Scratch Tracks.......right or wrong ways.

ausrock

ausrock

Well-known member
Scenario............you have a 5 piece band and want to put down (a) scratch/guide track(s).

Would you;........first put down a click track then with the band playing to the click, do a "live" take using just 1 or 2 tracks............OR............fully mic up drums, amps, etc., using for example 11 tracks for instruments and 1 for lead vocal and do a "live" take, knowing that each of these tracks will be recorded over when you do final tracking of each individual instrument.

Any other ways to approach this, and any pros and cons?

:cool:
 
I do the full blown recording no matter what. You never know (and it happens ALL THE TIME) when you're gonna get that "magic performance". It's easy as hell to record over a turd but sometimes you can't get the "magic" back.
 
The advantage of tracking all the scratch tracks sperately is that you can replace them one by one and get a good feel for how the production is coming together. If all the scratch tracks are on one stereo pair than you will be doubling the stuff as you add it and it may get tricky for the performer. They will probably find it easier to play without hearing their own scratch part doubled in the background. At least is gives you more options.
 
A lot of it depends on what your going to be doing later.
Are you planning to overdub by recording Drums and then bass and then.....one by one? or a whole band together.

The main problems are going to be two.

1. When you overdub, the player is going to need a good headphone mix. This can be crucial to his playing. If its all on two tracks, and he needs say more bass, you wont be able to reproduce that for him.

2. If the bands playing isnt solid in the groove, (and you dont want to waste to much time getting a good scratch track...)
the the whole overdubbing foundation wont be stable.

See if you can isolate easly by going direct from bass and guitar and a seperate track for a click. Look into having the singer isolated somehow by using a different room or closet....
try and get a quick but semi isolated recording so that you won't have to work your ass off and you can overdub to fix up the scratch tracks quickly and still have control over a headphone mix for the real overdubbing.
 
Thanks guys,

You all confirmed what I thought and have been doing.:)

Shailat,

I have your drum tutorial samples burned to cd which I regularly use as a guide while I'm mixing drums.........Many Thanks:) :)

:cool:
 
I would fully mic the band up. You never know when the band will hit that groove. If you record the band fully miked up, the 'scratch' may turn into the final.

I went to a recording session yesterday. It was for a swing big band. They were recording 24 tracks live. This band would be the best in Australia, if no the Pacific region. They tracked all their songs live. I know it is a different kettle of fish when recording a big band.

I know of some artists that have recorded a scratch track and it turned out being the final... John Farnham's "May you never" off his 'Romeo's Heart' record.

Porter
 
Preproduction

1.Have the singer and rhytym guitar or keyboard player come early or the day before.

2. Program a simple groove on a drum machine
(KICK, SNARE, HI HAT) be careful to set the proper tempo

3. Be sure to record enough time for intro, solos and ending etc.

4. lay down a scratch, rythym track (chords and arrangement)

5. Get a nice scratch vocal (It may end up being good enough to keep as a final!)

LATER WHEN THE BAND ARRIVES:

6. Play back this scratch track as a roadmap for the other musicians, if the drummer has problems keeping in time with it, you have got bigger problems than you really want to know about right now!

Dom

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
6. Play back this scratch track as a roadmap for the other musicians, if the drummer has problems keeping in time with it, you have got bigger problems than you really want to know about right now!
Click to expand...
...true dat. But in all fairness to drummers (did I just say that?), it can be very difficult to keep time with a drum machine track that's different than what they're playing. IMO, I think you're better off with a click track (at least, that's what my experience has been).
 
I'd like to comment on this one.

Although there is many people on this site that have far more experience then me with the art of tracking;

About a year ago, I decided to take my newly formed band, and give it and my new/used studio equipment a quick test.

So for the first time I miced up a drum-set, and had the band play to a click.

The object was to only get a drum track.

The only reason I wouldn't say the results were NOT disastrous, is because it was a great learning experience.

I keep the best drum track we could get & you know what happened, it never sounded that good.
The timing had some obvious problems.

Six months went by and I was ready to do more recording of the band.

Since the drummer was really intimidated of the click & wanted to sound good on this next recording, I decided to send him an MP3 with me playing acoustic & singing to a click. This scratch was in pretty good timing.

On recording day, I rolled tape with scratch track on it & my drummer shined like a diamond.

Of course, since the drums were in timing, the rest of the band followed & the songs came out tight.

Hope this helped.

Good luck,

Sean
 
anyone have a link to those shailat drum articles? I used to have em, but that was like 3 hard drive reformats ago....
 
JFogarty said:
anyone have a link to those shailat drum articles? I used to have em, but that was like 3 hard drive reformats ago....
Click to expand...

Problem is they move from time to time (about every half).
Just ask me again when time comes....
http://24.61.194.88/ (its slow so be patient)
 
Shit! I think I peed in my pants!!

I knew there are some famous people in here, but that Michael Jackson is between us...

Sonusman - we love you!

aXel
 
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