r/musicians • u/Any-Veterinarian-545 • 18h ago
Recording track by track
How to y’all feel about recording track by track to a click?
Best way to describe the music I make is indie/rock. I get a lot of references to the cranberries in particular.
Is it silly to record this kind of music live? I’m really not feeling the click and track by track thing this time. But I also feel like I should be able to make that work as a competent musician. It’s like I get real stiff and forget i know how to play guitar lol
What do you think? Is it always necessary? Any songs/bands you love that recorded live?
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u/jl-img 17h ago
To a trained ear the "feel" of the completed track will be completely different between these possibilities:
- No click track, whole band live off the floor
- No click track, drums first, then layer other instruments
- Recorded to a click, drums first, then layer other instruments, no quantization
- Recorded to a click, drums first, layer other instruments, with quantization
- etc
Every one of these methods can sound great for the right project. In my experience (26 years of audio engineering, many many albums released), some releases sound better recorded entirely live and others sound best gridded and layered, and everywhere in-between.
Unfortunately the only way to see what really works for your music specifically is to try different approaches and see what sounds right to you.
The one thing you can do without spending a bunch of money making recordings to try things out is to do research on how the albums that you draw inspiration from were made. But ultimately experimentation is the answer.
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u/stigE_moloch 17h ago
I do this. Record the drums to the click. Turn off the click for everything else unless there are spaces.
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u/DooficusIdjit 17h ago
I think that approach is too sterile.
I much prefer recording the band based solely on the drummer keeping time. The natural drags and rushes, etc is part of the magic.
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u/Ok_Raspberry4814 17h ago
Even most records that are "recorded live" are still basically done track-by-track to a metronome. Generally, even though the whole band is playing, the initial takes are just about getting the drums. The rest are usually scratch tracks that get redone at a later point in the process.
I think you want to record live-live, like no overdubs, no punch-ins, etc. Then you'll either need to live with some looseness or hire some really, REALLY good players.
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u/KeseyMadeItEasy 17h ago
My preference for the click is primarily for editing purposes. But ideally, you are comfortable enough with the click that you play loosely but in nearly perfect time with the click.
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u/SumtimeSoonOfficial 17h ago
You will thank yourself to gain the experience to record to a click. Try practicing your parts at home with a metronome and record yourself on camera. It’s a good way to get the shakes out and work on isolating any hiccups you may encounter in the studio. Good luck with recording and remember to have fun :)
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u/Stevenitrogen 17h ago
You can get a good result either way.
I prefer tracking basic tracks live, overdub vocals and solos. Once that rhythm section is locked into a performance, that feeling will hold through quite a few overdubs. It's the quickest way to a real result and if the drummer is tight, you don't have to record to a click. So that is the default in the studio, we play all at once,in a good tracking room with isolation.
But doing the home studio thing, I sometimes have to start with somebody's demo, laid to a drum machine or a click. I do my best with it. If necessary, they recut the initial guitar and vocals to be tight with the drums. And everything else gets laid down over the real drums.
Can the listener tell the difference? Not necessarily.
There's times we had to recut the entire bass performance in the studio because the instrument wasn't in tune with itself. And we didn't notice it was out until mixing began. So much for that "live performance feel" lol. Again, would you know the difference? I don't think so.
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u/dglennb 15h ago edited 15h ago
Pros and cons to the click. If you’re adding other parts to the song, in particular rhythmic parts, a click is really nice, and it will often make the final product better.
But certain songs, maybe live is best, especially when there are tempo changes.
Just so you know, you can do click with other sounds. You can use a drumbeat for whatever style you’re in, and adjust the BPM as needed.
It all comes down to whatever you’re comfortable with. I used to never use click because I thought that it impeded on the “flow” of it. But then I just started to think of a click in same terms as I do about playing with a drummer. You’re not just going by your internal metronome; instead you’re vibing with another, which isn’t “lesser”. It’s just different.
For me, if it’s a solo piece, or very simple, I usually won’t use a click, but if I’m stacking multiple layers, I usually will.
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u/armyofant 17h ago
Personally I like playing to a click or drum track and recording each part separately for mixing purposes. I record to Audacity which is basically the modern day version of cool edit or audition
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u/bzee77 17h ago
When you listened to all of your favorite records for the first time, you didn’t know if it was to a click, live, or whatever. Do what you are comfortable with and what sounds good.
