Distortion guitar tracks

Make sure the track is mono and you have selected mono. Turn of any effects. Any effects you have, send it via a bus. Hopefully that sorts out the panning issue.

EQ is what will separate and define your instruments esp in a metal mix. Get the technique right and it will sound professional but its hard to explain a whole field in just a few posts. To summarise though each sound needs its space and with EQ its generally about what you cut out rather than what you boost.

I strongly recommend EQ explained and compression explained on the groove3 website. There's even panning explained and effects explained on the site. Oh and native instruments stuff on there as well. Get yourself a year pass and go through the Sonar tutorials as well. There's just no way to explain everything in these forums, spend an hour or two every day watching and copyingcatting the vids. Maybe in a few weeks or a month you will confident enough as a sound engineer to answer other peoples Q's here. Cheers.

"My problem is- there is no time to watch videos"
 
So you think that those award winning tracks are made in no time?
It`s hard to do something that good with one pair of ears and quickly.
The only way you can get closer is to keep testing your mastering on different sound systems and that takes a lot of time.
Peace

Sadly it takes time. Time to soak up the information, time to practice techniques, time to troubleshoot, time to research and learn; everything takes time. So much to do so little time.

Being a composer, musician, producer, mixing and mastering engineer as well as distribution agent and probably desktop publisher is a huge assignment. When you have to add another career if music is more of a past time than a job, there really isn't much time left.

With Komplete 9 Ultimate you also have some very handy fx that you could use for mastering instead of the ones that come with Sonar.

A free resource is "the recording revolution" on Youtube.

Also, if you want the synths to sit well with the distorted guitar then you can achieve that through a mixture of panning and EQ. The settings will depend on which elements you decide are more important in the mix. If the guitars take priority then you may try something like aggressively high passing the synths so that they don't clash with the "body" of the guitars when you bring them up in the mix. Synth sounds generally have a lot more high frequency content (eg above 8K) than guitars, so take advantage of this when painting your frequency picture.

First off, getting good at recording/mixing ain't a trivial pursuit.  It takes a lot of time and is as much an art as science.  It takes developing an ear which pleases you and your client (or style of music if you are doing it on your own).  If you are in Medical school, I wouldn't worry about getting good at recording/mixing for a few years - after school and once you get est.  Then you'll have money to indulge this passion and time, unless you get married and have kids, but that is another subject.
 
It sounds like you have some time-based effect on the guitar(s).  The guitar should be mono, but once it goes through a stereo effect it will spread out across the field.  So even if you move the mono signal, the rest of the effected signal will still be spread.  Track back the signal from output to source.  As above, putting a guitar through a bus or send will give you control over the mono placement, even as the reverb/echoes bounce around (think of Whole lotta Love by Zep and the guitar coming out one side and the single echo out of the other).
 
separation is a discertation-worthy subject.  Much of it has to do w/ performance and capture and arrangement.  Guitars (at least amped guitars) are compressed and band-width limited already.  You usually don't have to roll off the high w/ a filter, but you can clear up a lot of energy by setting the high pass filter higher, thus limiting the low end energy.  If you have several guitars, you can alter this (and maybe increase certain frequencies) so that the guitar signals separate.  You can also run an eq in the guitar buss to shape the overall tone of the guitars to separate them from synths a little.  Also, try the SSL buss comp in the Prochannel on the guitar buss.  It can shape the guitars' dynamics so the wall of guitars allows the leading instrument to poke out - above the wall.
 
Synths are ususally full range and contain many if not most frequencies.  As such, it helps to filter them out even harder so what is left is the important part of the signal.  That keeps them revalant as well as from eating out all the other frequencies.  Again, using the buss comp can keep them under control except for the loudest synth, which will poke above the rest of them.  That is a hard to describe thing, except you've heard it on just about every song ever released.
 
Panning, of course.  Typically I'll use two rhythm guitars panned pretty hard to left or right.  A lead guitar goes center, along w/ the main vocal and bass.  Everything else goes somewhere inbetween, so every instrument has it's own space in the soundscape.
 
