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What’s new at Zystrix? Read on… August 4, 2025 Recording? How to Double Track a Guitar the Easy Way In the last issue we looked at inventing your own guitar amp sound by using guitar pedals (click here for a refresher). This time we’re going to record and double track a guitar the easy way. You may remember this topic from back in May of 2023, and since it was so popular we’re going to steal a few ideas from that issue and apply the same principles. We’re also going to hear and see the latest solo piano tune by Dangerous Neighbors called Defeat and Despair. It was recently posted on “Farcebook”, but this version is higher video quality. So sit back and relax. Welcome to Zystrix, the heartbeat of the universe. Where creativity and free-thinking have more value than conformity. Background Artwork The colorful artwork that surrounds the edges of this website is invisible to many cell phone users. It’s included here for your enjoyment. Multiple copies are tiled together for a cohesive and seamless background seen all around this page. Enjoy. Double Track a Guitar the Easy Way Doubling guitar tracks is a common method of making a single guitar sound larger than life. For the guitarist who has trouble playing something the same way twice there’s the TC Electronic Mimiq pedal. The guitarist’ playing simply has to land on a downbeat (or somewhere easy to edit in a DAW) of the song no matter how much his playing tempo wanders. Cool. I wouldn’t recommend doing it that way (unless you’re in a pinch), but it works. The most common complaint about this pedal is that it’s a bad chorus pedal, but the pedal algorithm is fairly convincing if it’s used correctly, at least to my ear. Then there’s the old fashion tape way of doubling guitar tracks. If the engineer is working with a guitarist who knows his parts fairly well, the guitarist simply plays along with everything he or she recorded earlier. It can take some time to re- record all the guitar parts for every song, but it can be done. And then there’s the digital cut-and-paste method explained below. Unfortunately it puts the impetus on the clever engineer because the guitarist doesn’t need to play anything over again at all. The only requirements for this method are that the guitar parts be in time with the metronome, and the musical phrases must be relatively repetitive (at least twice in a row). Voila, you are an engineering hero because an instant double track was made while the guitarist was out smoking a cigarette. Or at least he said it was a cigarette. Anyway, here’s how to do it... First we need the guitarist to have a repeating phrase that repeats itself at least twice. Here’s a visual example of how it may look in your DAW (digital audio workstation)… And here’s how it might sound… This example shows the same guitar phrase copied to the track below it. The vertical marker in the middle or center shows where the lower copied phrase will be cut in half… Here the copied phrase has been separated into two sections ready for the next move. You can see the separation in the bottom track. What were trying to do is trade the two sections -- the left half goes right and the right half goes left like shown here with the arrows. So what we’ve basically done in the example below is trade the right half of the original upper phrase to the lower left and the upper left was traded for the lower right, and we did it by trading the two sides on the bottom track. A visual inspection shows that the two tracks appear different (compare the wave form of the top track to the bottom track) but the phrase is still the same repeating part. Now we have a doubled guitar track without re- recording it. Simply pan one track left and one track right and it could sound like this example… Double Tracking a Guitar Conclusion Well, the guitarist is back from his cigarette break and his tracks are doubled. You play back the results and it gives him a bigger smile. The bass player takes beer money from everyone and runs to the store to bring back celebration libations. And the drummer has pizza delivered. At least that’s how the dream goes, but recording a band is never that easy. Oh well. This technique only works with in- tune guitar parts played or sync repaired to be in time with a metronome. If the band doesn’t have the budget (or time) for this method then probably the best and fastest option is the TC Electronic Mimiq pedal. Like all doubling of guitar tracks, or combined individual drum mics and overheads, or guitar amps and DIs, or sources recorded with more than one microphone, make sure the tracks are in phase with each other or the tracks could sound thin or nasally. This also applies to mastering when the final stereo mix has phasing alignment problems. There are a number of plugins for phase repair but I prefer the Waves InPhase. The Melda MAutoAline is also quite good and it’s a little easier and cheaper. At any rate, if you’d like to have an original realistic guitar doubling sound then this digital cut-and-paste method is a great way to go. As always, I hope this technique has given you something to consider and experiment with in your spare time. Defeat and Despair -- solo piano by Dangerous Neighbors Sometimes life doesn’t go as planned. Everyone is eventually touched by an illness or loss, a tragedy, and the most painful disasters strike with cruel disregard and randomness. Death knocks at the door again. Although defeat can bring despair, despair acknowledged steals it’s power. And feeling despair can also offer a better understanding of the suffering of others. Click here for the MP3 version of Defeat and Despair. Click here for the video version. Enjoy. Don’t touch that dial… Stay tuned next time… Next time we’ll look at ways to improve your guitar tone for free (or nearly free). And there’s another piano tune in both MP3 and video formats called Questions Forever Unresolved. It looks like the next piano album is on the way soon. Maybe I’ll see you then. She said she didn’t think I was stupid, I just had bad luck with thinking.

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ZYSTRIX POPULAR FREE DOWNLOADS The Best Free Synthesizers of 2024 It’s another epic issue, and there’s lots of FREE downloads here. And the Honorable Mention Synthesizer List might surprise you. This list is long, so prepare yourself. And if it seems like too much to take in, I warned you. Click here for the official list of The Best Free Synthesizers of 2024. The Best Free Mastering Plugins Your DAW (digital audio workstation) will be so happy. And so will you. Here are the best of the best for EQ, compression, limiting, tube and tape emulation, reverb, delay, and honorable mentions. This list is a must have with lots of downloads. Check out The Best FREE Plugins for Mastering 2024. Here’s a free download of almost one and a half hours of original neo-classical solo piano by Dangerous Neighbors. This full length album called Piano Top to Bottom consists of 18 original piano pieces with the final piece in two movements. There is a bonus track making 20 files total. 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There is a free glossary of the largest list of mortuary slang in the world. The Free Dangerous Neighbors Album The Fluid, Embalmed for Life comes included as part of the audio book and parts are available here as a free download. The paperback book is available for sale at Amazon dot com. I have no control over these sales; because of the Amazon agreement I cannot offer complete paperback or complete audio books here. And for some reason most book sales go to Japan. Who would have thunk it? Click here for free audio books, book reading samples, music samples, etc. Take me back to the top of the page. Zystrix Privacy Policy THE FINE PRINT: Zystrix is a world leader in personal privacy and we take your privacy very seriously. We do not store, sell, give away, or barter with any of your personal or private information including your email, IP address, links clicked, location, habits, tastes, online activities and behaviors, or anything else considered personal or private information. 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