Recording Instrumentation

FROM STUDIO TO RELEASE Recording A Band

Part 2

In this feature, we’re continuing our look into the recording phase of two songs: Fade Out by Lock, a modern-sounding electro-rock track combining electronic and acoustic drums with synths and guitars – and Shore by Reptile, which is a more traditional rock song but with a progressive arrangement driven by acoustic drums, electric guitars, electric bass and organ.

In the first part of this series, in MT164, we looked in-depth at the drum tracking for both songs, delving into the minutiae of the drum positioning, microphone choice and placement, preamp, EQ and compression choices made while tracking. But with the drums now recorded, it’s time to move on to the instrumentation, before we finally end up tracking the vocals.

STEADY AS SHE GOES

The reason we start by tracking the drums (and occasionally other parts of the rhythm section) before overdubbing is that it provides a bedrock for the additional musicians to play along to, locking themselves into the groove as it’s laid down. Occasionally, the groove won’t be provided by the drums and you’ll need to plan the tracking around whichever instrument(s) do provide the groove. However, assuming we’re working on something with a standard drum-based groove – as I am on both of these tracks – once the drums are tracked, it’s important to tidy up any edits, perform any drum alignment you might want to do, and essentially commit to the drum recording at least in terms of timing. If you leave the drums loose, with the intention of tightening them up later and then layer on guitars, bass and keys, these additional instruments will have followed the groove and timing set by the drummer – meaning any edits you make will now most likely need to be applied to these new recordings as well as the drum tracks.

This isn’t to say you can’t make any drum edits after the event, as there’s always the possibility that you, or the band, might want to change the structure or performance later in the mix. But getting this in early does help to speed things along.

Before setting up the guitars, it’s important to set up a ‘basic mix’ of drums and pre-recorded parts

We’re going to focus on editing later in the series, covering the editing of not only drums, but also comping vocal takes and any other edits we end up making before getting stuck into the mix. But for now, we’re going to take a look at the next stage of our recording process.

RECORDING GUITARS

Lock’s track was performed to a click and a prerecorded backing track and, as covered in Part 1 of this feature, the drums were recorded