4-track brainteaser! Can you figure it out??

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kmaster

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All right,

I need your collective experience and help.

Right now this is a hypothetical exercise, but it is very possible I will soon be recording a band of an identical setup.

The band is as follows:

Member "!": lead vocals, rhythm guitar
Member "@": backup vocals, lead guitar
Member "#": bass
Member "$": drums

Which gives us:
Lead Vocals (!)
Backup Vocals (@)
Lead Guitar (@)
Rhythm Guitar (!)
Bass (#)
Drums ($)

Now, assume I want to record them onto a 4-track cassette recorder (a Tascam 246, to be specific... its two extra parallel processing channels will come in handy here). Assume, for the purposes of this exercise, I also have access to to two compressors and two reverb units.

Here are the hoops I want/need to jump through:
1. I can only use up to two microphones at any given time
2. I want a stereo drum sound (i.e. recorded two mics, panned at least somewhat in the mix, probably recorderman; mic A would be the over-the-shoulder mic and mic B would be the over-the-snare mic)
3. I want to double-track the lead vocal
4. I don't want any more than one track-to-track bounce for any single instrument, for sound quality reasons
5. I don't want to make any individual member perform more than one part at a time
6. I want the vocals to be recorded when the singer can hear a chording instrument (i.e., in this exercise, the rhythm guitar must be recorded already)
7. This goes without saying, but I'm using a 4-track machine...


Got it? Good.


Now here comes my solution to the problem; does this work? If not, why? Is this needlessly complicated? Is there another way to solve it?

1) Record Drum mic A to track 1 and Drum mic B to track 2 (both $, but it's a stereo recording)
2) Record bass to track 3 (#)
3) Send tracks 1 and 2 through Parallel Process (PP) channel 1, and mix; send track 3 through PP channel 2, and mix.
4) Bounce tracks 1 and 3 to track 4 as recording lead guitar to track 4 (@)
5) Record rhythm guitar to track 1 (!)
6) Bounce track 2 to track 3 as recording main vocal take A to track 3 (!)
7) Bounce track 1 to track 2 as recording backup vocal to track 2 (@)
8) Record main vocal take B to track 1 (!)
9) Send track 1 through PP channel, and mix

THEN

10) Panning:
Left: track 4 (i.e. drum mic A [over-the-shoulder mic], bass, lead guitar)
Center: tracks 1 and 3 (i.e. main vocal take B; main vocal take A, drum mic B [over-the-snare mic]). Track 1, main
vocal take B, may be spread just a little in one direction to widen the voice a hair.
Right: track 2 (i.e. rhythm guitar, backup vocal)



So, geniuses (I mean this in a non-ironic sense)... go for it!
 
kmaster said:
Is there another way to solve it?
Click to expand...

Yeah...a recorder with more tracks. :laughings:
I think you have a handle on it....let us know how it works out in the end. ;)

Go old-school.
Set up the whole band in a decent room and get a really good balance in the room, then put up your two mics as a stereo pair. In one pass, record all the instruments to two tracks.
Then record your lead vocal to the third track and your backup vocals to the fourth.
No bouncing, no multiple mixdowns...and it will sound better than what you are going to end up with.
 
The Apple chappies are fond of saying "get a mac!"

Now I have the chance to say "Get a PC and a Tascam 1800!"

Seriously, one or two $50 mixers would not hurt.

Dave.
 
miroslav said:
Go old-school.
Set up the whole band in a decent room and get a really good balance in the room, then put up your two mics as a stereo pair. In one pass, record all the instruments to two tracks.
Then record your lead vocal to the third track and your backup vocals to the fourth.
No bouncing, no multiple mixdowns...and it will sound better than what you are going to end up with.
Click to expand...
^^^^c'est ça^^^^
Unless you're Geoff Emerick and George Martin working in EMI's studios with all the stuff and techniques they were using in '66/'67 {and getting frustrated and praying for 8 track}.

