Pathetically new to recording...HELP!

[bgrasser]

Just purchased a Tascam 424MKII and have'nt a clue. Mostly acoustic instruments and multiple vocals (all me). Should I record guitar on track 1 and melody, tenor & baritone vocals on tracks 1, 2 &3, then mix and bounce 2,3&4 to 1, opening tracks for standup bass, dobro, banjo etc. I know bouncing reduces quality but I have only 4 tracks. How would you acoustic pros do it out there? Any suggestions? Right now I only have Samson R11 mics. Are these industry dogs comparable to RS? All input is greatly appreciated.

 

[pglewis]

For the style of music, how about a pair of mics in stereo with all instruments on 1 & 2. That leaves two tracks for vocals (all dem ol' boys I've seen always gather 'round a single mic for vocs) and anything else without having to ping-pong. You'll have to experiment with mic and instrument locations, but I bet you can come up with something quite tasty that way.

Ooops... but if you're doing absoultutely _everything_ yourself, you'll have to be a bit more creative. Cut three instruments, and pong to track 4 (perhaps while adding a 4th track real time). Then cut 2 vocals and pong to track 3. That would leave you with 2 free tracks.

That's just one way to do it, though. The real trick is thinking outside "how you're supposed to do things", and knowing how the equipment works. There are plenty of useful applications for equipment that weren't necessarily part of the intended design. The best bet is to know exactly what every single knob, fader, switch, and light on your equipment does. Read the manual cover to cover away from the gear. Play with it, experiment. No one has to hear your mistakes. Things start to make sense after a while. You get those "aha!" moments.

[This message has been edited by pglewis (edited 06-02-2000).]

 

[Ray J]

I've been in a similar situation. I'm not positive what kind of unit you're speaking of but I'm assuming its a 4 trak cassette recorder, so I will answer under that assumption. If not, ignore this message.

One other option you can consider, depending what your mixing down to, is an external bounce. If you're mixing to a cassette deck, you can record on all 4 tracks, then bounce externally to your mixdown to 2 tracks on your mixdown unit, then put this tape back into your multi track and record the last 2 tracks. THis will only give you 6 total tracks, but depending on how good your mixdown deck is, this sometimes works better than an internal bounce because you can play your 4 original tracks on a consumer deck to make sure this premix is right. Another thing I use to do with a four track is record the background vocals on the same track with an instument that is not involved at the same time as the background vocals. For me that was usually the lead guitar track. You have to kinda preplan your levels if you do this, otherwise you will have to 'ride the faders' and the eq at final mixdown. But it will take some experimenting, you will also have to decide which tracks you want to bounce, and live with the sound degregation. I use to bounce the rythm guitar and sometimes background vocals or bass guitar. But it usually depends on the song and, like I said which tracks you can live with the sound degregation of the bounce. .....peace..Ray J

 

[The Green Hornet]

Yo BGRASSER: {do not use ROUNDUP}

sMALL jOKE:

My advice to you is to trade in your 4 track and go to an 8 track or more; then, you will not have to putz around bouncing tracks. Once you bounce a couple of tracks, you can only control the EQ/Tweaking of that track; in other words, you have two different sounds on a track from bouncing and you cannot tweak the two sounds; you can only tweak the track. Sooooo, get more tracks and you can create better, if not magnificent, recordings.

Green Hornet