recording multiple tracks (noob)

[oldskooldave]

this may seem like a rediculous question, but with reel to reel tape, can you record 2 or 3 tracks, then deselect them, and select the next track along and record your 4th track, or do you only get 1 shot.

What i mean is, in digital, you can record your vox, guitar, bass, drums and whatever all one at a time, can you do this with tape, i have a 16 track fostex b16 and i havent moved onto this analogue style yet because i wanna know if i need us all playing at the same time or if i can record my bits and theirs later etc

 

[nate_dennis]

Yes. You can. (NO POLITICAL JOKES!@!!!LOL)

I'm unfamiliar with the inner workings of your deck, but in some way it will play similar to this...

You will have inputs and outputs for each of your tracks; 1-16. Your mixer needs to be big enough to allow AT LEAST that many. (From what I gather, many people say go bigger i.e. 24 channel mixer for a 16 track deck, but don't quote me.)

based on how your desk is arranged you will send sound to any or all of your tracks. Here is an example....

Track one: Bass Guitar
Track Two: Accoustic guitar left
Track Three: Acc. Guitar Right
Track Four: Electric Guitar
Track Five: Hammond
Track Six: Lead Vox
Track seven: Snare
Track Eight: Kick
Track nine: Drums OH Left
Track ten: Drums OH right

so, you have a band. You have the personell to track that much Live. Great!!! You arm your tracks on your reel to reel. Hit record, run off some leader, the drummer counts you in and your band NAILS IT!!!!! Oh you were gellin' you had groove, the performance was INSANE, but your vocalist was flat. It's cool. RTZ (return to zero) de-arm all tracks except Track Six. Youre vocalist is in his/her booth and you decide "why waste the take, lets do our background vox and our sick guitar solo." So you arm tracks 11 and 12 (solo on one of em and big group background vox on the other.) and everyone nails it. Maybe you're done. Cool, mix it down and press. Maybe you need more instrumentation. Cool, bounce it down to some empty tracks and record whatelse you need.

But if you don't have all those people. It's cool. Just arm what you need. Say Tracks 2-4. You can do your accoustic tracks in stereo and your lead vox at the same time all by yourself. There you go. De-arm those three, Arm track one, lay down your bass line. Move on from there. That's all there is to it. As far as all of those concepts go DAWs borrowed a lot from reel to reels and mixers. That's what people knew. Much like Synthesizer used piano layouts. People understood it. Does that mean that piano and synth are the same? No, but if you get one, you have a basic understanding of the other. Just remember, if you are going to bounce tracks, it is usually wise to leave a buffer track. So if you are full from 1-13 leave 14 blank and bounce down to 15/16. Some decks are more sensitive to that than others.

I hope this helps. If I got anything wrong, PLEASE TELL ME. I don't want to spread bad info. I use a portastudio, but I have been trying to learn all these other things too. So, yeah, there you go.

 

[oldskooldave]

.

Yes. You can. (NO POLITICAL JOKES!@!!!LOL)

I'm unfamiliar with the inner workings of your deck, but in some way it will play similar to this...

You will have inputs and outputs for each of your tracks; 1-16. Your mixer needs to be big enough to allow AT LEAST that many. (From what I gather, many people say go bigger i.e. 24 channel mixer for a 16 track deck, but don't quote me.)

based on how your desk is arranged you will send sound to any or all of your tracks. Here is an example....

Track one: Bass Guitar
Track Two: Accoustic guitar left
Track Three: Acc. Guitar Right
Track Four: Electric Guitar
Track Five: Hammond
Track Six: Lead Vox
Track seven: Snare
Track Eight: Kick
Track nine: Drums OH Left
Track ten: Drums OH right

so, you have a band. You have the personell to track that much Live. Great!!! You arm your tracks on your reel to reel. Hit record, run off some leader, the drummer counts you in and your band NAILS IT!!!!! Oh you were gellin' you had groove, the performance was INSANE, but your vocalist was flat. It's cool. RTZ (return to zero) de-arm all tracks except Track Six. Youre vocalist is in his/her booth and you decide "why waste the take, lets do our background vox and our sick guitar solo." So you arm tracks 11 and 12 (solo on one of em and big group background vox on the other.) and everyone nails it. Maybe you're done. Cool, mix it down and press. Maybe you need more instrumentation. Cool, bounce it down to some empty tracks and record whatelse you need.

But if you don't have all those people. It's cool. Just arm what you need. Say Tracks 2-4. You can do your accoustic tracks in stereo and your lead vox at the same time all by yourself. There you go. De-arm those three, Arm track one, lay down your bass line. Move on from there. That's all there is to it. As far as all of those concepts go DAWs borrowed a lot from reel to reels and mixers. That's what people knew. Much like Synthesizer used piano layouts. People understood it. Does that mean that piano and synth are the same? No, but if you get one, you have a basic understanding of the other. Just remember, if you are going to bounce tracks, it is usually wise to leave a buffer track. So if you are full from 1-13 leave 14 blank and bounce down to 15/16. Some decks are more sensitive to that than others.

I hope this helps. If I got anything wrong, PLEASE TELL ME. I don't want to spread bad info. I use a portastudio, but I have been trying to learn all these other things too. So, yeah, there you go.

thats awesome, thank you, I thought with it being an old technology you could ONLY go all at once, I know that would sound better, but its a releif that you don't have to.