 
I like the Miroslav old-school approach, assuming you're not investing in a mixer. The only difference is I'd record the band in stereo, send the bass direct to track 3, and record main and backing vocals with one mic onto track 4, and play with the distances from the vocal mic until I got a good balance. That's *really* old school. I'd say- stop trying to do 1990's recording with 1960's technology, and give up the idea that everything has to be overdubbed. It's not going to wind up on separate tracks, anyway, so who cares?
 
It would be nice to record the full band to two tracks (/possibly with DI bass), but I don't have a nice room... I forgot to mention that. If I had a good room, I'd feel a lot more comfortable doing something like that. As it is, I feel better close mic'ing guitar amps, possibly also the bass amp (or possibly DI), recorderman drum mic setup to minimize room noise, etc.

Furthermore, this would be for a demo tape (here, literally, although of course they'd use the mp3 or something) for shopping around of a band that's basically just starting out. They're pretty tight considering the amount of time they've been around, but I'd like to give each of them individually a chance to nail their part.

Keep these coming, though; everything you say is making me think! :)
 
kmaster said:
I feel better close mic'ing guitar amps, possibly also the bass amp (or possibly DI), recorderman drum mic setup to minimize room noise, etc.
Click to expand...

Well...you'll need to make some upgardes to your rig then....'cuz you want to do an awful lot with two mics, 4-tracks and also be able to individually track each element....etc...and then also have something of a decent mix at the end.

See...you need to consider that while on paper you might come up with some SOP that allows you to track things like that, and just bounce and bounce...but it's going to be hard to maintain that track individuallity anyway, 'cuz as soon as you start bouncing, it's the same net result as recording them all as a group.
You will lose the ability to individually mix each at the end anyway.....at least as a group, you can still control the individual elements when setting up....just go find a decent room to do it in.
 
I don't have a solution for you but it sure reminds me of my old days doing home recording. I was so elated to go digital and away from jumping the hoops that you're doing here. The difference for me was that I was working with a drum machine and I was the only musician. The other difference for me was that I had two 4 track machines. So I would build up a backing track on one machine and bounce down to the second, where all vocals and possibly a lead solo would go. The second machine really helped. (BTW this was in imitation of the way the Beatles worked in the 60s...they also bounced from one 4 track to another.) Going digital made things infinitely more troublefree and less noisy in the end.
 
futuredays,

I have a Saffire 6 USB (2 inputs, etc.) and Logic Pro... doing things digitally is not a big deal for me.

I want to make it harder on myself... not impossibly hard, but I want to make myself think. :D I'm looking for limits, so I can push them, rather than be overwhelmed (as I am) with near-limitless digital possibilities.
 
kmaster said:
I'm looking for limits, so I can push them, rather than be overwhelmed (as I am) with near-limitless digital possibilities.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I like limits myslef, and even when working with digital I tend to impose some rather than have endless possibilites.

Thing is....at some point you need to decide when the limits are just for the sake of the "exercise"...and when do they actually foster better creativity and a better end-product.
IOW...you should always try to serve the production when you can...rather than the SOP.
 
Yes, those are some valid points.

Barring 1) the way I'd outlined already or 2) a decent room and recording "live," the only other way I can fathom recording this is recording up to four tracks, bouncing to Logic, editing everything in there, bouncing back to a track (or two if I want a stereo spread) on the tape, filling the remaining tracks again, bouncing to Logic, and so on and so forth until everything is done. That way I wouldn't have to worry about speed inconsistencies in the tape from time to time, because everything would always be bounced together. I'd have to think about what I wanted, weighing generation number with where I wanted it in the stereo spectrum (fwiw, I love open centers with rhythm instruments balancing each other on either side and main vocals and snare in the middle), but I'm sure I could figure out something decent-sounding.

...UNLESS Logic's "flextime" capabilities (used with "lock to transients," perhaps) allows me to align 4 tracks with another 4 tracks, etc.... every thread I've seen on patching together two different cassette takes says it's difficult at best, and impossible at worst, but all of those threads happened before Logic's flextime became a really viable tool. So, if that works, I'd be open to that, too.
 
