Scratch?

[Chrisku13]

I came here a while ago asking help on a recording technique: live or seperate. I've gotten everything I need to record our band, but we want to know how to record it with a scratch tape to listen to. Do we record the scratch live and then listen to it as the drummer does his beats, and the then the guitarist does his guitars and so forth? Or differently? And can I have someone's advice on some headphones under $80 that would work well for listening to a mix and have minimal sound bleed through if I played my amp? If any of this makes sense, please help. Thanks in advance,
Chris

 

[Chris Tondreau]

Yes, you want to record your scratch track live, with everyone playing. The purpose of this is to allow the musicians to know where they are in the song before the actual tracks are recorded. Typically, you would then have the drummer listen to the scratch track as he/she records the drum tracks onto separate tracks. (you'll probably want to ditch the scratch track later, so don't have them recorded in with the drums....)

A couple of things to keep in mind, though.... Are you recording to a hard disc of some sort, and plan on doing digital editing? If so, then you would be doing well to record your scratch track live, but with the drummer playing to a click through headphones. This will make editing WAY easier.... unless you have places in the song where you want it to speed up or slow down. If that is the case, then you can still record to a click, but it will require some potentially tedious preparation work.

Headphones under $80.... I'm not sure that if in that price range, it will make a WHOLE lot of difference what you use. As long as you like the way they sound, and you can get them loud enough to monitor over whatever. (thinking about hearing a click track while playing live drums...)

Chris