Question about scratch guitars vs. real recordings when reamping

[Morgan C]

Well..

I know most people do 'scratch' guitars and bass for the drums to record along to, and then go and do 'proper' guitars and bass..

Since most of the recordings I've done lately have all been really quick, I just did the guitars, then bass properly, and then did the drums (then guitar leads and vocals, and any extra guitar parts or whatever). Since the guitars and bass are being reamped or done digitally, I don't think there's any reason to retrack guitars..

So basically my question is this: whats the difference between 'scratch' and 'proper' recordings, when you're going DI?

The scratch takes have to be pretty much in time to not throw the drums off, so is there really any difference? Am I better off doing scratch guitars and rerecording them later?

 

[Sickan]

Scratch tracks to me is when I do it kinda sloppy, one take.

 

[Jind]

Scratch tracks to me is when I do it kinda sloppy, one take.

+1 and for me, when I do a scratch track it may not contain all the nuances/melody that a final take contains. I just lay down a basic track to get the rhythm/feeling of a song down so that I see where the music is going while programming drums, or laying down a bass track.

At least that's what a "scratch" track is for me.

 

[Morgan C]

Thanks, but more talking about recording other bands, etc. and with real drums.

If its just recording yourself then of course you'd do a scratch to get the idea down, then program drums (don't need a track for the 'drummer' to play along to), then record to that.

 

[Trevoire520]

If the scratch tracks are tight enough then there's no reason that you cant just keep them and reamp them for the mix. However I normally find that with guitarists you have to do a few takes to get the part played perfectly, so the scratch tracks are normally a little sloppy. Also depending on how guitar parts change throughout the song (rhythmn, lead, cleans) this is normally all being done in one go for a scratch track so you'd have to do a fair bit of chopping things up to get them all onto their seperate tracks for reamping.

 

[006]

I tell clients to just throw down a slop track. They get ONE take all the way through, if they mess up keep going or we start over from the top. This is to stress it's purpose. Not to worry if it's all perfect or anything since we are redoing it later anyway. It's purely for reference when the drummer is tracking and in no way should be used for final version, when I do it anyway. Once that is done it's time to track drums, after that we go and start over with the guitars. However, we spend time on them, actually making sure it's perfect and tight.

 

[crosstalk]

Since I'm reamping, I prefer to do guitars first and record a POD track along with the DI so there's something to listen to. Then we have tight guitar tracks for the drummer to listen to.

I don't understand the whole scratch track where the guitar is sloppy. I think this would screw up the drummer. You know they're going to pay more attention to the guitar that they're used to than the click. Don't understand having a perfect scratch track either seeing that you'll be redoing the whole thing anyway.

 

[006]

Well I mean I'm not telling them to get drunk and play whatever the fuck, just play it like they would if they were playing a show. I mean... shouldn't be too hard You don't get to stop and redo at a show if you mess up a slight bit, do you?

And for the record, whenever the band has their shit together and we make click tracks I try to get them to do the final guitars to the click or programmed drums (from GuitarPro if they use it) so that the guitars are already finished right off the bat. Not every band is down with that though...

 

[K Odell]

haha just do whatever is best for your process. If you want to do scratch guitars then do em', if not then don't. Everyone is gonna do things differently.