Recording By Yourself

[Elvis Ramone]

If you were recording by yourself on a multi-tracker what order would you record the instrument? I usually go:

Guitar
Vocals
Drums
Bass

But its hard to hear the guitar and vocals when I'm recording the drums so that dont work very well. Anyone have any tips on recording by yourself?

[Cooperman]

ok, here's what I do.

drums
guitar
bass
vocals

Cos I program my drums I can always go back and change fills and stuff after I've recorded everything else. If I didn't have the drums done first I don't think I'd be able to record the guitars properly - you can't get as much feel into a guitar track when playing to a click.

[Jon X]

Here's how I'm currently recording, don't know if any of this would benefit you or not. I try to do a scratch track first on guitar or bass, playing in time with a click track and focusing on keeping time. Then I put the drums down to that, then the bass, then all the rythm guitar parts. I then go back and replace the scratch track concentrating more on the performance. If there's a piano part or something else I add it after the guitars are done. On songs with lyrics, vocals are next then leave everything for a few days before I attempt a guitar solo. If it's an instrumental, I improvise a lead part for a couple of takes while the song is fresh and use the best one. I don't know why I do it this way really, just seems to work best for me out of everything I've tried. I do know I can play rythm guitar parts that fit into the song better when I can hear the drum are bass tracks.

[Elvis Ramone]

thanks for the help.

[Buck62]

Ray J...
My partner and I record pretty much in the same order, except that we do the vocals before the lead guitar parts.
It all comes down to personal preference, I guess.

[Mountaineer]

Ditto Cooperman, but with me it's more like . . .

drums
guitar
bass
vocals
backing vocals
drum fills
redo the lead vocals
redo bass track bkz it didn't punch through
lead guitar
redo rhythm guitar bkz now it's lost in mix
add more percussion
redo backing vocal bkz now they sound out of tune

Start another song because I'm tired of this one !!!


At least that's the way it's been going lately

Regards,
PAPicker

[Ray J]

Metronome
rythmn
bass
drums
lead guitar
vocals
background vocals
Then I do everything over again, except the metronome. I don't worry about finger glitches or getting the performance right the first time I record because I do them all over again. The second time around I can play a better baseline, because the drums and rythmn are in the mix, and I usually can make the rythmn fit better the second time around because I don't overplay it as I do initially when its just the rythmn and the metronome...etc,etc.

[CMiller]

I record a lot like Ray does...

metronome
ryth guitar
bass
additional instrument (keys or whatever)
lead guitar
vocals
harmonies
drums

As Ray said, I don't worry too much at any particular stage about small playing errors. Most of the parts will be corrected later. Of course if I'm really jazzed about the tone of a particular instrument during a scratch track, I'll try to grab a real take.

[MISTERQCUE]

Excellent ideas by all!

[Krystof01]

As I have a Korg D-16 I have a built in drum machine (sort of-more an up-beat metronome). I record the one I want at the appropriate tempo etc as stero. Next I add a bit of rythem, then next a lot of the time put down some rough vocals to give it a bit more fealing, then depending on the song the bass or other guitar parts. To finish with I would add final sets of vocals and if using it the harmonica.

[Ray J]

Yeah, I hear ya Buck62, if I ever had the lyrics written ahead of time, I would probably do it that way too. But I NEVER have all the lyrics written when I begin recording. Also, until I learn my machine better, and how to track, a lot of times, I'll do a trial mix onto cassette, after I lay down the initial tracks, to make sure everything's mixable. Like the tone of the bass guitar, and make sure I have a good sounding snare and bass drum, you know things that you sometimes don't notice until you try to mix. When I become more familiar with my machine and monitors,(I use really cheap monitors), then I'll probably be able to skip this step, but for now I sometimes have trouble judging how good my tracks are until I mix them.