Recording an album

[Daenn]

Hey guys, haven't posted here in a while. Hope everyone is doing well. I have a new project and wouldn't mind a little input if anyone has a moment.

My band recently took our drummer into a studio and recorded drum tracks for 12 songs. We're too poor to do the entire thing there, but the we can do everything but drums on our own.

I've recorded tons and tons of songs on my own, but I've never recorded a full album. When we did the drums, every take of every song was on the same file. Sort of like having an analog reel I guess. This makes sense to me because when you get down to mixing phase, you'll have consistent mix and effects on many of the tracks, such as drums, and won't have to redo all your plugins per song. Also if you decide at some point, for example, the snare sound is awful, you can modify it in that one file and it will fix it on all the songs.

But is this really the best way to do it? My band is a sort of prog alternative hard rock band or something, and there will be a lot of varying guitar sounds and tracks and overdubs, so it's not like the guitars will be the same on every track (other than maybe rhythms), and the vocals maybe have different processing on different songs. I can see this file easily becoming a giant mess. I don't even know if my computer could handle that. I generally use 25-30 tracks when recording a song, which isn't a problem for logic, but with 12 songs I feel like it's going to become a mess. I know I could just save settings for plugins and reapply them in different song files, but that could be a hassle too.

I'm curious to hear how other people go about tracking albums, opposed to one song at a time. Any tips would be appreciated also.

Thanks guys!

[gecko zzed]

To me, it sounds like a bad idea . . . as you say, it would soon become an unimagineable mess , not too mention the time it would take to load this file as well as all the other tracks you intend to record.

The benefit of bening able to apply EQ or whatever to the drum track globally is a) npt practical because of this, and b) of dubious ebefit anyway (because you are likely to want different treatments for different songs.

So I suggest:

Split the drum track into its separate songs. Work on each song separately, and apply effects to each according to what that song needs.

If you find that the drum track could do with an effect modification on all tracks, do it one one first, save the plugin settings, then call it up for the others.

[RD423]

Gecko well said, i agree.

[Sloan]

I've been recording live shows and stuff like this and it is a pain to mix the show as a whole. If I were doing seriously released commercial stuff for an album, I would definitely break it up. Easier on you and your computer.

[gecko zzed]

Originally Posted by gecko zzed

To me, it sounds like a bad idea . . . as you say, it would soon become an unimagineable mess , not too mention the time it would take to load this file as well as all the other tracks you intend to record.

The benefit of bening able to apply EQ or whatever to the drum track globally is a) npt practical because of this, and b) of dubious ebefit anyway (because you are likely to want different treatments for different songs.

So I suggest:

Split the drum track into its separate songs. Work on each song separately, and apply effects to each according to what that song needs.

If you find that the drum track could do with an effect modification on all tracks, do it one one first, save the plugin settings, then call it up for the others.

I just noticed all my typos. . . . ooops . . . sorry!

[jimmi]

Shit I wish I new a drummer, never mind having 12 songs worth of drums ready to slice up. If you fix/cut something in the snare on trck/song 1 and apply that to every song down the road in your project you'll be chasing your tail sooner or later. Only snooker players can think that far ahead and achieve results. It's genetic. Rich mahogany.

[Daenn]

Thanks for the replies guys.

You're right, it would be an intangible mess after a couple of songs, and god knows my comp would probably barely be able to load it. The extra time spent on saving and loading effects and levels will save the extra hassle of having it in one file.

This is also the more comfortable route for me, so I'm going to go with it.

Thanks again for the responses. I appreciate it.

[RAMI]

You have to think more in terms of "what's best for each song", as opposed to "what's the fastest short-cut".