For those of us who are just beginning to record, would you describe what tracks are typically recorded and it what order.
Perhaps if you could assume that we are working from four basic tracks to start. How would you approach it?
The Basics
The Basics
Life, as with music, often requires one to let go of the melody and listen to the rhythm
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Back-up vocals 
Sometime after the drums. The idea is to record as little as possible, before you mic up the drums and lay them down. The drums should go first, but if you aren't recording as a band, this is the next best thing. The use of electronic drums will result in a recording that will never sound like more than a demo.
"Say what you like about the tenets of national socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos." - Walter Sobchak.
Primarily, yes, but I would even go as far as to say that electronic drums, of any kind, result in an inferior, cheaper-sounding product. Never mind the "cheating" factor, in that the good Roland pads, e.g., enhance the bounce-back of the stick, compared to an acoustic drum, and create an unnatural playing sound, but also, electronic cymbals always seem to have a flange effect to them, with zero sustain - horrible !! I probably have feelings, about drums, that are similar to the feelings that Tony has toward amps - we're purists ! However, I would say that the gap between tube amps and modelling amps is smaller than the gap between acoustic and electronic drums. The amp is only half of the instrument (the axe is the other half).
In the end, if you don't know a good drummer (and I suggest a good one, only), then there is no alternative. However, without the real thing, you'll never know what your songs can really become.
In the end, if you don't know a good drummer (and I suggest a good one, only), then there is no alternative. However, without the real thing, you'll never know what your songs can really become.
"Say what you like about the tenets of national socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos." - Walter Sobchak.
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tony_carey
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Steve, I think you are half right. If you don't know a good drummer, then get a sampler & learn how to programme drums properly. I routinely use a sampler for drums & can guarantee that you wouldn't know. I have taken a tremendous amount of effort in sampling & have sampled a drum kit myself. I am also pretty expert in programming drums in a very realistic way. I can fool everybody....& yes I have had MANY drummers ask me who drums for me, when listening to some of my work. You will be surprised at just how many of todays releases have sampled drums.
Things have moved on a great deal since the drum machine! Even when using a real drummer, the amount of editing required is usually immense, from moving individual hits to copying & pasting entire sections to adding extra cymbal, snare kick hits etc, either to correct timing, missed beats, or for extra accents. A record company will normaly allow one day per song for mixing & a large preportion of that will be spent on the drums....no matter how good the drummer.
Things have moved on a great deal since the drum machine! Even when using a real drummer, the amount of editing required is usually immense, from moving individual hits to copying & pasting entire sections to adding extra cymbal, snare kick hits etc, either to correct timing, missed beats, or for extra accents. A record company will normaly allow one day per song for mixing & a large preportion of that will be spent on the drums....no matter how good the drummer.
'Rickenbacker'...what a name! After all these years, it still thrills me.
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tony_carey
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Peter, to answer your question, I think that it obviously depends on many things, but I would approach a straight forward multi track recording, with sampled drums of some description, like this....
1 A click track of some description (kick, snare & hat) to give a timing base.
2 The rythm gtr, so you know where the song is going. It is at this time that you think about accents, pushes & dynamics.
3 Bass gtr, building on the accents & dynamics of the rythm gtr.
4 Re visit the drums, honing the programming so you get a pretty good rythm base of drums, bass & rythm gtr.
5 Add more rythm gtrs.
6 If you are recording a song with vocals, then the vocals are the single most important thing in the song, as it is this that everyone will listen to. As a result, the track has to be full enough to allow the vocalist every chance of really getting into his performance. For this reason, the song has to be as complete as possible before the vocalist gets to it. By all means put a guide vocal in earlier if you need to, but wait for as long as you can before putting the finished vocal in....a vocalist really needs to perform!
7 Backing vocals/lead gtr/percussion. The backing vocals normaly need to follow the lead vocal & often, the lead solo will work with the vocal in an intertwining or melodic way, so it makes sense to hear the vocals first.
