overdub?

antman

New member
what is that and how can u do it in the program i read the term but wasnt to sure. seen it in someones post they said overdub your vocals.....
 
I don't know the exact definition but it usually refers to using some sort of multi-track device or software. Lets say you had a song that was acoustic guitar and vocals. Instead of recording vocals and guitar at the same time (live), you record guitar first on one track. Then go back on another track and dub your vocals over the guitar track.
Overdubbing can give you alot more creative control when it comes to EQ, Volume Levels, panning, and effects. Thats about the best I can do for you right now. Maybe someone can explain it better.
 
they said overdub your vocals.....

1. Call up Adobe Audition. If it is Edit View (single horizontal track), hit F12 to go to Multitrack View. Go to Options/Device Order/Input Devices to make sure your sound card shows up in the right-hand window. With everything plugged in (guitar, mic, whatever), click on the R (Record) button on the first track. This is called 'arming' the track. Then click on the red button in the transport section at the bottom. Start playing. You should see a recording appear as a waveform in the track. If it doesn't, go back and figure out what you did wrong. If it does, record the intial part to your song. Stop.

2. Hook up whatever you want to record on the second track, and arm track 2. You will need a duplex sound card that will allow you to listen to track 1 while you are recording track 2; and don't forget to route the playback so it doesn't record track 1 all over again in track 2. Sing. Repeat. If any of these steps give you trouble, do a search. For example, there is a sticky on "when track 1 records into track 2." As a last resort, read the manual. If you ask a question the answer to which is covered in the manual, you may get a rude reply.

3. Use the resources. Post an mp3 and dazzle us.
 
Wireneck is correct. Overdubbing is a specific process used before multi-track recorders became available. It involved layering one part of a song on top of another part until reaching the final product. Guitarist Les Paul was a pioneer of this process until 1957 when he went eight track.

The basic process involved two tape recorders. A click track such as a metronome, drum part, rhythm guitar or other tempo basis was recorded on the first tape machine. Another song part was then played as the first tape was played back, causing both parts to be mixed and recorded on the second tape recorder. The process was again reversed and it went back and forth until the end of the song was reached.

I recorded this way for twenty years and it is a skill to be acquired. Nowadays, mixing and processing decisions can be individually made once all tracks are side by side. But with overdubbing, decisions about the level mix, EQ and other processing issues of both the playback and the live playing in the next pass had to be made each time. One could wind up with a final product where the bass was too loud, the vocal was too weak, etc., and it was too late to fix it. A lot of tries were involved each time; sometimes doing a song over and over again until the level balances, frequencies and overall quality were what you wanted (earlier generations became weaker and more distorted as more levels were added.

I'm pleased to have gone through that era and had learned how to do it. It also helped that Les and I were friends at the time!

Incidentally, when folks nowadays add a track to a multi-track recording, they say they "overdubbed" it. This is not correct. "Over" means "on top of". There is no overdubbing in a multi-track recording.

I have put my very first overdubbed recording (Chinatown) that I ever made (1955) on my website (Music Download/Archives Tab). It was all uphill from there. :)

George
George Bowley & Laurie Dupuis
Music in the Les Paul and Mary Ford Tradition
 
Hi George

This is from Wikipedia:

"Overdubbing (the process of making an overdub, or overdubs) is a technique used in audio recording, whereby a performer listens to an existing recorded performance (usually through headphones in a recording studio) and simultaneously plays a new performance along with it, which is also recorded."

So the modern meaning of overdub is different from the meaning from the Les and Mary days. Language changes, I guess. Gay doesn't mean what it used to, either lol.
 
Hi Dobro!

Thanks.

Yes, Wikipedia said it much better than I did... and it does succinctly describe the initial pass. In fact (being an old fogie like I am...), I would say that it is an excellent definition of an "Overdub". What Les and Mary did expands that definition to "OverdubBING" in which that process was repeated many times over - with the mounting restrictions that each further generation presented. And Les wasn't the only one when you recognize the same expertise exhibited by the likes of Jorgen Ingman, Buddy Merrill, Buddy Fite and a multitude of others back then. Even George Barnes did a multiple a little earlier than when Les came out with his first effort.

There was a lot of experimentation back in those days. I had dinner with Patti Page back in the 90s; specifically to discuss her "Overdub" on her recording "Confess" back in 1947. It was a last minute decision and they couldn't go beyond one dub because of disk groove considerations.

And Les' 1948 Album The New Sound wasn't even "overdubbed". He recorded two separate high speed tracks on separate disks and mixed them with a base disk. Folks think there are "eight" guitars there. Nope. eight strings but not eight guitars. After that album, and when he got his first Ampex 400 portable, he started truly overdubbing as I had described earlier.

So I totally agree with you that times have changed, and so has the language; unfortunately. But when I now record another track on the computer or my eight-track, I will always refer to it as a "Sidedub"... :-)

George
George Bowley & Laurie Dupuis
Music in the Les Paul and Mary Ford Tradition
 
Sidedub would be a better word, for sure.

Things were different then. You had to make important decisions as you went along, and you had to play it right all the way through - no edits afterward. I've seen videos of modern musicians who choose to record straight to vinyl. Damn. Now, *that* is performance!
 
Overdub is the correct term... industry-wide for decades now. On a side note, wiki is the most unreliable source on the web. It comes up first, but you should ignore it and keep looking.
 
"Modern multitrack technology allows an entirely different approach to recording, because each instrument can be recorded onto a new track while listening back to those already recorded — a process known as overdubbing." Sound on Sound

Happy now?
 
What's the difference between the two definitions of overdubbing?

Incidentally, when folks nowadays add a track to a multi-track recording, they say they "overdubbed" it. This is not correct. "Over" means "on top of". There is no overdubbing in a multi-track recording.

Well, to begin with I was addressing the above statement, because it seems the thread in general was getting confused about what we call overdubbing. When you quoted wiki that was just fine, but I added "As a side note" not to trust wiki as a definitive source, even though it's often correct.

There are many kinds of dubbing. Multitrack overdubbing is what we're looking for here and how most understand it. But there is/was sound-on-sound overdubbing and layered overdubbing (What Les Paul was doing in the beginning). For decades now, well since I've been in the industry (1978) the terms overdubbing and multitracking have been synonymous. And of course is a hip way of saying doubling, which is where the tern dub comes from.
 
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