Those are basic tools to use and watch for, esp. when you are recording and designing the sonic part of the song.  Even if you have someone teach you them, there is still the refining process where you learn which tricks you like on your music, much less learning the fine tuning for other genres.  It all takes time, which you say you don't have enough of.  So rather than trying to make your songs sound professionally done in the genre, consider the time you do have as fun and learning the basics.  Every song is a learning experience, not a finished product, and the whole experience will start clicking at some point.  The idea is to not make it perfect, but better, while you learn the tool.  If five more years you listen to the song, think "I should have done this or that," but find the song well done, even w/ the flaws.  Sometimes I'm agast at stuff I did a few years ago, but mostly it is saying to myself, "that ain't half bad."  which is the most important trick, not always listening w/ a critical ear but enjoying the end product.  A lot of the stuff you fuss over at the time dissappears when you listen later.  Because you can always improve a mix, but at some point it is time to finish it.
 
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sharke
Also remember that synth sounds can compliment a guitar based track even if you don't hear them much. A well chosen pad sound that's low in the mix can make all the difference and fill otherwise empty space to make your mix sound fuller and warmer. The kind of pad sound that you don't really hear if you're not listening for it, but when you mute it you really notice that it's gone.

Thank you for your reply. Funny that you mention- I constantly find buried pads under everything else. Trying to have many instruments sounding at the same time takes a lot of compromise.
 
I do not have any effects or stereo reverb on it. The guitar track was recorded in centered Pan position on the Audio interface, and sonar setting of "Left 5-6." This was supposed to give me straight mono track that would go all the way to the Left when I hard Pan it to the left. I hear about 80% on the left and 20% on the right- this makes no sense. hard left means 100% to left and 0% on Right. I have to test my system- this is amazing discovery, and I am glad I do not use Phonic Helix Fire Wire any more- switched to Presonus. But still- if you record mono track and hard pan it- don't you get it all the way to the side you pan it with no sound in other headphone?
 
I am amused about some of the answers. I know how much time does it take. Everything takes time. My school professors would get very offended if they find out- I am wasting my time on something as useless as music, when I supposed to be studying. They would come to conclusion that I was not born for the medicine and should just quit, or I may present public health threat with my incompetence. We all have to do best with the amount of time we have. I just asked for the tip or good ideas on effects that can be put on guitar track. Videos are nice, but they do not answer immediate question: what effects do you use on distorted guitars. If you dont have any tips, that is ok. If you dont want to share, that is fine too. I do not believe- there is no simple way to say it. I can tell you, I use Multiband compressor and Blue reverb on my vocal tracks. I got more stuff now, so I will try different things- I just wanted to hear what you all using. I do not expect anyone's lifetime experience to be compressed in to one post. Just some nice tips. Thought- I would ask. Gets boring to only talk about Sonar crashing and software bugs.    
 
 
 
  

For me it's not what you use, it's how you use it and what you do with it.
 
For instance this is how to make dubstep in 1 minute:
http://youtu.be/iehLN8urq9I
 
Now that's extremely hard and time consuming to get across in a text only medium (OK maybe "lunch"), it's really got to be a multimedia medium IMHO.

It sounds like it was recorded right.  My only suggestion is to go back through the signal path and see if a send is activated that could send some stereo signal or if the interface channel has something else working.
 
My comment about time was simply true.  It does take time to develop an ear.  If you went through an apprenceship at a major studio you spent the time and had good stuff to listen through and on.  And you got to watch experienced engineers work, even if they didn't talk about their techniques.  Doing it on your own, even w/ forum members' help, is a hard row to hoe, esp. if you can only work infrequently.  The only substitute for spending long days learning is long years.
 
But if you can hear a difference between what you are producing and what you wish to hear, you are already halfway there.  The rest is just a matter of trying differnet techniques to get closer to your ideal.  there really is no short cut.  Not so much w/ electronic production, but the real secret is recording a good sound for acoustical stuff.  A good mic, decent preamp, and good room.  If you capture the right signal, it slides right into the song easily.
 
good luck.
 
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