Track guitars+bass before the drums?

[jipchen]

Yeah, threadtitle = question. ((oh and I meant "before" with regard to the time )
I ask because a band (my "ex"band) wants to record an album, 10 songs, as soon as possible.
As some might know, I'm currently building my studio and it will take a while for the liveroom to be finished - I aim for late january or perhaps february.
The controlroom should be ready for action before next year (some blanking covers will be missing but they don't do anything to the sound).. there is only little work left there.

So my idea was, why not track the DI tracks of guitars and bass to MIDI drums (they have all songs in guitar pro) first - which is no problem because there's no loud noise and therefore I don't need the liveroom - and then when the live room is finished record the real drums, do the reamping etc.
Could be even easier for the drummer because he has more orientation and a better sound (than just a scratchguitar) will make his performance better (?).
Does somebody have any experience with this way?

There are a few parts that could develop into problems.. like when they decide to change a part, etc.
But it's not that hard to move or even re-record a bunch of DI takes
What do you think?

I don't want to loose the job by delaying the production because 10 songs with real drums = $$$

 

[StefTD]

I think it's not a bad idea, haven't done something like that, but a good friend of mine
was in a pretty similar situation (actually twice, but he was the drummer) and it worked
out pretty well, once with his old death metal band and once with his new jazzband.
From the point of a guitar and bass player, it wouldn't matter to me.

So I don't see problem in doing it that way

 

[AllanD]

I've done it before, it won't work too well unless the drummer is amazing at staying on time. The drummer I did it with couldn't do that perfectly, so he'd speed up and slow down randomly.

 

[jipchen]

I think it's not a bad idea, haven't done something like that, but a good friend of mine
was in a pretty similar situation (actually twice, but he was the drummer) and it worked
out pretty well, once with his old death metal band and once with his new jazzband.
From the point of a guitar and bass player, it wouldn't matter to me.

So I don't see problem in doing it that way

Good to hear, thanks a lot for chiming in man! Exactly what I wanted to hear
I thought the guitarist might even play tighter then, because there aren't even minor fuck-ups.

Anyone had any negative experiences with this chronological order? (Better not, heh)

edit:

I've done it before, it won't work too well unless the drummer is amazing at staying on time. The drummer I did it with couldn't do that perfectly, so he'd speed up and slow down randomly.

Oh well here it comes.. could be a problem indeed.
But it's Metalcore and thus will be edited to hell and back anyway.. (and of course tracked to the click) Thanks!
I hope for more input so I can just count the yes/no votes

 

[Mago]

it's how I recorded my bands album. especially if it's a kind of metal were all the parts are worked out before and everything is should be tight I don't see that much of a problem with it.
If it's very vibey stuff were the guitars and bass need to get the feeling of the drums then it could get a bit tricky...

 

[StefTD]

As long as the drummer records with a click I don't see a problem, imho there shouldn't
be much of a difference if the drummer records to a click and scratch guitars or if he
records to the finished guitar tracks and a click, if it should sound modern and tight
you have to edit it anyway

Just red what Mago wrote, +1 on all he said, if it's sludgey doom that will be recorded
without a click to get the whole mess grooving it won't be the best idea to record the
guitars at first, but like I said, for modern tight stuff, I don't see a problem.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Should work fine if the drummer doesnt suck at playing to a click.

What fucked my drummer up is my (shitty) guide guitars. He DEFINITELY plays better to JUST the click and no guide guitars. But yeah, that was just my fault for not taking the extra time to track extra tight guide guitars. As long as you capture the DIs, then edit them to the grid, everything should be fine.

 

[jipchen]

Alright, thanks for sharing your opinions
It might be worth a try. In the end, it depends on how fast the building process continues.

 

[JeffTD]

Honestly, this could turn out better in that you could very, very specifically plan out EXACTLY what the drums were to be doing in order to accentuate certain parts; something that should really happen in prepro, but most drummers have short attention spans and sometimes it can be hard to know for sure what you want going on before things start adding up, gtrs/bass/vox/leads and whatnot.

 

[Trevoire520]

I've recorded this way before, in fact I prefer it as it means the guitar players only have a click to listen to, so tend to track tighter. And then the drummer has nice tight guitar tracks to play along to.

 

[zackpennington]

I prefer this method actually. The last project we did in a weird order. I did live drums which I pulled kick and snare tracks out of and midi'd them to the grid. Then I recorded guitar and bass to midi kick and snare and the click. Then we recorded live toms and cymbals over that, with a little time correction here and there. Sounds great.