How to record my band?

A

ace_operations

New member
Hey I'm new on these forums, and am looking for some help. We're a 4 piece hard rock band that want to get an EP recorded. I suggested that we track guitars and bass and home, and record the drums and vocals in a studio. I have an elevenrack that I use to track both wet and dry guitars and bass with the intention of re-amping the dry guitar and bass tracks later in the studio with tube amps. Once we have all our parts played accurately to the rough drum track / click track, we can take it into studio to record drums and vocals over it. Does anybody see an issue with this approach? I've heard that it is better to have the drums recorded first and then the other stuff instead of the other way around. Any thoughts, inputs or advice are very welcome :thumbs up:
 
The other way, and I have done this a few times for bands wanting to take tracks home to their own studio, is to all come into the studio. Set the band up with Drums miced, and the bass and guitars DIed. Have a vocal guide being sung (in another room away from the drums), and play to a click if possible. I know some will say oh but then you have to have everyone playing the song over and over, but this is not true. If you get a good vocal, bass and guitar guide the drums can play again to the recorded guides (if you used a click track) and not know the difference. With luck you may even be able to drop the drums in if there is a small mistake.

This way you get the drums tracked while the drummer has the feel of playing with the band. When you get the tracks home, re-record the Guitars, bass and vocals.

Alan.
 
Agreeing with witzendoz, best way to record is with the whole band. You can never capture the passion of playing in a band if you record one track at a time. Anything you are not happy with can be overdubbed later of course but don't fall into the trap of recording everything separately. You CAN do it, doesn't mean you should. When you play back a recording like that, you kind of miss the satisfaction of saying that you recorded together

This is a short medley of live stage recordings where you don't have the benefit of a separate drum room or any other isolation methods. If it can be done in a live stage setting where you get no second chances, then I am sure you could do no less in a studio setting.

ReSound Live
 
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Thanks for the replies. Last weekend for example, I had the bassist track some bass lines over a guitar and programmed drums scratch track. What I noticed is that his quality of playing not up to par with fumbled and off-time notes. While playing together as a band, we do not hear these nuances due to the sheer volumes and other instruments covering things up. Now on a recording, I can imagine that these 'mistakes' will be far more noticeable. This leaves us with a couple of options : (1) have the bassist practice his parts like crazy and hope that he gets good takes on studio day, (2) track at home where we have the luxury of doing multiple takes. I know (3) would be get a new bassist, but he's not that bad. It's just that he's never tracked with a band before.

I like witzendoz's idea of getting the drum tracks back home and tracking DIed guitar and bass tracks. This way we can have the best of both worlds where the drummer tracks to a live band, and the other instruments are tracked separately. Any tips / tricks I should know to do the home recording properly? I know the question is kinda vague but I am just looking for potential pitfalls...
 
witzendoz said:
If you get a good vocal, bass and guitar guide the drums can play again to the recorded guides (if you used a click track) and not know the difference. With luck you may even be able to drop the drums in if there is a small mistake.
Alan.
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Just want to make sure I understand this. Are you suggesting that we create the recorded guide tracks using a click track at home, and then track drums over this? Or is it that we record the guide track while the drummer is playing along with the rest of the band in studio? And then re-record drums over the guide track created in the studio?
 
Sometimes it takes time to learn a piece. Typically, everyone should know their parts before they get to the studio, because you don't want to be paying studio time to learn your part. You really SHOULD get the bassist to practice his parts like crazy. An amateur practices until he gets it right. A professional practices until he can't get it wrong. Just part of the job. However, if you DI the bass, at least you won't get any bleed from other instruments and it can be corrected manually later. The bass can be filtered from any of the mics that it bleeds into if the mistake is particularly noticeable. That way you only do separate recording if you need to, not as part of the recording process. And if he gets it right on the day, you're done. Do three or four takes and grab the best of the best. This relies on you playing to a click track so each take is compatible but its still the shortest route to a full band recording.
 
Get your band down to the studio and record them, maybe three takes. The only thing you want to record separately is the vocals, in case you need to process them in any way, such as minor pitch correction for example. You don't want the bleed from instruments in the vocal track. If there is a separate vocal booth, fine, do it all at once. You have enough to do without doing more than you have to.
 
ace_operations said:
Just want to make sure I understand this. Are you suggesting that we create the recorded guide tracks using a click track at home, and then track drums over this? Or is it that we record the guide track while the drummer is playing along with the rest of the band in studio? And then re-record drums over the guide track created in the studio?
Click to expand...


No I am saying that the whole band go to the studio, the focus is getting a good drum track. Get the drummer to play with a click track (if they can) and have the guitar, bass and guide vocal play along with the drums as if it was a live gig but with the guitar and drums DI'ed so that there is no spill into the drum mics. When you get back home you should have good drum tracks and now you can replace the guitar, bass and vocals at you leisure.

The point of having the whole band record at the studio is so that the drummer gets the live feel of the song.

Alan.
 
I'm gonna ask a question here, and OP, I hope you don't mind this quick question.

How would you line a half stack into an interface? You can't play the head without a cab due to load issues and I doubt an interface could handle the load of a 100 watt head.
 
COA23 said:
How would you line a half stack into an interface? You can't play the head without a cab due to load issues and I doubt an interface could handle the load of a 100 watt head.
Click to expand...

Had to read that a couple of times to get what you were saying. You can't run the speaker outputs into an interface. You connect the "line out" to the interface.
 
COA23 said:
I'm gonna ask a question here, and OP, I hope you don't mind this quick question.

How would you line a half stack into an interface? You can't play the head without a cab due to load issues and I doubt an interface could handle the load of a 100 watt head.
Click to expand...

It is only a guide track, don't use the head, just plug into a DI, if you have pedals use them. It won't be the best guitar sound but it does not have to be. If you can get hold of an amp simulator, like a pod or a behringer one, on the day use that, the studio may have one.

If the studio has the right set up, you may be able to have your amp set up in another room miced up, however I would not be using a 100 watt head at any time in a studio situation, the lower wattage amps sound much better as you can crank them up. I have an old Marshall JTM 30 kicking around that a lot of players use instead of their 100 watt/quad set ups.

Alan.
 
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