Can Someone Walk Me Through My First Recording Session?

[RTWmaniac]

I want to record a demo for my band. It doesn't have to be pro-quality, just something good enough to hand out to singers for auditions. I've done a little recording alone but never recorded a band.

My basic setup is to mic everything into my mixer, then go into a USB interface and use Audition to record and mix. I'm confused on the actual chronological process of recording. We were thinking of playing the songs as a band to a click track to record "ghost tracks."

So after we have these ghost tracks, is that when we record each individual instrumentalist's tracks?

Am I at least heading in the right direction? Or should I just find a new hobby?

 

[supernoise]

Since it doesn't have to be pro-quality I would say just record your band live without any ghost tracks or overdubbing.

 

[gecko zzed]

I want to record a demo for my band. It doesn't have to be pro-quality, just something good enough to hand out to singers for auditions. I've done a little recording alone but never recorded a band.

My basic setup is to mic everything into my mixer, then go into a USB interface and use Audition to record and mix. I'm confused on the actual chronological process of recording. We were thinking of playing the songs as a band to a click track to record "ghost tracks."

So after we have these ghost tracks, is that when we record each individual instrumentalist's tracks?

Am I at least heading in the right direction? Or should I just find a new hobby?

There are two ways of doing it:

1 Seeing as you are going to "mic everything", you can just use this, i.e. record your band live via USB, and be done with it. Don't worry about click or overdubs.

1a A variant of this is to record the band in two passes: record the instruments live first, then add the vocals afterwards. Again you don't need to worry about a click. The vocalists just sing along to the band.

2 If you want greater control over a mix, then you can try recording all or part of the band to a click. For example, someone could play the whole song on guitar to a click track. The others just add their parts one at a time to this guide track, which you throw away when all is done. If the whole band is going to record to a click, then you need to make sure that they are going to be able to do this okay, either by providing all with headphones, or making sure that the drummer (or whoever gets the click) can keep the whole thing together.

 

[hmmm]

I'm assuming you mean you're going to give the tracks to a potential singer and they're just instrumental, right?

What you do depends on how well people can keep time really, you can do a live one, just mic everything up, play the track together and be done like others have said.

Or you could do that and use it as a ghost track like you said, with or without a click playing aswell, if you're doing that you'll have to make sure that's just going through the headphones though because if you're recording through mics and not DIing your guitars it's going to pick that up too.

The third option is to do each individual track at a time along to a click (again, just through the headphones), drums, then bass, then rhythm guitar and then lead guitar, if that's your set up. Definitly do drums first then bass because that's what the guitarists are going to use to stay in time.

If you're doing it to attract a sing I suggest doing it live just because it's less hassle really and they'll want to know what you can do live, once you've found your singer you can experiment with how you record.

 

[RTWmaniac]

Cool, thanks for all the replies.

To clarify, we're a pretty tight band so playing it live and in time isn't a problem. We'll probably just go with that for the sake of having something to give to singers now. But really, I guess we wanted to just experiment with the click track and overdubs for the experience, because none of us have really done much recording before. And I really just want to learn as much as I can.