More than 4 tracks on a 4-track

[miroslav]

The common way of referring to 1/4" and 1/2" tape track format options is:

Full Track, Half Track and Quarter Track...but that sometimes confuses people when talking about stereo recordings...like a 2-channel/2-track would be referred to as 2-track 1/2-track...or a 4-channel/2-track would be 2-track 1/4-track.
Full track is mono, one track, the full width.

Here's some images that show it:

 

[ashcat_lt]

It's not a bad idea to put some thought into the order of the tracks you're going to lay down. Some things, depending on their role in the mix, can stand to be bounced more times. A low, thumpy bass for example, won't mind a bit of top-end loss. A heavily distorted guitar might mask a bit more tape noise. Background pads and things that are going to be lower in the mix might not show so much of the degradation. Lead vocals, you'd probably want to save for the last run so they are first generation and as clean as possible.

Unfortunately, though, some things that you might want to save for later for sound purposes are sometimes kind of essential and need to be there early in order to track against them. Drums, for example, you might want to save till last so that your cymbals/room sounds get the best possible fidelity, but that can make keeping time kind of difficult when tracking the rest of the stuffs.

 

[famous beagle]

It's not a bad idea to put some thought into the order of the tracks you're going to lay down. Some things, depending on their role in the mix, can stand to be bounced more times. A low, thumpy bass for example, won't mind a bit of top-end loss. A heavily distorted guitar might mask a bit more tape noise. Background pads and things that are going to be lower in the mix might not show so much of the degradation. Lead vocals, you'd probably want to save for the last run so they are first generation and as clean as possible.

Unfortunately, though, some things that you might want to save for later for sound purposes are sometimes kind of essential and need to be there early in order to track against them. Drums, for example, you might want to save till last so that your cymbals/room sounds get the best possible fidelity, but that can make keeping time kind of difficult when tracking the rest of the stuffs.

This is all really good advice.

I've also implemented the idea that, when bouncing things, try to combine ones that are in different registers, like a bass and a triangle, if possible. That way, you'll have a little bit of relative volume control between the two using EQ, especially if it's a multi-band parametric or something.