Tracking Guitars workflow

[ZanetheVocalist]

I've been thinking about changing my strategy when tracking guitars.
I used to track a single guitar scratch track to use for drum recording.
Then I would quantize the drums, then record the guitars tracks meant for the album.
Often I'd have to edit the scratch track extensively, or else it would throw off the drummer and me when quantizing the drums.
After editing drums I'd track left, right and center lead guitar tracks, quantize them, record additional quad tracks if the budget and/or sound allowed and edit these.
Finally I'd track bass and pocket it to the guitars and drums.

Since I'm already having to edit the hell out of the scratch track, I've been thinking about using it as one of the rhythm tracks for the album. The end result is gonna be a super tight track anyway, so why do the same work an extra time when its not needed?

What's your opinion on this?

 

[DullElysium]

Someone is going to say this anyways so: if it sounds good, it is good.

But the way i do it is to hve something super tight for the drummer to play to. For an example i import midi guitars for the track so they're as tight as they can be. And i don't have to blame myself if the drums aren't tight since i didn't play the scratch tracks.

Then i edit drums and record guitars tightly to the holy tightness

 

[JeffTD]

I don't know about you, but when I'm doing scratch tracks I'm not being anal about technique, tuning, string life, pick type, etc... I suggest you just have the guys track the scratches tighter to begin with and then throw them out when you're done.

 

[infectdsniper]

yea i only edit parts that are really off.

 

[bryan_kilco]

A sloppy scratch track will fuck up a drummer if he's playing to a click.

What I'd do is: record each riff, part by part, chunk by chunk. I've heard a few guys say they like to run through the entire song, then go back and fix the messed up parts. Nah uh. I'd rather get it right from the get-go, then move on to the next riff. And if tracking duals or quads, I'd do Guitar L - Riff 1, then while the riff is still fresh in the head/finger, track Guitar R - Riff 1 right away. Seems to work so much better than running through the entire song and then going back and redoing it all over.

 

[The-Zeronaut]

90% of the time the band has guitar pro files of the songs
( if not i prefer to "lose" 1 hour making a simple midi drum than recording scratch guitars )
i just export the midi drums to ezdrummer/superior/slate/whatever
record and edit the guitar tracks
and THEN i record the real drum tracks

i prefer to do this because if the drummer if not used to record to a click
he will kinda "ignore" the metronome and follow the scratch guitars
so that's why i prefer recording to an already tight edited guitar track

and i see like a waste of time to spend hours recording tracks that you are gonna delete later
when i could be recording the "real" guitars

 

[Revson]

Is the dude recording the scratch tracks playing solely to the click? A lot of times I've found guitars really struggle to play with just the click so I'll program out a simple drum beat to help them along. They're generally more comfortable with something that sounds like drums and give tighter performances, which makes the drummer a lot tighter in his performance. Like Jeff said, though, no need to be too anal about scratch tracks since they're gonna be ditched anyway.

 

[B36arin]

Guitar pro backing tracks are great. Untight scratch tracks are evil, like the guys above me have already stated.

Guitar editing depends on the project. I hate editing guitars too heavily, I'll track as good performances as the guitarists can get, part by part, and then I'll edit the stuff which really annoys me. That's usually good enough, but it doesn't sound like the guitars that some of the guys on here get which are heavily slip edited. I usually don't mind that though, I like it when it sounds as if guitar tracks have actually been played. It has to sound tight of course, but apart from that it gives a different vibe to the song if there are slight imperfections in the playing.

 

[ZanetheVocalist]

90% of the time the band has guitar pro files of the songs
( if not i prefer to "lose" 1 hour making a simple midi drum than recording scratch guitars )
i just export the midi drums to ezdrummer/superior/slate/whatever
record and edit the guitar tracks
and THEN i record the real drum tracks

i prefer to do this because if the drummer if not used to record to a click
he will kinda "ignore" the metronome and follow the scratch guitars
so that's why i prefer recording to an already tight edited guitar track

and i see like a waste of time to spend hours recording tracks that you are gonna delete later
when i could be recording the "real" guitars

No Guitar pro midi, unfortunately. How do you go about programming drums for the guitarist? That would involve rec a scratch track anyway unless you did it riff by riff while they stand there playing to it. Actually that's not a bad idea, might not take too long... Definitely could use some advice on how to do this mad quick bc I already spend an unreasonable amount of time in pre-production as is and usually just rec guitars to a simple click track.

Totally agree on the part about drummers ignoring the click. I say this bc I had a band come in that rec'd scratch tracks and I sent them to the drummer to practice to before tracking drums the following week. Dude said the guitars were not tight enough so I ended up editing them a substantial amount. Almost to the point where they should have been the actual guitar tracks. In my experience drummers have a harder time playing tight to a slightly off guitar track than guitarist have playing to a click track instead of drums.

Is the dude recording the scratch tracks playing solely to the click?

Yes. I start with scratch guitars. Rec drums, edit. Rec guitars for real, edit. Rec bass, edit. etc...

 

[ZanetheVocalist]

A sloppy scratch track will fuck up a drummer if he's playing to a click.

What I'd do is: record each riff, part by part, chunk by chunk. . Seems to work so much better than running through the entire song and then going back and redoing it all over.

