what is tracking ..

[rush1974]

these might be silly questions but what exactly is tracking. do you have to have a seprate rooms for tracking, control and recording rooms

we just bought our new house and want to covert the basement into a studio just for fun but to make decent recordings.

i have my mackie 24*8 mixer, patch bay, fostex vf160 harddisk recorder and events 20/20 monitors. have a pearl set as well as electronic set. but will be using more the electronic set for recording and lexicon effects.

i've hooked all my instruments up to my patch bay & then sent them out to the mixer's input channel. then use the sub groups out from the mix (all 8) into the fostex recorder to record.
is this the correct way of hooking them up to record or someone can suggest a better way than i have it at.

thanks a bunch for reading

 

[mixsit]

Cutting tracks. Adding tracks.
2trk
4trk
8trk
Ten tracks on the album.
Making tracks now... I'm outa here.

 

[mixsit]

... then use the sub groups out from the mix (all 8) into the fostex recorder to record...

Subs are one way to go, for convenience (quick assign which ever channels to the tracks), or grouping several to one. Or the 24-8 also has direct outs that feed tracks one-to-one. That's how I had mine patched to the record inputs.

 

[Rokket]

Tracking: the process of recording onto your medium (tape, digital, wax....)

On the issue of a separate control room: you can do it that way if you want to, but a lot of us record in our bedrooms.

If you have a separate control room, someone must be in there to hit the red button. If you are the one playing/singing, it makes it hard. No one can be in two places at once, no matter what some may claim...

 

[The REAL Jigsaw]

If you have a separate control room, someone must be in there to hit the red button. If you are the one playing/singing, it makes it hard. No one can be in two places at once, no matter what some may claim...

Well we can't "physically" be in 2 places at once, but we can remote desktop our computers from a laptop for example. I'm thinking of building a booth and putting my laptop in there to control the recording of the desktop.

 

[rush1974]

thanks

thanks guys for the responses. been doing a lot of reading here. very interesting but confusing at time to.

 

[mikeh]

As you now know - tracking is simply another word for recording (recording tracks). Normally each instrument is recorded to it's own "track"

The primary reasons for having a seperate tracking room vs. a control room are:

1. To keep the room sound of the instruments seperate for the refence sound coming from the monitor speakers

2. To have enough room in the tracking room to accomodate drums, etc

3. To allow proper treatment of a control room - seperate from the tracking room (which is ideally a much more reflective room than you would want for mixing).

These days so many home recordists don't use live drums - so a large tracking room is not needed. For home recordists - often you simply need a control room and them one other smaller room to act as an "isolation booth" (for recording vocals or tracking guitar amps).