Question for the Veterans....

[newatthis]

Here is the scenerio/situation.....

You have a cover band that needs to make a Demo CD ASAP. The band has the tunes picked they want to do.

Whats the best way to record this CD Demo? As in the proceedure for doing it the right way?

We have 7 Alesis Tape Adats (LX) (looing for an Alesis HD24 to replace them)
A Mackie 24X8 board, and also as a back up a 32X8 Behringer Mixer

Plus all the outboard gear etc etc and this will all be going into a Alesis Masterlink unit.

What are the steps for properly recording this type demo?? Do you record reference tracks (the tunes you'll be doing) first, then re-do/overdub the tracks one at a time till you get them all right??,,,,do you run the cover tune throught the headphones and just play along with it??,,,,do you record the tunes live, and just go with that(assuming its good)??....do you do each track 1 at a time starting with drums, and build it up off that (which would seem hard to do)??

Whats the best, and the most normal process??

I just did the record live way, and it turned out "decent", but there are tracks I would like to do over,,,,,and then there are some tracks I would like to keep as they are and not do over. Should I just do Punch in's?

How do you veterans do it?

Thanx
AJ

 

[AlexW]

It really depends on the band. I wouldn't have them play along to the song; that seems weird. If they're well rehearsed they should be able to play it just fine.

Depending on the mics you have and how well you can isolate things, you could track everything live at once. If there's something you don't like and the separation between tracks is ok (not too much bleed of the guitar into the drum mics, for instance) you can go back and overdub just the parts you want.

A different somewhat conventional approach is to record the drums first with a "scratch track" of either guitar or bass, or both. The focus here is on getting a good recording of the drum track. You can then go back and overdub the other instruments, eliminating the originally recorded guitar and bass if they're not worth keeping. This approach obviously takes more time; and some bands perform better altogether than when playing back to a pre-recorded drum track.

 

[Track Rat]

I'd use two or three of those ADATs with the Mackie board (lose the Behringer, it'll serve no purpose other than to add noise). I'd track the band playing all at once as much as possible. I'd have to have some kind of headphone system. I'd mic the drums up, have the bass go direct (no amp for him in the room) as well as keys if any, mic the guitar amps and then throw a couple of blankets over them for some isolation, put headphones on everybody and go for it. I track bands like this all the time and have PLENTY of isolation to drop back and punt (overdub clams/ redo/ add parts). The key is to track the band playing together as much as possible. I find the vibe will be MUCH better than doing tracks one at a time. You trade technical perfection for soul and I'll take soul every time.