Not sure why you would want to bring tracks back from your DAW to the tape...?
I would just dump to the DAW and finish there.

Without a synchronizer...there is no way you will lock the DAW and deck doing what you outlined. I mean, you could still align the tracks in the DAW, but each pass would be a little off form the deck....a PITA to keep aligning.


There is a third way, just use the DAW as a tape "FX"....by recording to the DAW and simply running the audio through the deck and right out off the PB head into the DAW. That way there's no messy aligning or sync...the tracks are being recording to the DAW "through" the tape deck.
The only issue is how to set up monitoring...and computing the time between the REC and PB heads, as that would be your offset in the DAW, but once that is known, the alignment in the DAW would be perfect with each pass, just move the track by that offset amount each time.

You get to hit the tape going in...and then the tracks are in the DAW. Mix them there and maybe just use the tape deck to capture the stereo output of the DAW mix...of course, then you have to bounce them back into the DAW again to do the CD files. Personally, I would just mix and leave them in the DAW at that point.

If you've not recorded much, that's a lot of variables to have a handle on, which is why my original old school way might work out best for you...but go with what you feel comfortable.
You won't fully appreciate how it's going until you are actually doing it.
Have a "Plan B"........ ;)
 
futuredays said:
it sure reminds me of my old days doing home recording. I was so elated to go digital and away from jumping the hoops that you're doing here.
Click to expand...
Going digital was a matter of practicality for me. I wanted things like stereo drums and a few extra tracks up from the 8 I'd been using for 17 years. I still bounce tracks but most of what I end up with can be contained within 12 tracks and most importantly, I can edit. Editing, for me, is simply the freedom to not have to use a razor blade on tape and risk ruining all my hard work ! And because I have more than one DAW, I can run stuff from one machine to another with no drift at all.

kmaster said:
I want to make it harder on myself... not impossibly hard, but I want to make myself think. :D I'm looking for limits, so I can push them, rather than be overwhelmed (as I am) with near-limitless digital possibilities.
Click to expand...
I hope this doesn't come out wrongly but I think you're looking at this back to front. Innovation has so often come about in music making and recording because of the limitations that were around at the time. And great art resulted, yes. But no one went looking for the limitations, the limitations pre~existed the solutions {eg, the Beatles recorded "A day in the life" on two 4 track machines, utilising 7 tracks because EMI refused to invest in an 8 track machine or guitarists like Harrison and Hendrix recorded backwards stuff because the effect to make guitars sound that way didn't exist or pianists recording parts at half speed because they didn't have the dexterity to do it at proper speed but in doing so discovered they could alter the texture of the piano etc....}.
I have a 12 track DAW and sometimes, when a song has 'only' taken up 6 or 8 tracks, I find myself having to fight the urge to use up more tracks ! But having endless possibilities is no reason to explore them all.

miroslav said:
you should always try to serve the production when you can...rather than the SOP.
Click to expand...
As hard as it has been, I've come around to this view. The song is all important. I love and thoroughly enjoy the process, but in the end, there's a song that's going to be listened to, not a textbook to be read.
 
You know what hurt most when working with tape? Erasing a good take. It didn't happen often but even a handful of times was too much for me.
 
futuredays said:
You know what hurt most when working with tape? Erasing a good take. It didn't happen often but even a handful of times was too much for me.
Click to expand...
I've never erased a take. I've erased little portions of a take. The really irritating one is when I've done a scorching hot take only to find that I didn't press "record" properly. But I've done that analogically and digitally.
 
grimtraveller said:
I've never erased a take. I've erased little portions of a take.
Click to expand...

Well, that's what I meant. If it's an instrument that runs continuously through the entire song, you have to re-do that instrument completely. I did that a few times. If it's a part with pauses you have to be nimble with punching in and out.

I agree it's irritating to think you're recording but you actually aren't. This happened more often to me in analog-land than digital. Overall workflow is much less of an issue with digital.
 
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