HI All
 
These days I play my guitar over pre recorded backing tracks,but I have a problem tryng to make
the guitar sound like it was part of the recording and not an afterthought,it does not sit right in the mix.
 
I have just bought Expanded and got all the toys that come with it,but now there are
the Softube plugins that look great.
 
I used to play mainly Shadows type stuff,now I play anything that sounds good as an instrumental.
 
I have also seen the Abbey Road Plugins,but know nothing about them.
 
I need some guidance from more experienced mixers and masterers,so can someone help with
my problem please?
 
Thanks
 
Alan
 

You can chase that elusive tone all over creation as long as you have money.....

at some point, you need to learn to be able to make any guitar tone fit into a mix. It is possible. Listen to all the bands and records made from the earliest days of recording until now..... the variety of tones is endless and yet they all fit the song. 


approach it from that POV. 

try sending the guitar to a buss and use a wee bit more compression,use the 4k buss compressor, or any other comp thats suited to buss duties, but dont over do it, try and get the mix to glue together,,,, i mean theres not really a set way, just a matter of getting it sounding right to your self, no doubt you'll get some more detailed stuff posted in this thread, but thats wat i would do, buss it,, can i also recomend starting the mix from scratch, set your busses up for different instruments, and mix into the busses with compression !!!

Thanks for the replies,very useful.

I suppose another way to describe the problem is to say that
the guitar sits on top of the backing,and not in with it,if that makes sense.

I will certainly try the buss and compressor suggestion.

Alan

wats the content of the backing track ?? is it a stem or individual files

Backing tracks are pre recorded wave or MP3 files.

They are complete except for Lead/Melody line.
Some are from sites like Ameritz,and some are from Karaoke site.

Others are from specialist sites.

Alan

A large part of what you need to do is figure out the sound or tone of the backing tracks and match that to your guitar.  Putting karoke leads over an established song is harder than it looks - certainly harder than singing karoke at 1 am to a drunk audience.

Another thing - what is your recording method.  Do you amp and mic the guitar or DI.  W/ Producer, you have guitar rig etc.   Running a DI'ed guitar through that can help establish some air to the guitar, which should help.  It works on mic'ed guitar too, depending.

If your guitar still sticks out like a sore thumb, EQ, EQ, EQ.  Amps by their nature compress and filter the sound, so rolling off the bottoms and some high can help fit a guitar in.  If the backing tracks are well done, there should be some room in their for guitar.  But you can still find a frequency for your guitar and pull that out of the backing mix.  Then there is compression - esp. if your guitar bounces around in volume.  Automate it for general levels w/in the song, then compress the track.  You can add reverb, too, and then send it out a bus before the master and add another slight level of compression.

Hopefully, you can find a place to squeeze the guitar in.

@

An infinite number of sounds takes an infinite amount of time to audition.

But it is nice to have the freedom to choose from a myriad of sounds...

If you get too many you have all the freedom of an astronaut floating in space.

 

Might be partly a case of experimenting with different reverbs to find one that doesn't make your guitar sound like it's in another room from the rest of the music. 

And just to answer the thread title...

The one with the MOST plugins WINS!!




Seriously....you can do just about anything you want with the plugins that came with 
Sonar X1 Producer...

The main reason for the other plugins is to capture a "sound quality" that is 
given by that particular Type, be it compressor, reverb, etc...

Hence the myriad of plugins available...

I highly recommend learning the ones with Sonar.  Then when you feel you need something more...
Then start checking out the others...

They all do basically the same things....just different "sound"  Plugins are "sampled" or more appropriately, "modeled" hardware for the most part.

I recommend the Sonar X1 Videos.  They will give you a good "foot in the door" of Sonar.

Oh yeah...usually the issue you describe is a "level" issue, where the backing track is playing to low and/or
the guitar is playing to loud.  That's what MIXING is all about...getting the sound and the levels in a good 
place so that everything sounds level and well balanced.

Cheers!!