Scratch tracks

grimtraveller

grimtraveller

If only for a moment.....
When recording scratch/guide tracks, how much effort do you put into them ? Do you go for near perfection or do you take a more sloppy "it doesn't matter if there's a few mistakes" approach ?
Do you ever find that the scratch/guide track ends up being better than the actual takes ?
 
The only item I find important on the scratch track is the BMP. If I get that pretty close, I usually can repeat the playing.
 
I usually don't care. But I've learned the value of getting it pretty close. Adding layers to a scratch track that goes off the rails means perpetuating timing errors and has added lots of extra tracking for me in the past.
 
Tadpui said:
I usually don't care. But I've learned the value of getting it pretty close. Adding layers to a scratch track that goes off the rails means perpetuating timing errors and has added lots of extra tracking for me in the past.
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Yes, this has been what I've learned as well.
 
Exactly. As long as the timing's right, I don't even care if I'm hitting the right notes. You should hear what I'm working on now :facepalm: I didn't take the time to work my vocals around the key changes and there's some really funny bungles. Fortunately only my inner circle (brother, pastor and a poet/good friend from Idaho) ever hear those scratch tracks.
What's recorded over the demo is what counts. I've only left one or two scratch tracks in anything I've ever done. I am using the acoustic from my latest, as my performance was pretty okey dokey. :) I'll probably still go back and redo after I get more practice time. Definitely doing the vocals over...
 
Grim is back! :drunk:
Just in time for the holidays...there's be new threads to follow and post to during the extra days off we all have coming!

:D

The timing for me is not controlled by the scratch track, but by the Click track (which I guess is also technically a scratch track).
AFA the music scratch track..is usually something done in one pass, and it's rough-n-dirty. It's only there to guide me AFA where the different sections of the song are long enough for me to lay down one keeper track...usually a rhythm guitar track.
After that...the scratch track is irrelevant, and is tossed out, and I then use the first keeper track as my new guide track.

I've never done it any other way...and AFA I can recall, I've never, ever kept a scratch track...'cuz well, it was/is just a "scratch" track, and there was little effort made to play it perfectly...so little chance of me keeping it. :)
 
miroslav said:
The timing for me is not controlled by the scratch track, but by the Click track (which I guess is also technically a scratch track).
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Yes, I could have been more clear, but the scratch track using the click to get the timing right.
 
Yeah, like Miro says, the scratch track is for me to get the click (or drum loop track which I prefer to a metronome) timing correct. Sometimes its got usable parts.
 
I've not heard the term "scratch tracks" before but after reading the thread scratch tracks are bascally what I use to write and arrange my songs. I'll then re-record in as few takes as possible.
 
JDOD said:
I've not heard the term "scratch tracks" before
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Perhaps a better known term in certain quarters is a guide track. I must admit, I only came across the term "scratch track" when I first began frequenting HR.com.

ido1957 said:
A scratch track is garbage, that's why they call it a scratch track.
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In principle, I agree with that entirely. But sometimes, the scratch/guide just has that something that demands that it be kept. Two recent examples spring to mind, in one, "The buttons of Z'iisquasha", I just wanted to get the drums down so while my mate played them, I played an electro acoustic guitar plugged straight into the DAW so that there'd be no spillage on the drum tracks. I utterly hate the sound of the Ozark electro acoustic plugged straight in. I've never liked it in the 24 years I've had it. It's awful and thin and when we'd done the take, there was nothing outstanding about it. The song wasn't even meant to have guitar in it, it was there literally as a melodic and rhythmic guide { the track notes even have it down as "guide guitar"} and so I never thought about it as being part of the song. It wasn't until another mate had laid down a harpsichord and clarinet part and I'd put down a bass part and I was about to wipe the guide guitar after I'd done the vocal that I thought that put opposite the harpsichord, it sounded ok, even though on it's own it sounds horrible. So I kept it.
On a track called "Bebe Shonga" I was again just capturing the drums and I just used my DI'd bass as a guide because I'd just bought a double bass and wanted to use that on the song but I was out of practice as I hadn't used one in nearly 10 years and besides, even though it was a quiet song, I didn't want any drum spillage on the double bass track. But even when just doing guides, the overall feel is very important to me, that intangible something that will determine for me whether "yeah, this is the keeper" will show itself in the way the drummer/percussionist and myself have interracted. And in "Bebe Shonga", it was there in our take. Even as everything else was added, the bass always felt just perfect and I agonized for 4 months whether to keep it or not. But in the end I convinced myself that the original concept stood and it had to be a double bass so I laid down the double bass and wiped the bass guitar.
And I regret it ! I should have kept the guide bass.
So while most of the time my guide tracks get canned {for example, I'll use DI electric guitar guides for parts that are going to be acoustic because after 17 years of drums crowding my acoustic guitar tracks, I'd had enough ! } once everything is tracked or once the keeper has replaced the guide, once in a while, the guide just fits so well that there's no point trying to better it.
 
ido1957 said:
A scratch track is garbage, that's why they call it a scratch track.
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BroKen_H said:
You've never had something that sounded sweet and tight the first time you played it to track?
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You know, this reminded me of something I'd forgotten. In the days before the internet and the rise of hobbyist nobodies like us giving advice based on our own experiences, most of what could be gleaned about recording came from the professionals in books, magazine interviews, documentaries and the like. And because I was curious how songs were made, I paid a lot of attention to things that people would say and many a time, a producer or engineer would state, mainly when referring to vocals, that the
guide or demo vocal of such and such a song would often be what ended up being used on the released version because the artist could never recapture whatever it was that was there on that guide version. So it was always in the back of my mind that guides could be keepers. In fact, it's only pretty recently that I even started using a guide track as a standard part of the process.
 
Guide vocals are not necessarily always the same thing as typical "scratch tracks".
IOW...you often lay down a guide vocal TO a scratch track(s) or some existing background tracks so the rest of the artists coming in know were things are....and sometimes the guide vocals end up as keepers.

The only time I put down a guide vocal would be at the same time I'm recording my guitar scratch track, so the drummer knows where the things are. It's always rough-n-dirty....and I'll use whatever mic is laying around....so there's never any thought of keeping that stuff. :D
 
miroslav said:
Guide vocals are not necessarily always the same thing as typical "scratch tracks".
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True. I was just pointing out that something that isn't expected to be kept can sometimes end up being used.
miroslav said:
you often lay down a guide vocal TO a scratch track(s) or some existing background tracks so the rest of the artists coming in know were things are....
Click to expand...
True again. Most times if I'm putting down a guide vocal, I'm trying to give someone else an idea of the vocal and where it goes and how it fits yet, I try to give a good performance, even though I have no intention of using it. But it has happened a few times that when my mate has done their vocal, they've really liked it with the guide. Most times I've discarded the guide but on a couple of occasions, I've agreed with them and used it and it did indeed sound pretty good, especially when it was a female singer.
 
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I usually put at least a little effort into scratch tracks mainly because there have been about a half a dozen times when I nailed it better on them than on the real track. AND the fact that it bugs the shit outta me when I lay down some utter shite. :)
And if the scratch sucks, it still helps with getting my drums, bass and vocals where they need to be.
 
I never use scratch tracks, I know what I'm doing enough by now to go straight to a take. I can remember what goes where, even in quite long complex songs.
 
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