Bouncing tracks... ughhh!

  • Thread starter Thread starter AllenM
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AllenM

AllenM

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OK so I need a little help with setting up my song for recording.
Heres what Ive got so far

2cpfhuv.jpg


Here i everything I need to record

Rhythm Guitar
Bass
Drums
Tambourine
Lead Guitar
Organ
Vocals
Back up vocals


I would like this to be stereo. Also Im recording on deck 'B' first.
I want to pan the Lead guitar, Organ, and backup vocals.
How would I organize this?


I was thinking

track 1 Rhythm Guitar
track 2 Bass
track 3 Drums
track 4 Tambourine

Bounce to machine A

Then what? :drunk:
 
Not sure if you are playing all the instruments...or along with someone else...or if you are using loops/samples...etc....???
But for your first pass...lose the tambourine. I wouldn't was a track on just the tambourine when you are limited on tracks to begin with.

Do: T1 R. Git, T2 Bass, T3 & T4 Drums.
I would set up the drums for a L/R stereo kit for T3 & T4

Then....when you bounce to two tracks of deck A...you will mixdown the four tracks from deck B as a stereo pair, keeping in mind that your drums are already set up like that, so all you need to do is pan your R. Git and Bass where you want them in the final mix...and bounce.

Now you have two tracks left on deck A.
You will have to decide what you want to use them for...unless you are planning to bounce back to B again???
I would just try to do Organ and maybe B Vox at the same time...and then see if you can do both L Vox and L Git on the same, last track...that way you don't need to do another bounce.
Just think/plan ahead where stuff should end up in the final mix.

If you had other people playing along with you...then you could get all those instruments in with only 1 bounce and the final mixdown.
But alone....all those instruments and vocals....:eek:...that's going to be hard to do without bouncing 2, maybe 3 times...and at that point the first tracks you recorded are going to lose a lot of quality.

My honest, serious advice....
Sell off those two decks...then get yourself at least an 8-track (maybe even 16)...and a 2-track mixdown deck.
Then you can focus on recording instead of bouncing. ;)
 
You'll have to mix these four instruments as if you were finished recording. Record the final mix to two tracks of machine A.
Bounce the stereo tracks back to two tracks on machine B.
Record two more tracks on machine B.

Repeat as neccesary.
 
He doesn't need to bounce them back to deck B to record two more...
...he can just record two more on deck A (they are both 4-track decks).

Then if he wants to keep going...he can bounce all four down to two on deck B....and then add two more.

But again by the 3rd bounce, those first 4 tracks are going to start losing a lot of their quality.
 
Yep. I was still thinking of when I had to use a stereo cassette deck to bounce to and from a four-track.
 
Im doing everything myself. The only thing I want panned is
the Lead guitar, organ, and backup vocals.
 
AllenM said:
I hope I dont lose too much quality...
Click to expand...

You're likely to.

I first recorded on a 4 track portastudio many moons ago and I had this song that I just couldn't stop coming up with parts for. It was to have vocals, backing vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar, electric lead guitar, organ, mandolin, double bass, bass guitar, percussion and drums. Got down the acoustic and the organ, bounced that. Added two sets of backing vocals recorded at different speeds, bounced that. Added mandolin and bowed double bass. Then two tracks of percussion. Bounced that with the double bass and mandolin. At this point it sounded fantastic to me (although if I still had it now, I'd probably reverse my opinion !). By the time I had added the other elements, bounced and arranged so I only had one track left (bass and drums), it was already sounding ill but with naive and youthful optimism/mule headedness, I convinced myself that when Mikey the drummer and I had done our bits, I could "fix it in the mix", even though I'd never heard that phrase before. :cool:

Well, it was a load of rubbish. Actually, it was the sonic equivalent of a bin bag full of rubbish, all these sounds congealed together with bits of definition poking through here and there in a way that made me want to cry, fry and then die ! I spent the summer of '92 licking my wounds and I decided against the advice of all the shop experts to buy an 8 track portastudio. I still have it now, I've recorded well over 100 songs on it, am in the process of finishing off a whole load and I've moved to a digital 12 track.
I learned an important lesson. The track wasn't necesarilly too cluttered, {OK, it was ! }, just not a good idea to have everything going at once. But I had wanted a great climax, so elements came in bit by bit. Admittedly, this was a cassette based operation and reel to reels have a far greater band width and the quality makes it the superior athlete, but the same principle applies. One bounce and you're still a jedi. Two bounces and you're veering towards the dark side. Three and the emperor has got you. Four and you're Darth Vader !! :D
Think well, Freddo.
 
