Recording Instrumentals

[lyricalcharms]

I've been lucky enough to have access to 2 great beat makers, but at the same time limited to only 2 track/stereo instrumentals. I'd like to be able to seperate tracks/layers for full control, but I am not sure of the easiest way to do this, when their keyboards only have a stereo output.

I have came up with this theory, but i dont know if it will work. if i were to record the midi information on to protools, could i then replay the midi track so that the keyboard fallows/syncs with it..(to keep the layers/tracks on beat)... and we could mute all the the tracks/layers except 1, and eventually record what 1 layer does through out a song... and basically go 1 track/layer at a time, untill i have full control of the whole beat???

am i in the ballpark??? or am i missing something??? any help would be greatly appreciated. thank you for your time.

[bennychico11]

yep, that's typically how it's done

[lyricalcharms]

really? like right on the nose??? is there n e "step by step" listings n e where that will help??? i dont mess wit midi to much (if at all).. im sure i can just go head first wit nothing but a prayer and limited knowledge on the subject, but if theres anything that can help, id appreciate it.

once again, thank u for your time.

[circusboy]

We get hip hop artists coming in with beats on keyboards, etc. I find the quickest and easiest way to get tracks into PT is to just record them (stereo out to hardware), one by one.

This allows us to set up pre-amp/compression for each track, etc (kick will be different than piano for example). By skipping the MIDI step, the tracks may be off a tiny bit but this is easily fixable by sliding the audio region til things are in sync, and I've also found this technique adds a little "human touch" since beat tracks can often sound a little mechanical when things are all quantized, etc.

Just food for thought.