How do you remove a guitar track from a song?

[EricBarker]

You record it upside down, so the waveforms cancel out.

 

(sorry, self-isolation is getting to me)

[Baldwin Funster]

I'm sure there's an app for that. With in app purchases of course.

[Dr Mike Metlay]

The iZotope RX 7 Music Rebalance module can do wonders. It's best at targeting bass and drums, and pretty good at vocals, but can be used for other stuff too. Depending on how exposed the guitar track is, the mysterious and frightening "Other" slider might do the job...

 

Start here (plug plug plug):

 

The Magic Of RX 7 Music Rebalance, Part 1, by some doofus with a PhD in nuclear physics

[wjwilcox]

Fire the guitarist....he should be at least 6 feet away anyway.

[mate stubb]

Give the guitar player a chart to read.

[Docbop]

You can use a parametric EQ and dial in a range the guitar is in and then dip that frequency range. Problem especially be a keyboard forum the guitar players Only range is the keyboard players favorite range, so you will be ducking down more than just the guitar. Remember back in my recording engineer days we had to do that to a Bob Dylan vocal track he had hissed his S's so much, so my buddy had to learn the track and switch in the parametric EQ on the S's then back out during mixdown. Being this was done on Dylan vocal track only it didn't interfere with anything else.

[KuruPrionz]

Only keyboard players would try to "fix" something that isn't broken. :- D

 

The REAL answer coming from a Guitarist?

 

Record it over again and since there are now vast, "empty" places everywhere, fill them up by playing twice as many notes as last time (which was twice as many notes as were needed in the first place).

 

While you are at it, go ahead and drown out the bassist with your left hand.

 

For that matter, show up first, set up all your gear and nobody else will have any space to set up - no fun, go home. :- D

[PianoMan51]

Call the key of Eb.

[The Real MC]

^ WINNER

[Mark Schmieder]

Some helpful hints here. I have the iZotope product but hadn't thought of using it for that purpose yet. I have a legacy track that was recorded very poorly (by someone else) using a single room mic, and I have yet to successfully get the guitars out of the track but had more success with vocals and bass (which I re-did as the original bassist sucked).

 

I also enjoyed the jokes, but I hate Eb as well being a bassist who swore off 5-string and 6-string basses a few years ago and doesn't like hip-shot extenders or constantly retuning to extend my reach. A lot of stuff sounds lame with the Eb up an octave (my rock cover band does a lot of 90's material), but the guitarists often don't want to be bothered down-tuning either. :-)

[KuruPrionz]

Call the key of Eb.

 

^^^

Spoiler alert.

Very common for guitarists to tune to Eb. Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn come to mind. Any of us could if we needed to. I never do it.

 

Assuming guitarists can only play in limited keys, I get that. I've certainly seen a fair share of guitarists do that.

 

Often they are emulating those who went before them, who are simply using open strings as pedal tones.

We don't have the wonderful option of 88 keys so we use other strategies to get a larger, more sonorous sound.

 

True fact, every major scale requires a different fingering pattern on a keyboard.

 

On a guitar, one fingering pattern moved up and down the fretboard on the same strings will accomplish the same thing.

 

On the other hand, imagine reading a chart and the melody shows Middle C. On a keyboard, that is one definate place and no other place. On a Stratocaster, I can play Middle C in 5 different places. Now what?

 

So guitar (and stringed instruments in general) is actually one of the easiest instruments to play in different keys. I do it all the time live and on the fly.

At the same time, it is one of the most challenging and difficult instruments to play while reading notation.

 

If you know a guitarist who can sight read, they probably have an IQ of umpty bajillion. Not me, too blind and not that smart! :- D

 

I guess it's funny that keyboardists and guitarists always pick away at each other but I don't really understand it. We all play music. If everybody played the same thing that would get really old quick. Cheers, Kuru

[KuruPrionz]

While I am at it.

 

Traditional European notation and the tempered scale are wonderful tools for keyboard players and classical composers in the European tradition. I love some of that music.

 

Blues, true Deep Blues has notes that are not in the tempered scale. So does Middle Eastern music, Indian music, Asian music, African music, Native American chanting, etc. I love some of that music too.

I don't consider any of these musics to be of a higher stature than the others.

 

Human voices must be trained to sing in the tempered scale, our natural tendencies must be overcome. Both can be expressive, tell a story, create tension and release.

 

The true fifth as created by a naturally occuring harmonic from a flute, a string, the wind through certain stone structure - is not the same as the tempered fifth, an adjustment to the natural true fifth was required to obtain the circle of fifths.

 

For myself and many others, one of the beauties of modern electric guitar with light guage strings is the ability to play all the subtle inflections that cannot be written or executed in the tempered scale. Some of you are surely playing them using your pitch wheel on your keyboards. This is where my passion lies, in those tiny, expressive differences.

 

One compromise that is taught in European tradition is the "just scale" which has the natural fifth but since it is played on a fretless violin you can still transpose to any key. This is also true of guitar and of keyboards with pitch wheels or other electromechanical methods of manipulating pitch.

 

As with everything music, it is both an Art and a Science.

 

That said, nobody could accurately notate the solo from Muddy Waters slide work on Streamline Woman.

This is to say nothing of the singing.

 

So, you don't have a chart for it anyway. :-D

[Docbop]

Those who are saying guitarists only play in a few keys I say you been playing with too many garage jam bands.

[Outkaster]

they're all guilty

[stoken6]

There are some non-stereotypical guitarists out there - who can read music, play in Eb, keep volume levels sensible, not widdle over others' solos, etc. Unfortunately, given the sheer number of guitar players on the planet, they're a tiny fraction.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[PianoMan51]

Eb was just a joke for us keyboard players. Do we have any others so we can offend a group that isn"t represented on KC?

 

How do you remove a guitar track from a song?

 

- Cover it over with a banjo track.

 

And here comes the KC banjo subgroup with history lessons and cries for social justice for stereotyped banjo players.

 

(For complete disclosure, I own and occasionally play a 4 string tenor Gibson built in the 20s. I cried the day the old leather head split. And yes, if I ever want a second banjo I"ll just leave mine downtown in an unlocked car.)

[vanderSchoot]

Make sure you also record a bone dry feed....ends up sounding much better most of the time..or with just a SUBTLE amount of effects in the post process.

As a keyboard player i never used any reverb live and most effects apart from leslie muddy things up very fast. My experience with some guitarists is that they use to much real tube, to many dedicated effects and to many guitars. While a simple clean strat sound during accompanying parts would sound best most of the time.

Maybe it"s just me ..but boy did i prefer a guitar player with just a couple of sounds to play with and accurate use of volume adjustments during solo and accompanying parts....instead of the 'each song needs a whole new arsenal of effect settings"..not knowing how a specific venue would react to a specific setting of /user effect chains programmed in another room.