BAUUUOW!: A question about quad tracking

Erkan

Erkan

mr-walker.bandcamp
Jun 16, 2008
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Uppsala, Sweden
mr-walker.bandcamp.com
No, I'm not going to ask how you pan, or what quad tracking means. I think everybody around here knows that from previous threads :)

My question is something totally different, and I would really like to know how you guys do this.

¯\(°_o)/¯ HOW DO QUAD TRACK?

Do you monitor your previous trackings while multi (quad) tracking?
If so, are they panned out to what they are supposed to be, or are you listening to everything centered?

I'm sure there are more questions I should ask, but basically I just want to know your method of tracking. When I've been doing it, I've tried both ways... but I don't know which one is best. If I listen to only one track at a time, I won't notice subtle untightness in the guitars, but if I listen to all while tracking, it's hard to hear if I'm actually playing right.

Gievf tipZzz pleeaxe! (yes, those typos were intentional)

(Keep in mind I'm not a guitarist, hence, the asking!)
 
I always like to record my guitar parts totally solo'ed with just the click, so I can hear any mistakes I might be making. I've known a lot of people who can't play as tightly in time this way as if they were to play along with the other parts, though...I would say if you have to play along with something else, make it just one part panned to the opposite speaker so there's better separation!
 
Metaltastic said:
I always like to record my guitar parts totally solo'ed with just the click, so I can hear any mistakes I might be making. I've known a lot of people who can't play as tightly in time this way as if they were to play along with the other parts, though...I would say if you have to play along with something else, make it just one part panned to the opposite speaker so there's better separation!
Click to expand...

So you would listen to the signal your are currently recording centered, while the other one is panned left, or would you pan the signal you are recording right while the other one is left, to achieve extreme separation?
 
Well now that you mention it, actually, I'm not sure whether I'd do L monitoring C or L monitoring R cuz I don't personally do it that way - but one of those two would definitely be what I'd recommend!
 
Metaltastic said:
I always like to record my guitar parts totally solo'ed with just the click, so I can hear any mistakes I might be making. I've known a lot of people who can't play as tightly in time this way as if they were to play along with the other parts, though...I would say if you have to play along with something else, make it just one part panned to the opposite speaker so there's better separation!
Click to expand...

Same here. Solo'd track + click.
I'd memorize every inch detail of the song before tracking. Can be quite challenging when you're dealing with 16th notes triplets at 215bpm, with random palm muting on/off situation, if you know what I mean.
I'm basically a progressive death metal player and I hate quad tracking, but what's gotta be done gotta be done :heh:

It's pretty strange, you see. When you're recording with drums, things can sound in place very easily. Mute the drums after you finish recording, solo the recorded track and put on a click, and you'd have a heart-attack:err:

So yeh, Solo'd track + click is the way to go.

For God's sake, I've heard cymbals masking minor noises that I make while tracking.

Oh and yes, 50 posts. Yayy!:kickass:
 
I just record the first one to the click, pan it far left, record the next one, pan it far right, record the next pan it 80-ish left, record the next and pan it right 80ish...

of course the click is going throughout the whole thing...

sometimes, if having the previous track(s) playing is messing me up, i'll mute them, but i still pan them once I've recorded them...
 
Maamar Huq said:
When you're recording with drums, things can sound in place very easily. Mute the drums after you finish recording, solo the recorded track and put on a click, and you'd have a heart-attack:err:
Click to expand...

in the end, i'd say it's more important that the gats mesh well with the drums... so your comparison step with the click seems moot... unless you're obsessive... which I can understand.
 
Thank god for drums because I couldn't play to a click if my life depended on it. Seriously though I'd mute any previous takes, otherwise you start subconsciously following them. One take + drums. I keep the click on during this period in the vain hope that I'll assimilate being able to play to a toneless beep. I officially suck at rhythm playing though.
 
I record 1st track until its perfect. With drums, I prefer it to a click. 2nd track is recorded to the 1st until I can hear almost no difference between the 2 (even though there obviously WILL be some). The whole time I'm doing my 2nd track, I'm playing along to the 1st one with both being centered. When I get to my 3rd track, I mute the 2nd and repeat everything else until 1 & 3 sound as close as 1 & 2. Again, mute 3rd track, start doing 4th while playing along to 1st. After all is said and done, mute off, panned to taste and listen to hear if anything jumps out and needs fixin

as a side note, I'm almost positive I'll never quad-track again. I'm pretty sure I like the sound of 2 rhythm guitars better than 4 but this is also subject to change
 
Ah good posts guys!

I wanted to check to see if there was a "wrong" way and a "right" way to do it, but as with most things in audio or art in general.... there doesn't really seem to be a "this is the only way"-way.

I will continue to try all sorts of methods until I find the one I think is right for me at this time (I'm sure it gets different when you gain more skill with the guitar etc.)
 
I do it the same way whether using drums, or a click.

I have four (hard panned) tracks in Cubase and all go out to say Guitar Group 1(panned center):

Left 1
Left 2
Right 1
Right 2

1. I arm all four of them and record the part.
2. I disarm the first track and do it over, then so on for track two, three, four.

I do this until all four takes are different. Doing it this way, I always have the full volume of four tracks at once, so if I'm using drums that are partially mixed and a bit louder the drum tracks don't overwhelm the guitar I'm tracking to record. Also, I can tell instantly if I am not double tracking something well, because I will be able to hear which track I am playing/recording, if all is well, it should be more like a drummer burying a click in their headphones. Shouldn't even know it's there.
 
Oh man, this totally didn't occur to me, but yeah, if they're real drums, I would definitely say record the guitar to those, not to the click, cuz it's highly unlikely the drummer will have been 100% on! I'm just always used to my own programmed drums, which is why I at first said monitoring guitar + click for me
 
I record each take soloed with the click then i check them against each other in mono i wont pan anything untill im happy with the takes in mono because if you can get it sounding tight in mono it will sound great when you pan it out
 
sysera said:
I do it the same way whether using drums, or a click.

I have four (hard panned) tracks in Cubase and all go out to say Guitar Group 1(panned center):

Left 1
Left 2
Right 1
Right 2

1. I arm all four of them and record the part.
2. I disarm the first track and do it over, then so on for track two, three, four.

I do this until all four takes are different. Doing it this way, I always have the full volume of four tracks at once, so if I'm using drums that are partially mixed and a bit louder the drum tracks don't overwhelm the guitar I'm tracking to record. Also, I can tell instantly if I am not double tracking something well, because I will be able to hear which track I am playing/recording, if all is well, it should be more like a drummer burying a click in their headphones. Shouldn't even know it's there.
Click to expand...

Dude, that's smart! Will definately try that one, thanks.
 
Yea
I always record with just the drums
the click doesn't always work out for me because some of the drum parts can be pretty awkward
so once I would put the drums up with the guitars that were recorded to a click the timing would be ever so slightly off in a few places
just my $.02
 
I usually monitor what I'm recording on the left side (and make the guitar player sit on that side too) and playback all other guitar tracks on the right side about 5 dB lower in volume than the track that's being recorded, just to hear if everythinh os working together and if there are no intonation problems.
 
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