If anyone has ever wondered how to approach mixing a lead guitar in a pretty busy song, this might help.
If you imagine the part of the song which has the solo in it as a giant brick wall and you are facing it, the bass frequencies are at the bottom of the wall and the High are at the top, pan hard left and hard right are the edges, this is your soundstage, some of this whole area is not used by the song.
Listen carefully as to what's going on frquency wise, are there lots of cymbals? there might be a ride/ride bell ora half open hi hat, also a driving bass maybe, there is likely to be something like a piano or rhythmn guitars forming a base over which the Lead guitar will sit, you need to imagine how far up the wall, or how far left/right the best place would be to plonk you solo.
Just making the Lead guitar louder than the rest of the track isn't always the best approach, listen again and imagine how far up the gaps in the wall are, that is, where tyhe frequencies are not being used by the other instruments, this might be a good place to pop the Lead guitar.
If you record the Lead guitar using the same amp sim as the rhythmn guitars it just won't pop out, like a Lead gtr should, think about using a different guitar, or a different pickup or a different amp sim.
As a producer I hear a lot of clashing instruments, so I thought I'd pass on this, maybe it's useful.
You can hear an example on
@Sebandme 's song "Just the way that are", the lead guitar solo was EQ'd really in the lower mid range, almost in the same frquency range as the french horns elsewhere in the song, as there was a lot going on in the upper frequency range due to the delicate strummed acoustic guitar and the cymbals.
Of course there are a whole bunch of well documented mixing tools/techniques that'll show you where the gaps in the frequencies lie, and how to fill specific gaps, but listening is a good place to start (and finish), try it, and if it doesn't work move it about a bit, you'll know when you get it right, the overall volume doesn't always need to be loads louder, one way is to start way louder and bring it down.
Be careful of reverb and echo of solos, that can compromise the other frequencies, and start washing that part of the song out, use the hi cut knob in the reverb plugin to ensure it does get out of character in the song.
As always I hope this helps, any questions I'd be pleased to help.
