tracking basics

[userchanged1]

Hey all.
So i am finally set up to do some home recording, and need some input on the process of tracking.
I've done some mixes of Ola's stuff, with mixed success (pun not intended) but I think its good enough for my needs...
So now I want to try and mix some of my own riffs.
Note that I have little to no background knowledge in recording, and I'm basically making things up as I go along so some of my methods may be an absolute no-go. I'd like some feedback on my method and -worst case- on how to do it right.
I use Cubase 5 and an NI Audio Kontrol interface.

- I basically have things set up like so: 2 guitars double tracked & hard panned, a bass track recorded on guitar and processed an octave down, and MIDI drums using EZD and some pre-processed triggered samples I found for kick and snare.
- I make sure there's no clipping in the input signal and try to end up with a signal chain output of about -5dB per track, so it adds up to about 0dB with all tracks combined in the mix.
- I record riff by riff. I am a decent enough guitarist to be able to record whole riffs flawlessly, but a whole song seems to me making it harder than it needs to be, as one mistake is fatal and makes me lose a lot of time.
- When the riff is fast and elaborate enough, I set the track tempo to a lower value so I can achieve cleaner notes, and less mistakes. Then I process it to match the correct tempo.
- When everything is recorded, there's usually a lot of phasing going on in the lead sections. As I said I am decent at playing the guitar, but getting the tightness and constistency of Ola's tracks seems near impossible imo... So I found this 'manual wave edit' function with which I can drag like every note exactly where it needs to be on the tempo grid. It's pretty time consuming but seems to get rid of most of the phasing issues... is this common practise? Doesn't this have a negative effect on the signal qualitywise?
- after that I just put every block after another. I know I should probably do a tiny crossfade or something of that sort, but I haven't found how to do that yet...


So... is this somewhat how I am supposed to do my tracking, or am I doing seriously dumb things?

help is appreciated.
thx


edit: I forgot to mention I use software amps, so I am tracking a clean guitar signal.

 

[Pickasso]

- When the riff is fast and elaborate enough, I set the track tempo to a lower value so I can achieve cleaner notes, and less mistakes. Then I process it to match the correct tempo.

Never tried this- I imagine the daw does some pitch shifting when you fix the tempo- does it affect the tone? Maybe create some of the phasing you mentioned?

About recording in blocks & dragging- I do that all the time. It really saves time. In Reaper, it automatically creates the crossfades when you drag one block next to another. See if you have that option in Cubase, & enable it. When using an ampsim, you can't hear any change where the fades meet, maybe if you rendered just the clean D.I. you could detect it.

Would you say your issues with playing riffs identically & tight has anything to do with latency? That's something to look at. If latency is messing up your playing, or after you think you nailed a take, you listen back & hear it's out of time. I tried many different interfaces, & am having the best success by record monitoring the active track (turn off all extra plugins in the session you can first). I used to run a standalone ampsim for monitoring while recording, the record monitoring seems more accurate (at least in Reaper)

 

[Terminus]

- I make sure there's no clipping in the input signal and try to end up with a signal chain output of about -5dB per track, so it adds up to about 0dB with all tracks combined in the mix.

That would be a bit too high, try peaking around -10 or -12dB or even a bit lower when tracking guitars. you want it to peak at -6dB the very most when everything is playing together on the master channel.

- I record riff by riff. I am a decent enough guitarist to be able to record whole riffs flawlessly, but a whole song seems to me making it harder than it needs to be, as one mistake is fatal and makes me lose a lot of time.

Quite normal. A large percentage of people do just that including me.

- When the riff is fast and elaborate enough, I set the track tempo to a lower value so I can achieve cleaner notes, and less mistakes. Then I process it to match the correct tempo.

Dunno about this one. It's something that people will call others out for, like not being able to play their own tunes live etc. but go for it if it gets the job done.

- When everything is recorded, there's usually a lot of phasing going on in the lead sections. As I said I am decent at playing the guitar, but getting the tightness and constistency of Ola's tracks seems near impossible imo... So I found this 'manual wave edit' function with which I can drag like every note exactly where it needs to be on the tempo grid. It's pretty time consuming but seems to get rid of most of the phasing issues... is this common practise? Doesn't this have a negative effect on the signal qualitywise?

I would think snapping the transients to the grid between two of the same melodic lines would only make the phasing worse? I don't quite follow you here but I've never had issues with phasing between two lead guitars so I can't really help you here. Maybe try panning them out a little?

- after that I just put every block after another. I know I should probably do a tiny crossfade or something of that sort, but I haven't found how to do that yet...