Ok what if i only bounce with one machine say like this.

1 rhythm guitar
2 bass
3 drums
4 BOUNCE (1st)


1 Lead guitar
2 Organ
3 BOUNCE (2nd)
4 (1st)


1 Vocals
2 Backup vocals/tambourine
3 2nd bounce (organ, lead guitar)
4 1st bounce (r.guitar, bass, drums)

What do you think?
 
+1 to what Miroslav says. Do you really want to bounce down to mono instead of stereo? Getting satisfying finished stereo mix after that is gonna be hard otherwise (unless you're planning on mixing to mono?) Also, from what I understand, less than 2 tracks for drums is not a good idea.
 
AllenM said:
OK so I need a little help with setting up my song for recording.
Heres what Ive got so far

2cpfhuv.jpg


Here i everything I need to record

Rhythm Guitar
Bass
Drums
Tambourine
Lead Guitar
Organ
Vocals
Back up vocals


I would like this to be stereo. Also Im recording on deck 'B' first.
I want to pan the Lead guitar, Organ, and backup vocals.
How would I organize this?


I was thinking

track 1 Rhythm Guitar
track 2 Bass
track 3 Drums
track 4 Tambourine

Bounce to machine A

Then what? :drunk:
Click to expand...

i have recorded like this in the past (and still do to some degree ... i use an 8-track 1/2" and a 2-track 1/4" and most of my recordings end up with 10-16 tracks total, so i do lots of bouncing).

hey, a couple things to consider: recording like this is going to give you a "vintage"-type sound, so embrace this. i would group things like they did in the '60s (with mono in mind) and then make your stereo mixes while considering the limitations of your setup. come up with a "rhythm track", "featured instruments" or sounds that you may want to control manually later, and then a "lead/solo" track. this type of recording is really awesome but does require some planning or else you're gonna get real frustrated and make some serious compromises along the way.

you say that you're the only performer and you list "backing vocals" as one track - if you're overdubbing ALL of them yourself, you need to do this one early on in one of the sets. let's say you are doing 2 backing vocals.

here's how i would set it up:

DECK B -

1 - bass
2 - drums
3 -
4 - tambourine
bounce 1, 2, 4 to 3 while in regular mode, not SYNC

then record one backing vocal to 1
then bounce the track 1 backing vocal to 4 in SYNC mode (some quality will be lost on the first backing vocal) while SIMULTANEOUSLY recording your 2nd backing vocal at the same time - this is how a lot of people did it in the '60s.

so then you will have:

1 -
2 -
3 - bass/drums/tambourine
4 - backing vocals

then record rhythm guitar to 2
and organ to 1

so then you will have:

1 - organ
2 - rhythm guitar
3 - bass/drums/tambourine
4 - backing vocals

then mix tracks 2 and 3 to track 3 on DECK A and tracks 1 and 4 to track 4 on DECK A

then record lead guitar on 1 and lead vocals on 2

so then you will have (on DECK A) -

1 - lead guitar
2 - lead vocal
3 - rhythm (bass/drums/tambourine/rhythm guitar)
4 - featured (backing vocals/organ)

i go against the grain and advise against mixing a stereo spread from one deck to another because you have more flexibility to do it this way with the rhythm and featured tracks, etc. obviously, you're gonna end up with some old-style panning, which i feel is more appropriate for the kind of sound you will end up anyway.

i have a variety of ever-changing track sheets and bounce ideas for every song i record. at some point, it usually changes and i update it. you will probably end up making some compromises somewhere as the song takes shape. i often end up with wacky things like drums/piano leads/tape delay'd guitar solo/backwards cymbal on one track with a jaw harp somehow occupying its own track! but that's kind of the nature of it ... doesn't always turn out how we plan but its good to at least have some kind of rough plan going in!

keep in mind how the beach boys recorded PET SOUNDS - hard to believe but they recorded on a 3 or 4 track machine (depending on studio) and did the entire instrumental track (in a similar manner to the "rhythm", "featured" etc system), then mixed the ENTIRE instrumental track to ONE TRACK of a separate 8-track machine. then they overdubbed vocals on the remaining 7 tracks.

anything is possible!
 
