F
foster
New member
Hello,
Here's a cool trick that I figured out on the MD8 to get more track space. You'll need a computer or some kind of digital mix down place, but with this method, I was able to get 27 tracks of audio without bouncing or mixing until we were ready for the final mix. (Gone Out Gone at MP3.com has our cover of the Pumpkins song Drown. 27 tracks)
Okay. . .
Start with a click track on track 8. (the click track is the key) We used a drum machine and a reference guitar on track 1. We recorded two measures of click track and then I laid the tune through to the end against the click track. Then with headphones to monitor the guitar reference track, we recorded drums on tracks 3 through 7 (kick, snare, toms, and two overheads) and bass on track 2. No mixing, no bouncing. THEN, and this is very important, I copied SONG 1 into the next blank space, so now SONG 2 has all of the drums and bass and the click track on 8. Because I had unmixed copies of the drums and bass in SONG 1, I erased all of the drums from SONG 2 except for the overheads and created a drum reference to tracks 6 and 7 (for the neat panning effect), keeping the original click track on 8. Then using headphones to monitor, I recorded the real guitar tracks on 1 through 5, after the 2 measures of intro. When done with that, I copied all of SONG 2 onto SONG 3. I then erased most of the guitars from SONG 2 (because I had the ones I wanted on SONG 2), keeping time one track of reference drums and one track of guitar. I laid a few more guitar tracks and then I started the vocals, doing the SONG copy again and putting the main and backing vocals on tracks 1-5 again. Because the minidisc has 18 minutes of media time, you can copy a 4 minute song 4 times. The lynch pin to the trick is the click track, because it is a digital copy, everything you do must to sync to that.
(for our song, I had to use a separate disk for the choir solo, which is basically another 4 minute song, using approximately the same method, but less tracks.)
Now you have your pile of tracks, all built around the same click track. For our mix down, we went to a professional digital studio, plugged the RCA outs into the RCA ins on the board and dumped all of the tracks into his computer 8 tracks at a time. Then, using a scrub visual, we were able to precisely line up all of the two measure click tracks intros for each group of 8, so we had a nice and orderly layout. Drums, Bass, Guitars, Vocals top to bottom, all synchronized and ready for the mixing polish.
One drawback is that you can only hear reference tracks or roughs while recording, and not really the full spectrum of sounds, so it can be tough visualizing the sounds as they might come out in the final mix. But this let us focus on the tracking as tracking only, and we didn't have to worry about the mixing. We recorded everything flat, no EQ, no compression, no effects, and added everything like that in the final mix.
Right. Check it out.
Foster
Here's a cool trick that I figured out on the MD8 to get more track space. You'll need a computer or some kind of digital mix down place, but with this method, I was able to get 27 tracks of audio without bouncing or mixing until we were ready for the final mix. (Gone Out Gone at MP3.com has our cover of the Pumpkins song Drown. 27 tracks)
Okay. . .
Start with a click track on track 8. (the click track is the key) We used a drum machine and a reference guitar on track 1. We recorded two measures of click track and then I laid the tune through to the end against the click track. Then with headphones to monitor the guitar reference track, we recorded drums on tracks 3 through 7 (kick, snare, toms, and two overheads) and bass on track 2. No mixing, no bouncing. THEN, and this is very important, I copied SONG 1 into the next blank space, so now SONG 2 has all of the drums and bass and the click track on 8. Because I had unmixed copies of the drums and bass in SONG 1, I erased all of the drums from SONG 2 except for the overheads and created a drum reference to tracks 6 and 7 (for the neat panning effect), keeping the original click track on 8. Then using headphones to monitor, I recorded the real guitar tracks on 1 through 5, after the 2 measures of intro. When done with that, I copied all of SONG 2 onto SONG 3. I then erased most of the guitars from SONG 2 (because I had the ones I wanted on SONG 2), keeping time one track of reference drums and one track of guitar. I laid a few more guitar tracks and then I started the vocals, doing the SONG copy again and putting the main and backing vocals on tracks 1-5 again. Because the minidisc has 18 minutes of media time, you can copy a 4 minute song 4 times. The lynch pin to the trick is the click track, because it is a digital copy, everything you do must to sync to that.
(for our song, I had to use a separate disk for the choir solo, which is basically another 4 minute song, using approximately the same method, but less tracks.)
Now you have your pile of tracks, all built around the same click track. For our mix down, we went to a professional digital studio, plugged the RCA outs into the RCA ins on the board and dumped all of the tracks into his computer 8 tracks at a time. Then, using a scrub visual, we were able to precisely line up all of the two measure click tracks intros for each group of 8, so we had a nice and orderly layout. Drums, Bass, Guitars, Vocals top to bottom, all synchronized and ready for the mixing polish.
One drawback is that you can only hear reference tracks or roughs while recording, and not really the full spectrum of sounds, so it can be tough visualizing the sounds as they might come out in the final mix. But this let us focus on the tracking as tracking only, and we didn't have to worry about the mixing. We recorded everything flat, no EQ, no compression, no effects, and added everything like that in the final mix.
Right. Check it out.
Foster
