08/02/2014
Edit: The first version of this blog entry was plagued with crappy grammar. Hopefully this will be much more comprehendible.
Part 2 - Tracking
Picking up where we left off, we're approaching perhaps the most time consuming part of the recording process. In pre-production we put down our scratch tracks and hopefully our click track, and are ready to start the real recording. As of this point we've set up also setup drums, amps, guitars and bass and have the tones as good as we can get them naturally. We're mic'd up, and ready to roll! However, we have a couple options to weigh before we jump the gun.
At TME Studios we record, edit, mix and master all "In the Box" which means we go straight in to the computer via our A/D converter (Analog to Digital Converter, which in our case is a Tascam 1641) and never leave the digital domain again unless we re-amp. This eliminates about 95% of the outboard gear that was needed to do the job 20 years ago. Back then, studios recorded to 2" analog tape, usually 24 or 48 tracks. Editing literally meant cutting tape and stitching it back together, and you had to fast-forward or rewind to get to where you needed to be. Engineers had to rely purely on time-code off of the tape master, and automation was a chore and came on only the highest end boards such at SSL or Euphonix.
Fast forward to now, everything is conveniently done on computer. You can go to any point in the song instantly due to the random access allowed by recording onto hard drive, editing is precise down to the single sample level, and automation is the norm, and included in almost every DAW software suite. The advent of DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) has replaced the need for big console mixing boards, the need for tape or any outboard recorder, and allows for extremely good quality recording without breaking the bank, or having to worry about running out of tape or room. Anymore, the DAW is any decent, relatively modern (anything that can run Windows 7 should be able to handle recording) desktop computer, or even laptop when recording live. The more powerful the better of course, but a quad-core chip from Intel or AMD, 8gb of RAM, a decent dedicated graphics card, a 7200rpm second drive and possibly a decent SSD is plenty of machine to get the job done with the least issues.
We usually will record 24-bit/44.1khz for music, and 24-bit/48khz for video since converting 24-bit to 16-bit is quick and painless whereas down sampling from 88.2khz or 96khz is a time consuming chore, CD audio is only 16-bit/44.1khz and typical audio or video is 16-bit/48khz, we'd lose detail after converting anyways, and especially when 9 times out of 10, you'll be hearing the music as an mp3 or AAC file. 24-bit/44.1khz audio uses right at 15mb per minute of mono audio so with even a cheap 1tb hdd (hard disk drive) with a decent rpm (5900 rpm is ok but 7200 rpm is much better) is no more then about $75 and gives us something like 1000 hours of recording time. Lastly, while you can run up to 256 tracks of audio at once, essentially 5-10 times that of tape, that amount of individual tracks is purely ridiculous and would be a nightmare to keep organized and mix, even when bussing. The most I've ever used was right around 112 tracks, which was right around the end of 2006, and my poor old computer just about keeled over and died from all of that processing. Keep in mind that the more tracks we're running, the higher the specs we'll require for the computer.
Pro-Tools is the industry wide "Gold Standard" as far as DAW software goes. Beyond that are the VST systems Nuendo and Cubase. We use Nuendo primarily at the studio, while I personally Cubase for home recordings. Cakewalk is another good piece of software for multi-tracking, however between Pro-Tools and Steinberg's VST DAWs, Cakewalk is a distant 4th, and almost always for home recording. I personally started out using Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 back around 1997, used Pro-Tools LE in 2001, then switched to Nuendo in 2004. I switched to Cubase in 2011 as it offered a great VSTi library, which are virtual instruments that essentially emulate keyboards and many other instruments. We will most likely add Cubase to our arsenal soon, although even for video production Nuendo is great. That actually brings up a great point that I'll elaborate on. The biggest thing that effects one's choice of DAW software are what hardware and plug-ins are compatible. Pro-Tools started out with almost no supported 3rd party hardware, so one was stuck with only the digi01 or the Alesis light-pipe, whereas the Steinberger DAWs can use just about anything with driver support. The same goes for plug-ins. These vital pieces of software are what allows you to have your effects such as reverb and delay, your inserts like gating and compression and in the case of VSTi, gives you excellent in-the-box virtual instruments. In the time period that I used pro-tools, you had nothing to work with as far as plug-ins go. In fact, I would record with Pro-tools but would have to export each track out and mix with Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 since Cakewalk had support for DirectX plug-ins. It drove me absolutely nuts and killed way too much time trying to Macgyver my way through, just because there were almost no plug-ins available for the PC version of Pro-tools, which I think are referred to as RTAS. That was the primary reason that I switched to the Steinberg VST system of Nuendo, since the interface was close to identical and Nuendo could use both VST and DirectX plug-ins.