I have a 22 track mixer and a 16 track reel to reel so im good.

 

[Herm]

There is nothing that says going one at a time is better. You may get a better recording doing it together. There may be more feeling to it that way and not as Mechanical sounding.

 

[grimtraveller]

Any recorder that can only record every track at once and not individual tracks should be consigned to the museum or the deepest recesses of human imagination and vengeance. I'm not sure such a device ever existed. Anyone know of one ?

 

[Chilljam]

Any recorder that can only record every track at once and not individual tracks should be consigned to the museum or the deepest recesses of human imagination and vengeance. I'm not sure such a device ever existed. Anyone know of one ?

Some people (like me) would prefer this over the recorders that are '8 or 16 track' but only can record 2 or 4 tracks at a time. Also, maybe not multitrack per se but going direct to 2 track 1/4inch with a full band doesn't really have any 'overdub' capabilities but certainly has it's benefits and uses.

 

[jpmorris]

Any recorder that can only record every track at once and not individual tracks should be consigned to the museum or the deepest recesses of human imagination and vengeance. I'm not sure such a device ever existed. Anyone know of one ?

Mag-film dubbers, AFAIK. Some of them may have been modified to allow for punch-ins, but generally it was 6 tracks all at once, or so I have heard.

 

[Mark7]

Yes. You can. (NO POLITICAL JOKES!@!!!LOL)

I'm unfamiliar with the inner workings of your deck, but in some way it will play similar to this...

You will have inputs and outputs for each of your tracks; 1-16. Your mixer needs to be big enough to allow AT LEAST that many. (From what I gather, many people say go bigger i.e. 24 channel mixer for a 16 track deck, but don't quote me.)

based on how your desk is arranged you will send sound to any or all of your tracks. Here is an example....

Track one: Bass Guitar
Track Two: Accoustic guitar left
Track Three: Acc. Guitar Right
Track Four: Electric Guitar
Track Five: Hammond
Track Six: Lead Vox
Track seven: Snare
Track Eight: Kick
Track nine: Drums OH Left
Track ten: Drums OH right

so, you have a band. You have the personell to track that much Live. Great!!! You arm your tracks on your reel to reel. Hit record, run off some leader, the drummer counts you in and your band NAILS IT!!!!! Oh you were gellin' you had groove, the performance was INSANE, but your vocalist was flat. It's cool. RTZ (return to zero) de-arm all tracks except Track Six. Youre vocalist is in his/her booth and you decide "why waste the take, lets do our background vox and our sick guitar solo." So you arm tracks 11 and 12 (solo on one of em and big group background vox on the other.) and everyone nails it. Maybe you're done. Cool, mix it down and press. Maybe you need more instrumentation. Cool, bounce it down to some empty tracks and record whatelse you need.

But if you don't have all those people. It's cool. Just arm what you need. Say Tracks 2-4. You can do your accoustic tracks in stereo and your lead vox at the same time all by yourself. There you go. De-arm those three, Arm track one, lay down your bass line. Move on from there. That's all there is to it. As far as all of those concepts go DAWs borrowed a lot from reel to reels and mixers. That's what people knew. Much like Synthesizer used piano layouts. People understood it. Does that mean that piano and synth are the same? No, but if you get one, you have a basic understanding of the other. Just remember, if you are going to bounce tracks, it is usually wise to leave a buffer track. So if you are full from 1-13 leave 14 blank and bounce down to 15/16. Some decks are more sensitive to that than others.

I hope this helps. If I got anything wrong, PLEASE TELL ME. I don't want to spread bad info. I use a portastudio, but I have been trying to learn all these other things too. So, yeah, there you go.

Just to add to that

Track one: Bass Guitar
Track Two: Acoustic guitar left
Track Three: Ac. Guitar Right
Track Four: Electric Guitar
Track Five: Hammond
Track Six: Lead Vox
Track seven: Snare
Track Eight: Kick
Track nine: Drums OH Left
Track ten: Drums OH right
Track eleven: Choir Left
Track twelve: Choir right
Track thirteen: Orchestra Left
Track fourteen: Orchestra right
Track fifteen: Mariachi band (for the all-important ethnic break)
Track sixteen: Sir Donald Sinden (narration).

I think that should do you nicely

Alternatively...

Track seven: Snare
Track eight: Kick
Track nine: Hi hats
Track ten: Rack tom
Track eleven: Rack tom
Track twelve: Floor tom
Track thirteen: Overhead left
Track fourteen: Overhead right
Track fifteen: Room left
Track sixteen: Room right

 

[ofajen]

Any recorder that can only record every track at once and not individual tracks should be consigned to the museum or the deepest recesses of human imagination and vengeance. I'm not sure such a device ever existed. Anyone know of one ?

Aside from 2-track studio machines used for live recordings, there is a whole market segment for live audio production such as: interviews, ENG, documentary video production, sports broadcasting, film production, test & measurement, sound effects capture and live music recording. That's likely a much bigger market than studio recorders, come to think of it. Many of those recorders are multi-track.

Sound Devices, for example, makes a whole range of portable digital recorders, up to 12 track, all with the same, excellent preamps as their field mixers. I do most of my tracking with one of their little two-channel field mixers, called the MixPre. That's handy because it's small and battery-powered, so I can have it right by me when I record and I can see the meters and adjust gain easily.

Cheers,

Otto