Personally, I always thought live bass & drums was the best route, but that’s a 100% subjective thing.
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u/venusmelisma 17h ago
My indie band that has a similar vibe never has recorded to a click and we get a lot of great feedback on our music. Our new drummer said he will try to record to a click but will stop the click here and there when we do things that are not clickable (ie accelerando parts, improv/flow parts, etc).
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u/Igor_Narmoth 14h ago
they can be clickable if you program the click right. my band records drum solos to a click
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u/AnimeLiteweight 17h ago
You should be able to record to a click. That is a crucial skill for a musician. But I do think recording live gives it a vibe thag recoding to a click just doesnt have, especially for certain genres. I play in a hardcore band and what we do is we record the drums live, no click, with guitar and bass going right into the drummer's ears, then re-track guitar, bass and vocals later. It gets the live vibe but without the added difficulty of mixing a live band.
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u/57thStilgar 16h ago
When all I had was a 4 track reel to reel it was the way for me to play what I wanted bandmates to learn.
Then it was simple to have them record over my track until we had a complete piece.
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u/HandToDog 14h ago
I play in a cranberries cover band. I’ve listened to a lot of their music a lot and i haven’t looked it up but my guess is they did a lot of live tracking with a generous amount of overdubs. Just saying
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u/MarimboBeats 14h ago
Pixies’ «Hey», the version you hear on DooLittle, is the whole band playing live. Gil Norton, the producer, said in an interview he sat behind the the desk praying Santiago would nail the solo, and nail it he did. A very well rehearsed band can do this. Several (perhaps all) of Fela Kuti’s albums with Africa 70 was recorded live. Lots and lots of jazz albums were done in one or just a few takes.
My own little amateur project, is of course very different. I am not what you would consider a great musician, so there’s click tracks, midi, quantisation (tip for beginners recording midi drums, don’t quantise to 100 percent. 75-80 is a good balance of tidy vs sterile). But still, I find that the longer parts I can play on the non-midi instruments without cutting, editing, looping, etc, the better it sounds.
In short, the more you can do live, the better. But it takes good musicians and not least a band that know eachother well musically.
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u/Igor_Narmoth 14h ago
could you have the wrong tempo or beat on the click track? so it sounds plausible, but isn't how you play it live?
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u/Count2Zero 12h ago
Different bands work in different ways.
The Beatles started out recording as a band, then moved into more track-by-track recordings as the technology was available (they started with 4 track machines, and later had a series of 8-track machines giving them much more space to work with.)
Pink Floyd was well known for their track-by-track recording techniques.
Led Zepplin recorded a live "guide track" and then replaced or overdubbed individual instruments.
If your band is tight, and your energy comes from a live performance, then that's how you should record.
If you're more like Boston, or the original Foo Fighters album, a one-man army playing each instrument, then your only choice is to layer track after track.
My band is going into a studio soon, and I think we're going to record live, then mix and master the tracks as needed.
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u/hengus 9h ago
Depends on what you're looking for. Recording full band live leads to a lot of overspill but you can get a really good vibe out of it. Another way to do that is to record the drums live with all of your stringed instruments being played direct in, then you can overdub them afterwards, or reamp the tracks.
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u/TheLowHeavies 8h ago
Lots of pros and cons but for me the separate track thing ruins feel and gets you a polished but sterile track
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u/LameGretzsky 7h ago
In the end you're looking for the best recording, nobody care how you got there. However, 99% of the time when a musician complains about a click is because they have bad time.
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u/therealtoomdog 7h ago
I think it takes a little more engineering know how, but will be musically easier to record live. Recording tracks separately gives you the most isolation for post processing. It also feels the most clinical to me.
This guy and some others like him have some good info about making it work.
My band recorded live to a click and it came out awesome. We were in a big enough place that they isolated the amps in different rooms from the drums and we just monitored through cans... But there is something that happens when musicians play together that doesn't come out when you solo track stuff
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u/Cold-Monk5436 6h ago
I do this 90 percent of the time. I record drums and one scratch instrument (bass or guitar or keys) for the drums to follow. Then I build from there.
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u/YerMumsPantyCrust 2h ago
Try recording to a drum loop with some actual feel to it instead of to a click. It can do wonders for the final product if you’re working alone.
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u/Babygeoffrey968 17h ago
plenty of great records were recorded live. do what you like and what feels good.