I want to do this but its such a pain in the ass the way I got it set up in REAPER. I have the convenience of having all tracks recorded as takes on a single track (don't have to load up individual tracks for comping) but if I record the same riff 20 times I'll have insane amounts of tracks to deal with when I "explode" all the takes to separate tracks. I guess I need to study that damn 500 page manual for a few days and get the hang of comping the takes before "exploding" Fuck it. I had to learn MIDI so I'll bite the bullet and adapt my workflow. Even though comping actual tracks is MUCH more intuitive...

On that note, do you guys make the client record the same riff 100 times or slip edit the fucker into perfection? I've taken the later and I wonder if it will save time making them redo it several times and if its worth pissing off the guitarist.

 

[B36arin]

Just press undo after every time you record a take which isn't good enough. Problem solved

 

[Revson]

I program the drums as simple as possible. 8th note hi hat, kick on the 1 and 3, snare on the 2 and 4, duplicate as needed. The guitarist should be about 8 million times more comfortable and if you need something special on a section you can make changes quickly. Different time signatures will require different beats, but just keep it simple.

 

[The-Zeronaut]

do something simple when programing "scratch" drums for tracking guitars
i use either guitar pro or the midis included on superior/ezdrummer

 

[StoneLord]

A sloppy scratch track will fuck up a drummer if he's playing to a click.

What I'd do is: record each riff, part by part, chunk by chunk. I've heard a few guys say they like to run through the entire song, then go back and fix the messed up parts. Nah uh. I'd rather get it right from the get-go, then move on to the next riff. And if tracking duals or quads, I'd do Guitar L - Riff 1, then while the riff is still fresh in the head/finger, track Guitar R - Riff 1 right away. Seems to work so much better than running through the entire song and then going back and redoing it all over.

That's exactly how I do it too. Seems to go faster and when you reach the end of the song, it's done.

 

[ZanetheVocalist]

I program the drums as simple as possible. 8th note hi hat, kick on the 1 and 3, snare on the 2 and 4, duplicate as needed.

Thanks I'll give this a try next time. Gotta be better than as my previous artist described as "that annoying COCKcockcockcockCOCKcockcockcock..."

Just press undo after every time you record a take which isn't good enough. Problem solved

With true asshole fashion! I'm tempted to do this but if I decide I don't like a part later I'll have nothing to replace it with. Just 1 pre-comped track per guitar.

I don't know about you, but when I'm doing scratch tracks I'm not being anal about technique, tuning, string life, pick type, etc...

Yea me either, I just care about the timing. But after listening back to it after the band leaves, I find a few rough spots that make it ridiculously hard to ignore when editing drums. They annoy me so much that I end up editing it and once I start its hard to stop until its all super tight. Big time killer.

 

[B36arin]

With true asshole fashion! I'm tempted to do this but if I decide I don't like a part later I'll have nothing to replace it with. Just 1 pre-comped track per guitar.

That doesn't have to be a bad thing, committing to stuff while recording makes the whole process a lot more effective. What I usually do is have the guitarists track a full take or two(usually only one) for each guitar track after they finished recording the track riff-by-riff. Then, if I missed something I'll usually have a backup. And if not, I can usually edit my way out of it.

 

[bryan_kilco]

I want to do this but its such a pain in the ass the way I got it set up in REAPER. I have the convenience of having all tracks recorded as takes on a single track (don't have to load up individual tracks for comping) but if I record the same riff 20 times I'll have insane amounts of tracks to deal with when I "explode" all the takes to separate tracks. I guess I need to study that damn 500 page manual for a few days and get the hang of comping the takes before "exploding" Fuck it. I had to learn MIDI so I'll bite the bullet and adapt my workflow. Even though comping actual tracks is MUCH more intuitive...

On that note, do you guys make the client record the same riff 100 times or slip edit the fucker into perfection? I've taken the later and I wonder if it will save time making them redo it several times and if its worth pissing off the guitarist.

I used to have the same problem until I found out about:

Options -> New recording that overlaps existing media items -> Trims existing items behind new recording

This made things so much faster for me. But I mainly record myself for new ideas/demo stuff/etc, but I still am a nazi on myself to an extent about tightness. So I'll go as far as I can till I mess up, then just highlight a section and set "Auto punch selected items" or whatever and just fly though it.

 

[Machinated]

I don't know about you, but when I'm doing scratch tracks I'm not being anal about technique, tuning, string life, pick type, etc... I suggest you just have the guys track the scratches tighter to begin with and then throw them out when you're done.

always listen to jeff. the scratch tracks dont need to be perfect, just a bit of groove and note definition so the drummer knows what he's doing.

when tracking guitars, im spending a good few hours before tracking anything at all just letting the guitarist jam over the drums and get used to the track. having the guitarist feel comfortable is a huge part of the battle.

during that time ill go over little technique things that always come up. its a good time to do it, because they can practice what you're telling them over and over without the pressure of having to get a perfect take.

once i feel the guitarist is playing things nicely and its sounding good, we'll start tracking.

its hard to say how small sections i track in, theres way too many variables. if the guitarist can nail things easily and stay in tune then im happy to do big chunks. if its a tricky riff he cant play, we'll focus more closely on it. whatever it takes to make it sound the way we want it to.

always remember its the performance and feel that you want to capture, thats what the art is.