Tracking guitars to drums?

[Metaltastic]

Hey dudes, question from a theoretical standpoint. So let's say you tracked your drum parts first, and they sound great, but your drummer pushed the tempo a bit at certain sections, as is inevitable, but always got back on the click. Assuming you're planning on using Beat Detective, should you apply it first before recording guitars? Cuz think about it: if you tracked guitars to the original drum performance, and then quantized the drums, then the guitars would be off because they were following the slightly out-of-time drums at a certain point.

I guess the only other option would be to do guitars only to a click, but then if for whatever reason (cymbal decay being the biggest I can think of) Beat Detective wouldn't work on a certain section, you'd be screwed also. Any suggestions on how to get around this?

 

[C_F_H_13]

I personally would edit the drums first absolutely! Having said that, I might use beat detective to extract a new tempo map from his performance if the speeding up and slowing down helps the songs (example: speeds up choruses, slows on verses). Regardless though you're right, it makes more sense to the guitar players to be playing to the "Right" drums.

 

[fatalforce]

Yeah, def. edit the drums first. It takes some time but if your really particular you can get them to sound great.

 

[ElektricEyez]

I agree, thats the beauty (and curse) of editing, is that you can fix timing issues on the drums, but be prepared to spend hours doing it, it's not an easy task. Sometimes the drums can sound a little un-natural, so in some cases you can "hide" it with reverb, just don't go too crazy. I would personally have the drummer re track it if possible. Whenever he screws up and goes off time, fine a friendly spot where you can bring him back in on a separate set of tracks then cut and paste them back together.

 

[2012]

Always edit the drums first.

If you track to a click and the drummer is competent enough to play with it then there really shouldn't be any problems when gridding the drums out.

Have the drummer give you at least 5 takes of the song, so that when it comes time to edit/BT you can first comp the best passages and you will have options if you run into any problems. You really want the best performance of the band you can get, the editing skills that you might have are not the focus. So push for them to deliver the goods. It will mean less work for you in the long run and a better finished product all-around.

Keep in mind that slightly strange sounding edits may be totally masked after you add bass, quadtrack gtrs, keyboards, vocals, etc. Sometimes you have to compromise.

 

[derfbonker]

Speaking from personal experience, I would say always edit the drums first.

 

[Skinny Viking]

In total agreement ... any project I've been asked to work on, if at all possible, I will insist that they track their drums 1st with maybe just a good scratch guitar track for a better overall idea of the tune. Really just makes the most sense to me to do any drum edits / fixes 1st so everything else is tracked to the most solid foundation possible. Really cuts down on the time spent for doing everything after with gtrs, bass, etc...