Part 20 of 31 – Need your mix to open up? Feel things crammed and squashed together? It might be time to mute your guitars for a moment in the song.
Those Pesky Guitars
As much as I love playing, recording, and mixing guitars, I’m aware that they are notorious for soaking up tons of sonic real estate in your mix. It’s just the way it is. SO, to create impact and open your mix up for a moment, mute the guitars for a few bars and let the magic happen.
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My name is Graham Cochrane and I'm the founder of The Recording Revolution, one of the world's most loved audio recording and mixing blogs with over 200,000 readers each month. 
This creates a huge impact! I have to ask though, is the electric piano a pro tools instrument/preset? I love that tone and could definitely use it in a track I’m working on!
Virtual Instrument. It is a patch in Xpand! from Pro Tools.
A bit like poetry… less is sometimes more. Adds drama and tension/release.
I love to listen to some old Les Paul records – He layered so many guitars in some of his instrumentals and yet every guitar has its place – All in mono no less! I often record guitar parts in mono in order to force me to strive for multiple tracks not getting too muddy. Only after i’ve used EQ and other tweaks to separate guitar parts do I then pan them where I want them in the stereo spectrum.
Exactly bro!
Hey Graham, muting those guitars does not only give space to the frequency domain but also to the stereo field. The first part of the verse is (almost) mono, which sounds very intimate and draws the attention to the singer´s performance, re-introducing the guitars makes it sound very wide and full, so creating an incredible “whowww”-effect.
Best wishes from Munich/Germany and thank you for all your huge effort
Thanks Jojo.
Awesome example Graham. I recently release my first single thanks to your video about how *not* to seek perfection and just finish something! I arranged the music with the goal of keeping no more than three prominent parts active at a time, basically using the muting technique you mention in this video to give instruments their turn in the trio.
Thanks again for sharing your experience with us.
Love it! Congrats.
What was the shortcut you used to mute these and break them up?
To break them is the letter “B” and mute is Command+M
Thanks Graham,
I really appreciate these your lessons. God bless you for sharing what you know.
You’re welcome!
As it usually turns out… Less IS more…. 🙂