If you are using real drums, then a well rehearsed & routined band would put drums, bass & rythm gtr down at the same time first of all & then build from there. It is also quite common to bring the drummer in later as above & I have worked both ways.
1 A click track of some description (kick, snare & hat) to give a timing base.
2 The rythm gtr, so you know where the song is going. It is at this time that you think about accents, pushes & dynamics.
3 Bass gtr, building on the accents & dynamics of the rythm gtr.
4 Re visit the drums, honing the programming so you get a pretty good rythm base of drums, bass & rythm gtr.
5 Add more rythm gtrs.
6 If you are recording a song with vocals, then the vocals are the single most important thing in the song, as it is this that everyone will listen to. As a result, the track has to be full enough to allow the vocalist every chance of really getting into his performance. For this reason, the song has to be as complete as possible before the vocalist gets to it. By all means put a guide vocal in earlier if you need to, but wait for as long as you can before putting the finished vocal in....a vocalist really needs to perform!
7 Backing vocals/lead gtr/percussion. The backing vocals normaly need to follow the lead vocal & often, the lead solo will work with the vocal in an intertwining or melodic way, so it makes sense to hear the vocals first.
If you are using real drums, then a well rehearsed & routined band would put drums, bass & rythm gtr down at the same time first of all & then build from there. It is also quite common to bring the drummer in later as above & I have worked both ways.
'Rickenbacker'...what a name! After all these years, it still thrills me.
When my band did our first CD, we did it much like Tony mentioned at the end of the last post - we were well-rehearsed, so we got a drum track from beginning to end first, and we were almost always able to keep the bass and at least some of the rhythm guitar. Then, we added, in order: other rhythm guitars, lead vocals, harmony vocals, percussion and lead guitar. We were on a tight budget and moving fast, so it worked pretty well since we were well rehearsed.
When I'm working at home with my 4-track digital portastudio doing really basic recording, if I'm working from scratch, I'll put drum machine on track one first, then record bass, guitar, vocals, percussion, or whatever it is I need to build the song idea on tracks 2-4. It's fun, but time-consuming. I have built a few song ideas that way, though.
The other way I've found to use the 4-track at home has really been a help as the band prepares our parts in advance of our second trip to the studio: I'll record us at a band rehearsal direct to CD (in stereo) using a 3 microphone mix (one on the left side of the room - panned left, one on the right side of the room - panned right, and one on a vocal monitor - panned center) that we have developed a decent sound for by using the mixer and by trial and error. I will later take the CD and send it to two tracks of the 4-track recorder. Then we'll use the other two tracks to record ideas for percussion, other guitars, extra harmony vocals, etc. - whatever is of interest that we want to try out. The results are not anything we'd ever make available publicly, but they are invaluable to us as we finish out song ideas and practice our overdub parts in preparation for the real thing in the recording studio. Plus, it's kinda fun.
When I'm working at home with my 4-track digital portastudio doing really basic recording, if I'm working from scratch, I'll put drum machine on track one first, then record bass, guitar, vocals, percussion, or whatever it is I need to build the song idea on tracks 2-4. It's fun, but time-consuming. I have built a few song ideas that way, though.
The other way I've found to use the 4-track at home has really been a help as the band prepares our parts in advance of our second trip to the studio: I'll record us at a band rehearsal direct to CD (in stereo) using a 3 microphone mix (one on the left side of the room - panned left, one on the right side of the room - panned right, and one on a vocal monitor - panned center) that we have developed a decent sound for by using the mixer and by trial and error. I will later take the CD and send it to two tracks of the 4-track recorder. Then we'll use the other two tracks to record ideas for percussion, other guitars, extra harmony vocals, etc. - whatever is of interest that we want to try out. The results are not anything we'd ever make available publicly, but they are invaluable to us as we finish out song ideas and practice our overdub parts in preparation for the real thing in the recording studio. Plus, it's kinda fun.