Me not understand wording used here...block=grid or section of music? Personally I dont like to edit my guitars and bass tracks too much, only when there's an audible fuck up, every thing else that is not easily noticeable is left up to your playing the tracks tight enough, but not robotically tight.

Never tried this- I imagine the daw does some pitch shifting when you fix the tempo- does it affect the tone? Maybe create some of the phasing you mentioned?

It won't shift the pitch, it'll just stretch the wav file out BUT you may be right about adding to the phase issue since the way he's described doing it will actually make the transients sit nearly exactly with each other which can add a bit of phasing...you really don't want every chug/note sitting exactly with each other between the two guitars, humans never really did this until computers came along and it adds to the robot-like sound which I'm not too fond of.

 

[userchanged1]

Thx for the replies.

That would be a bit too high, try peaking around -10 or -12dB or even a bit lower when tracking guitars. you want it to peak at -6dB the very most when everything is playing together on the master channel.

well I got the values wrong, but I'm happy to hear my train of thought is at least right.

When the riff is fast and elaborate enough, I set the track tempo to a lower value so I can achieve cleaner notes, and less mistakes. Then I process it to match the correct tempo.

Never tried this- I imagine the daw does some pitch shifting when you fix the tempo- does it affect the tone? Maybe create some of the phasing you mentioned?

It does not affect pitch at all. And as terminus says, it gets the job done. With less hassle and better result too imho, so eventhough it may be frowned upon, for recording purposes it's surely helpful. The phasing is probably not bc of this, because I had it too when I tried recording at full speed.

- after that I just put every block after another. I know I should probably do a tiny crossfade or something of that sort, but I haven't found how to do that yet...

Me not understand wording used here...block=grid or section of music? Personally I dont like to edit my guitars and bass tracks too much, only when there's an audible fuck up, every thing else that is not easily noticeable is left up to your playing the tracks tight enough, but not robotically tight.

by block I mean a recorded riff section. I just put all the riffs one after another to into a 'song'. And I imagine I then need to crossfade slightly between sections so they fade fluently from one section to the next without audible hickups.

So basically I am doing not that bad, except for the phasing. Maybe I'll post an example but I'm at work right now...
To clarify: I recorded the same lead riff on both guitars. There's no rhytm guitars. I double tracked both guitars. So in total 4 times the same riff, twice left and twice right.
When I disable the second take on each channel, in other words as if i just singletracked left and right, it sounds fine.
BUT when I take the same two takes and pan them both to one stereo channel (left for example), the phasing occurs.

So why do two takes panned left-right sound fine, but the same two takes panned to the left for example sound terrible?
My guess is that the brain detects the stereo from different directions and can adjust and process small timing differences between them, but has trouble when the timing differences come from within the same monitor.

I hope what I'm saying makes any sense at all.

Maybe just single track the lead parts once left and once right? Or is double tracking really the only right way to do it?

 

[smy1]

If you can't play as tight as Ola: practice. Yesterday I just listened to old demos I recorded in 2001 on Tascam DA88 and it was full songs - and I was surprised that everything was supertight. Just punched in every now and then, maybe 1-2 times per song. I was just a much better player back then. If you can't play tight enough: practice till you can.

 

[userchanged1]

well with rhytm sections there's no real problem, but when the fingers go faster, it tends to phase everytime. Oh well, i'll do just that: practise. At least I now know that manually and extensively tweaking a recorded wave track is not standard procedure.
Maybe i should start off with an 'easier' rhytmic song instead of the melodic stuff.
I also notice that the same signal chain gives me a much worse sound on my own signal, than on DI's from the forum. Obviously every guitar and pickups combination will sound different, but it is not that its 'different', its clearly 'worse'. As in muddy, less gain (which makes me crank the drive knobs more than I'd like), less note clarity because of these, etc.

SO, tomorrow I'll put some EMG's in my Ibanez and put on new strings and see what I come up with soundwise...
Which combination do you guys prefer? I have an EMG 81, 85 and 60 lying around. 81 in the bridge I suppose, I bought them some time ago to try out the different combinations, but i haven't had much time.

anyway thanks for the replies, I hope to upload some tunes very soon.

 

[Terminus]

Honestly, man, I don't think you're very clear on what phasing is here.

Say you have two tracks of leads and you play the same thing on both. If it's played so tightly that they are nearly identical waveforms, you'll get phasing since the wave cycles cancel each other out by being the same size & duration.

Now play the same thing only slightly less perfectly, it'll still sound good but won't have the phasing issues. It'll still be useable, actually more so than the perfect one.

As for the muddy tone and lack of gain, try raising the pickup nearer to the strings.

and some clipz would really help.