Re: Tracking Guitar or Bass after drums?

[Naagzh]

Hi all,

I mainly record guitar-driven hard rock.

Personally, I like to track drums first, rhythm guitar second, then bass, then, finally, guitar leads and vocals. My friend (and every studio in town) like to track bass right after drums, in order to "get the rhythm section tight". I say no, track whomever has a better feel for the drummer, be it bass or guitar (for some reason, it tends to be the guitarist most of the time). What do you all think?

My reasoning is that the more "sloppy" player's mistakes will be more easily exposed and corrected, or the more "sloppy" player will be driven to play better. In either case, the end product, I believe, is made tighter.

Thoughts?

[albee1952]

Neither?? Seriously, if its a one man band, it doesn't matter but if its a real band of players, I like to record drums AND bass together. When the players can have eye contact and read body language, you tend to get a tighter performance. As for the sloppy player....let him hear how sloppy he is so maybe he'll woodshed a bit more and improve instead of counting on you or me (the engineers) to make up for his lack of talent. All this recording technology has made it too easy and way too many "players" are not learning their craft. Its like being 16 and wanting to drive an Indy car without learning the basics. Having said all that, I would track the solid players first to try to get the best foundation. I just had to rant a bit.

[max cooper]

Yep.

Might not hurt to have the bass player stand really close to the kick drum so he/she can feel it.

[JonnyGinese]

hmm... I tend to record "Hardcore", "Metal", and "Screamo" type music.. along with Acoustic emo kids...

For acoustic i have them play to a click track setup with all there changes.. unless they feel very strongly against using it.

For all of the bands.. since i work whit younger musicians and most of the drummers can't play to a click track.. I tend to have the rhythem guitarists and singer play to the click track as a scratch track... then i track the drums and then next is whoever plays best with the drummer.. most of them time for me it seems to be the bass player. In the past i recorded my drums onto 7 instead of 8 so that i could record the bass at the same time and if it was perfect i would keep it... but it usually isn't so i stopped doing that and i just use all 8 channels of my digi002r on the drums.

[Naagzh]

Thanks for the responses. I explained that we could try it their way: drums, then bass, then guitar ("just like building a house") AND we could try it my way: guitarist (with better timing/feel than the bassist) first, then everyone else. But I fought to try my way first.

Well...

The guitarist tracked twice, and it sounded good. Very together with the drums. Didn't take very long, either.

The bassist took FIVE HOURS to track ONE SONG! Allow me to explain.

For a half-hour he tried to play with the tracks, just to get into the music a bit. We did a pass and noticed something was out of tune. WAY out. "Is it the guitars? Did we not tune them often enough?", I was asked. Nope. We plugged em into a tuner, and, lo, they were still in tune from earlier that day. "Is the bass out of tune? Maybe its intonation if F-d up" Found to not be the case.

So I said calmly to the band: "Go with me on this one. No arguments, just my way for 3 minutes." No objections.

Recorded another pass of bass, this time with the guitarist sitting in for the bassist. Surprise, surprise, no more tuning issues.

For another hour I schooled the bass player on how to play with a softer touch (the lummox was picking as hard as he could, using only his forewarms, no wrist!), especially midway up the neck on the low strings, where the bass is louder. He says "I thought this was a good bass, though." Kids, I tell ya.

3 hours later, we finally have a solid take, achieved by tracking first the verse, then the chorus, then the 2nd verse, and so on.

Can you imagine the slop I'd have been left with if I'd have tried it their way?

Thanks for the rant opportunity. Hope you enjoyed my story.

[crookedtourguy]

I feel for ya, I too have recorded the greatest twenty minute song no one has ever heard ... and still they have no final mix ... passed off the project two years ago. Glad I did. Hope you are getting paid by the hour and not the per song ... Good luck ...