What's your usual tracking order with bands?

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

I recently did a project with a band who booked studio time starting with one day, then a week in between and then the rest of the days. They would have wanted to start with drums, but I had a feeling we would need more than one day for the drums (which turned out correct), so I recommended we'd start with guitars because drum setup takes it's own time, and since it wasn't my place we were working at, it wasn't guaranteed the same mics and all the pieces of the kit were available the next weekend and so on. The band didn't feel very comfortable starting with the guitars and I ended up doing a metric shit-ton of slicing, copying and pasteing during the tracking because of some mix-ups with their song structures and such. Unfortunately, it was either that or taking a risk of wasting time doing another drum setup and hunting down gear that was missing while working on an already extremely tight schedule. I'd love to have more time with the bands (it's usually roughly a day per instrument for three to four tracks) and not divide sessions like that, but that's just how it usually goes because of the bands' schedules and the fact that they can't/don't want to pay for more tracking days.

I was just wondering how do others usually approach situations like this, and whether I made a misjudgement on my part thinking it was a necessity. Share your thoughts!

 

[colonel kurtz]

always start with drums

if the band was totally adamant about starting on that one random day before the rest of it, i would've just used it for some pre-pro or something...

 

[DanLights]

I agree with colonel, of course it was insane to do drums in that lonely day, you probably should've told them to dump that day and start the next week all on drums.

About tracking order, I used to be a guy to record bass after drums and then guitars, but out of experience with myself and recording other bassists I now go for doing bass after everything, probably even after the vocals if possible. Bass is so pushed aside and ignored that nobody's gonna change their tone/lines to fit around the bass, so you might as well be a good bassist and go the other way around, work your way round the drums and guitars to fit them well and get noticed enough while doing so.

Just felt like adding that to the thread for no special reason

 

[nwright]

I do drums, guitars, bass and then vocals and misc. stuff like keys, synths, samples/noise (usually between songs). I've recorded one band that used keys as an integral part of their sound, so we did those around the same time as guitars.

 

[Melb_shredder]

Drums - Guits - Keys/ Bass - Vox.

I like doing vocals last, because u have all the elements in there, and sometimes it helps for people to make decisions on vocal lines, doubling etc where it may not have been possible to think about it without the whole picture existing beforehand

 

[MetalSound]

drums, guitars, bass, misc. and then vocals.
i always record the bass after the guitars cause most bassists don´t have a clue what the guitarists are playing....

 

[dcb]

drums, guitars, bass, misc. and then vocals.
i always record the bass after the guitars cause most bassists don´t have a clue what the guitarists are playing....

true, but most of the times youcant convince bands only to doubletrack (as opposed to quad) cause they cant really see that the bass brings in the guts and the fullness to their sound. id check out the band before.

if their is bass in the mix youll most likely do less overdubs and additional guitars, so id always think about that before you start tracking.

so: if they are great bassists, track them before guitarists.

also : i wouldnt ever track a band without them doing demos BEFORE.
this way there wont be no : what ? you played E Sharp?? i thought it was F Sharp....

 

[JeffTD]

From another thread:

Scratch gtr
Scratch vox (this is reeeally fucking handy down the road)
Drums
edit drums
gtrs (edit as you track for the most part)
bass
more gtr edits + bass pocketing
vocals
vocal edits
mix
master

 

[JeffTD]

this way there wont be no : what ? you played E Sharp?? i thought it was F Sharp....

I like how your retarded band example includes an E sharp. So true!

 

[professorlamp]

E SHARP EXISTS JEFF!

 

[Fredrik-Ablaze]

Drums, bass, gits, organs/keys, vox here. Usually i track bass together with drums, saves time and makes a tighter performance.

 

[MetalSound]

so: if they are great bassists, track them before guitarists.

for metal: never ever!
you may easily get into intonation troubles. tuning a bass to guitars is much easier than the other way round.

 

[ahjteam]

What I usually do:

- preprod demos at their rehearsalspace or somewhere

- if the band has a keyboard player and uses strictly midi intruments and not play say a real grand piano, I ask for the MIDI files so they don't even have to come in to the studio to waste any more money for that

- scratch tracks (can have minor playing errors) with minimal micing (kick + mono oh for drums, DI for bass and pod or other ampsims for guitars) for the drummer with click and full band, but can be played without the drummer

- I also record a short excerpt (like verse + chorus) of a cover song from the same genre if the time allows and the band agrees as it helps tremendously when I use that track for dialing in "their tone".

- drums
- drum editing (usually 0.5-2 hours per song)
- rhythm guitars (editing usually on the fly)
- bass (editing on the fly)
- keys
- then lead guitars and lead vocals in mixed order to save days as singers usually can't sing more than 3-5 hours a day efficiently
- backing vocals and other random shitz like percussions
- final editing with band "on hold" in case there is something that slipped and needs fixing
- rought mix of one song alone without band present (no automation yet, only "the main sound"), then I ask the band in and then the changes, repeat until satisfied
- mixing the rest of the songs
- send to mastering

I like how your retarded band example includes an E sharp. So true!

E♯ is found in D-sharp minor and F-sharp major keys and it is different from F.

 

[The-Zeronaut]

rhythm guitars (100% to the metronome/grid) stopping every 2 or 4 bars
drums
drum editing
bass
Guitar solos
FX/keyboards
vocals



I REALIZED that recording scratch guitars was just a lost of time...why dont just record the "good" guitars on the first place?...

 

[ahjteam]

I REALIZED that recording scratch guitars was just a lost of time...why dont just record the "good" guitars on the first place?...

Because atleast I have noticed that most guitarists rather play music, as in with a drummer, than mechanical repetition, as in with just a click. Also atleast I lose a lot of emotion and groove in the playing from playing only to a click.

 

[dcb]

for metal: never ever!
you may easily get into intonation troubles. tuning a bass to guitars is much easier than the other way round.

you couldalso tune the bass before tacking guitars .

also for me its innacceptable to have guitar players not set up their guitars right before tracking. i alsways send them to a luthier.

there should be no intonation problems then, but again, yeah if its a really shitty band and they consantly bend strigns without noticing, its always a good idea to have the bass come in after guitars.

both has its advantages if done correctly. but i guess everyone has his own way of doing it, which is cool!

 

[dcb]

I like how your retarded band example includes an E sharp. So true!

haha, yeah, in german we have e - is and fis and stuff like that,
e-is is basically f .

but yeah some bands our dumb as fuck, no doubt about that, haha.

 

[Ermz]

+1 to Jeff's list. Nothing to add there.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Yeah, what Jeff posted is pretty much ideal for me, but unfortunately proper preproduction and a day or two for scratch tracks is a luxury. I think I'll just try to make bands understand their importance even harder

 

[MetalSound]

you couldalso tune the bass before tacking guitars .

also for me its innacceptable to have guitar players not set up their guitars right before tracking. i alsways send them to a luthier.

yeah, most bands come into the studio with very crappy instruments so you have to know how to set up the instruments correctly. basically i´m doing it all by myself ´cause then i know it really was done.

there should be no intonation problems then, but again, yeah if its a really shitty band and they consantly bend strigns without noticing, its always a good idea to have the bass come in after guitars.

some of the really bad players don´t even know WHY the pitch changes when they press too hard, bend the strings or pick too soft/hard. unfortunately most of them aren´t able to hear the difference at all that´s why it is so difficult to teach them...