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Edmonton, Canada

Hi.

So i have a few tunes in which there is some electric guitar parts required or needed. Nothing too serious, just a few chunky power chords here and there.

So my question is; what should I be aware of, when wanting to make these guitar parts mesh in well with my chiptunes?

Thanks!

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Wolverhampton UK

Just fiddle with volumes and sounds till you get something pretty good!

I used to use guitars with my earlier stuff and If you get it right it sounds delicious.

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Edmonton, Canada

This is from a production/mixing standpoint too. Like is there any suitable EQ ranges, things I should watch out for.

Dos and Donts, really. I have the sound already done. Just need to mesh it properly.

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Seattle, WA

theres no rules in chiptune man just do it

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Planet Zaxxon

It can be tough. If you are mixing with NES or Gameboy, the pure square waves cut through everything!! They will cut right through the guitar in the mix... So it can be deceiving sometimes. Its good to reference the mix on good speakers, crappy speakers, then headphones too.. But I guess that can be said about any recording.

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York, Yorkshire

Tuning and Tone.  Cheap guitars and amps suffer with both of these things.  If you don't already have (or access to) a good quality guitar and amp, then you need to beg or borrow from somewhere or get saving.   Nothing worse than dull, muffled, out of tune guitars mad

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Los Angeles, CA

All I can say is this, I mixed guitar and chiptune once, put about fifteen minutes total into the production of the track, and a bunch of people shit their pants with joy. Ok, not really, but it seemed a lot of people liked it. Listen: http://wizwars.good-evil.net/MP3/ccn016 … y_Away.mp3

Aside from writing the actual chiptune, that song took about ten minutes to record and like I said, maybe fifteen minutes to play around with the EQ and volume of the chip and guitar. The guitar tracks (two tracks hard panned) were recorded clean and then processed with some basic 'metal distortion' setting in Amplitube 2. It should also be noted that I recorded it using a very shitty Squier guitar, I think one of the lowest models you can get actually.

The reason I bring all this up (aside from shameless self promotion) is because sometimes it's a good idea not to over think things. Just play with the EQ and volume until you find the sound that is desirable to you, then take note of those settings and use them in future recordings as a reference point. I don't think there is really a right or wrong way to do stuff like this.

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Cambridge, MA

You might want to try going for a fairly bassy sound for the guitar. That way its not competing for sound with the main chip leads.. At least that's how it seems Wizwars did his with a bit of success. wink

Also, as long as the guitar is properly in tune, you can mess around with the sound afterwards to clean it up some. Although you'll have to do considerably less of it with nice gear.

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United States

I've found that putting the right amount of reverb on non-chip instruments tends to set them apart from chip leads without clashing. I've actually mixed classical guitar with a few chip tracks with great success. It's all about experimenting and finding what works. As yuh said, there are no rules in chip so just go for it--use your ears and take note of what works.

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Wilmington,NC

Thought I'd contribute, but I also wanna know how OP fared.
I play guitar in my chip influenced band, and we use a DS10 and gameboy. I use a fuzz distortion and just a touch of reverb. Here's a song of ours done on LSDJ with guitar toward the end.
http://ddsluggers.bandcamp.com/track/en … ?permalink

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UK

Don't over do it.

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10 min face ripping solo with arpegios and sweeps.

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Chicago IL

whatever you do, don't experiment.

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Wellington

It's probably a good idea when doing the EQ to try not to boost or cut all the same frequencies for the guitar that you have, or that are prominent in the chip stuff

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Edmonton, Canada

Just saw this

Thought I'd contribute, but I also wanna know how OP fared.
I play guitar in my chip influenced band, and we use a DS10 and gameboy. I use a fuzz distortion and just a touch of reverb. Here's a song of ours done on LSDJ with guitar toward the end.
http://ddsluggers.bandcamp.com/track/en … ?permalink

Not too bad. As long as you EQ it properly and the recording of the guitar track is not fucked or anything, it works. Oh yeah and mess around with your distortion settings and what not.

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Brunswick, GA USA

What Wizwars and OP said, relating to my own stuff, sounds like everyone is doing it right.

When I use guitar it is usually very soft on purpose but it's the same idea- I mess with pan and EQ (and compression) until I can put it where it sounds nice in the mix. This is true about blending any instrument in really.