Now that I've rambled on incessantly about DAWs, there are a few things that we have to decide. If the band is really on a budget, one thing we can do to save time and money is to record the band as "live" as possible. The main problem with live is "Bleed-thru" which is where sounds from another sconces show up on tracks other than it's own designated track. This means that taking total control of the mix is difficult to impossible, unless our sound isolation is perfect, which is the real world almost never will happen. The advantage to live recording is that everyone is recorded at once, saving quite a bit of time, but is limited to the amount of inputs we have. On top of that there will still be over-dubbing required if there's one guitarist, or if the client wants to layer audio, and almost always will have to do vocals separately from the main session as Vocals are so out in front. On occasion, the live in-studio recording will just end up being a over-glorified scratch track, which then the client will re-record all of the parts separately, which depending on the amount of time spent in pre-production, may end up being even more time-consuming then just doing it right the first time. Remember: recording cheap will end up sounding cheap.
Now, the way that I prefer, which is by far the most common way to work is true multi-tracking. Recording one player at a time with the engineer's undivided attention on just that one instrument will allow for much higher quality control in both the sound and performance. We usually follow an order when recording. The rhythm section comes first, beginning with drums, followed by bass or rhythm guitar. Embellishments such as solos, keyboards or other interments come after the rhythm section is done, and lastly, vocals will finish the tracking phase, with the exception of last minute changes known as "Pick-Ups".
As drums come first, we start by mic'ing every percussive element up including the kick, snare(s) and toms. Each one of these gets it's own channel all by it's self which allows for optimal control. We will put up a L/R stereo set for overheads, another mic for both hi-hat and ride. I've even went as far as mic'ing every cymbal as well, but in most cases that is overkill. One thing that I always take into consideration is the need for drum replacement. I've been using Drumagog for this purpose since 2004, as Drumagog uses the actual recorded signals to trigger the various samples instead of a midi trigger. The samples are almost always samples of the client's drummer's kit that I have recording so that phase and tone are relatively correct and the recording sounds natural. Drum replacement isn't always needed, but when any reason or situation occurs that makes getting great tones out of the drums naturally difficult, we have a back-up option. Time-wise, depending of the level of difficulty of the music, it takes an average anywhere from 30 min to 3 hours per song for drum tracking.
After drums are recorded, we move on to Bass or Rhythm Guitar. As long as the scratch track is solid, we can record Bass next. If the scratch track is inadequate, we might have to make accommodations for the players which wastes a ton of time, again emphasizing the importance of good pre-production. With Bass I almost always will mic the Bass Player's cabinet for the live sound, but I also will record a DI (Direct In) track that can be used on the spot and processed in-the-box, or kicked back out later to re-amp the Bass. Bass on average is the least time-consuming when tracking. Anywhere from the length of the track to an hour per song is the norm.
Next up are Rhythm Guitars. This included acoustic and electric, clean or dirty, and pretty much everything up short of Solos/Leads. For Acoustic Guitar, I will use any built in plug-in and then will set up a L/MS ( Left/Mid-Side) stereo array which throws phase off enough for the acoustic to sound like it is coming from 2 separate places, giving it a great stereo width. Electric Guitar, just like Bass, is DI'd for re-amping later and is mic'd from the guitar cab so the player feels and hears a natural response while playing. This allows incredible flexibility for post, and allows the player to finish quickly. If what was recorded off the amp is usable, I'll usually end up using the mic, but sometimes using DI is the only way to get the tones I'm looking for. The downside to re-amping is that it essentially almost doubles the amount of time spent on guitars. Again, depending on the complexity of the music, guitar can range from the length of the song, to 4-5 hours per song.
Lead and Solo guitars come next, using the same setup as the rhythms. Sometimes the cabinet mic will need to be adjusted to change and improve the tone, sometimes we'll add mic's or just experiment allowing for quality and flexibility. If we do require changing the mic position or amp settings, we want to make damn sure that the rhythms are done, or we could possibly screw ourselves in that matching the sound is almost impossible. After Guitars, we can move on to embellishing the recording, layering parts and actually sound designing to some extent. This includes any keyboard parts, any brass or woodwind instruments, and sampling. Sometimes the embellishment stage comes after vocals, but for the most part I prefer to have everything done by the time the singer starts tracking.
Vocals, almost without exception, are the last tracks to be recorded. This allows the vocalist to have a relatively complete mix to sing to while tracking. In fact, besides drums, Vocals are usually the most time-consuming aspect of the tracking process as the majority of scrutiny is always placed on the singer making their performance critical. That actually brings up another point. Auto-Tune is really a crutch this day and age and makes mediocre performances sound perfect. I consider myself to be a "purist", and believe that the performance is the most important aspect and that relying on studio trickery is "cheating" to a point. Granted, auto-tune can help fix mistakes like nothing else before or since, I am proud to say that I have gotten great vocal recording without auto-tune. I would prefer to get a killer performance and just have to pitch-shift a note or two to clean up minor mistakes, instead of letting the singer be lazy.
During every aspect of the tracking process, I'll set up the mixer settings for each instrument and track so that both myself and the band can hear a good representation of where the recording is at, and also will expose mistakes made in the production stage. After finishing the main tracking, I'll go through and review each song with the client and make sure that nothing is missing anything and fix any issues that remain. This is the "pick-up" stage and the last part of tracking.
This will lead us to the editing stage, and the beginning of Post-Production. As always, feel free to contact us on Facebook with any questions or comments. See you in about another week!
Aaron
TME Studios