Last edited:
AllenM said:
Ok what if i only bounce with one machine say like this.

1 rhythm guitar
2 bass
3 drums
4 BOUNCE (1st)


1 Lead guitar
2 Organ
3 BOUNCE (2nd)
4 (1st)


1 Vocals
2 Backup vocals/tambourine
3 2nd bounce (organ, lead guitar)
4 1st bounce (r.guitar, bass, drums)

What do you think?
Click to expand...

Yeah. Make sure you document everything !
 
lonewhitefly said:
i have recorded like this in the past (and still do to some degree ... i use an 8-track 1/2" and a 2-track 1/4" and most of my recordings end up with 10-16 tracks total, so i do lots of bouncing).

hey, a couple things to consider: recording like this is going to give you a "vintage"-type sound, so embrace this. i would group things like they did in the '60s (with mono in mind) and then make your stereo mixes while considering the limitations of your setup. come up with a "rhythm track", "featured instruments" or sounds that you may want to control manually later, and then a "lead/solo" track. this type of recording is really awesome but does require some planning or else you're gonna get real frustrated and make some serious compromises along the way.

you say that you're the only performer and you list "backing vocals" as one track - if you're overdubbing ALL of them yourself, you need to do this one early on in one of the sets. let's say you are doing 2 backing vocals.

here's how i would set it up:

DECK B -

1 - bass
2 - drums
3 -
4 - tambourine
bounce 1, 2, 4 to 3 while in regular mode, not SYNC

then record one backing vocal to 1
then bounce the track 1 backing vocal to 4 in SYNC mode (some quality will be lost on the first backing vocal) while SIMULTANEOUSLY recording your 2nd backing vocal at the same time - this is how a lot of people did it in the '60s.

so then you will have:

1 -
2 -
3 - bass/drums/tambourine
4 - backing vocals

then record rhythm guitar to 2
and organ to 1

so then you will have:

1 - organ
2 - rhythm guitar
3 - bass/drums/tambourine
4 - backing vocals

then mix tracks 2 and 3 to track 3 on DECK A and tracks 1 and 4 to track 4 on DECK A

then record lead guitar on 1 and lead vocals on 2

so then you will have (on DECK A) -

1 - lead guitar
2 - lead vocal
3 - rhythm (bass/drums/tambourine/rhythm guitar)
4 - featured (backing vocals/organ)

i go against the grain and advise against mixing a stereo spread from one deck to another because you have more flexibility to do it this way with the rhythm and featured tracks, etc. obviously, you're gonna end up with some old-style panning, which i feel is more appropriate for the kind of sound you will end up anyway.

i have a variety of ever-changing track sheets and bounce ideas for every song i record. at some point, it usually changes and i update it. you will probably end up making some compromises somewhere as the song takes shape. i often end up with wacky things like drums/piano leads/tape delay'd guitar solo/backwards cymbal on one track with a jaw harp somehow occupying its own track! but that's kind of the nature of it ... doesn't always turn out how we plan but its good to at least have some kind of rough plan going in!

keep in mind how the beach boys recorded PET SOUNDS - hard to believe but they recorded on a 3 or 4 track machine (depending on studio) and did the entire instrumental track (in a similar manner to the "rhythm", "featured" etc system), then mixed the ENTIRE instrumental track to ONE TRACK of a separate 8-track machine. then they overdubbed vocals on the remaining 7 tracks.

anything is possible!
Click to expand...

I like it! Only problem is i get Super confused with the planning. As for losing the quality its definitely what im going for haha.
 
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