imacgreg said:
I would at least record the bass and drums together. The more instruments you record at the same time, the greater the chance that someone is going to screw up and you'll have to scrap what may have been a good take for the rest of the band.
I do agree somewhat with the above statement but I also think that in the right situation the above statement can take up time and money (if someone is paying you to record in a multitrack studio), I have been working with a 6 piece band (Guitar X2, Bass, Keyboards, Vocals and Drums) and in different situations I have taken different methods to track the band.
1....Pro Studio Rental, I was asked to track a song in a out bound studio ($70 an hour) so the pressure was on to get the project tracked before the money ran out. The solution was to record the WHOLE BAND to multitrack just like they were in practice. The room was big enough in the studio that we could place the amps in isolation booths to kill bleed, bass and keys went direct. After 3 takes the band nailed the tune but the bass player did not like his take so back to the head of the tape and re-touch the bass track by punching in on his mistakes this took an additional hour to do. This is why I disagree with the above quote, if you record the whole band and one person fucks up (As long as its not the drummer) the band can in fact keep on playing, you already have everything set up, patched and miced, all it takes is a rewind to the head of the tape to re-track the bad performance or "punch in" mistakes through out the take. If I were to just record the drums and bass, then overdub the other instruments it would have taken much longer than it did and the band would have went WAY over budget.
2...In other situations where we have had a bigger budget I have recorded a scratch guitar and vocals to a click at a home studio then went to a pro studio and had the scratch recording mentioned above laid to 2 inch 24 track analog. The drummer and bass player set up and record while listening to the scratch click recordings. The scratch recordings with the click provide a reference point for the song, I can not count the number of times that I have just been recording the drummer and bass player without the rest of the band present and they just stop playing and start talking about what part goes where in the song that they are supposed to be recording. Anywayz after the drums and bass are tracked the rest of the band one by one comes in and does their parts. This is good for pristine recordings, I spent 2 days on the guitars alone doing doubling and experimenting with the sound of different amps and guitars and microphones.
3....if its only a 3 piece band get 5 GOOD microphones and a good sounding room and mic the room, fuck with the mic placement and record all of the instruments live to 2 track and overdub the vocals.
I could go on forever about different ways to track bands but you get the idea, I hope this helps a bit. A quick do and don't
DO have a plan on how you are going to capture this recording ahead of time
DON'T show up to the session with no idea of what you are going to do, it makes the producer / engineer look very weak and in turn the artists / musicians will loose confidence in you very quickly (unless you know them as good friends).
Jeff
Saunavation Audio Productions
