitarIntro(dry)


After that it seemed like it could use a second guitar, so I just set up another track and recorded using the exact same equipment:
Threaded003b: DualGuitarIntro(dry)

You'll notice that in order to make the sounds of both guitars distinct, I panned one to the left and one to the right a bit. Little interesting tidbit: a sound panned to one side or the other in a musical mix will sound louder than it actually is, like the directional sense of our auditory neurons picks out this irregularity and emphasizes it for us. So if you have some instrumental part that you want to sound louder or otherwise stand out, just pan it to one side a bit - you'll be surprised at how much more distinct it sounds without changing the volume one bit.

The song sounds like it should sort of be a rock song in a way, so i ran each guitar track through its own instance of Guitar Rig 2:

(For the left track I used the preset "Stevie's Rhythm" and for the right used something that I think was called "British Garage" or something.) Here are the two tracks together - i think that adding some amp simulation/distortion really makes it sound like a real song coming together, especially during the buildup.
Threaded003c: DualGuitarIntro(Wet)


Alright - tomorrow just gotta put together some bass/drums (or reuse the existing ones) and patch it all together. Maybe some atmospherics too. Vocals will come later.