Multi-Tracking

[Hobbayne]

I recently got myself an 8 track recorder to use as a musical sketchpad. Unfortunatly, I appear to have got a bit carried away with it
Its a Boss Br900 with a built in drum machine which I used to start a song idea off, followed by an acoustic guitar and vocal, two rhythm guitar tracks, a bass track, a keyboard track and a lead guitar part and another vocal track.
My simple song idea now has turned into something from Phil Spector!!

[Wil]

When it sounds right

Most of my recordings end up with around 8 to 10 tracks. I could probably use far less but I tend to write as I go along...

[risingson]

The best thing to do is walk away from it and come back when your ears feel refreshed. There's nothing worse than realising you've spent the past 2-3 hours putting a coherent recording together and then over-egged it. It's easy just to keep throwing tracks on top of each other and then finding that you've lost the ability to be subjective about what you've just recorded.

[ThomBassmonkey]

+1 to risingson.

When (tmetaphorically) you're writing something by recording it, you're very involved with the parts (usually the last one you write) and if there's a space, you might end up thinking "ah, a ______ would sound good there", so you record it, then you do the same thing for that part and so on and so forth. When you listen to it the next day, you've filled every space and it's too busy. I find it's worse with production for me, after a day in the studio I'm in no fit state to mix, it sounds terrible when I listen back.

If you're using it as a sketchbook, try and stick to what you're using in your band (or add in a few extra bits to pad it out if you're solo without going mad). If you want to record, do it properly on a PC then you can give it better polish anyway.

[BottomE]

[quote name='risingson' post='1274844' date='Jun 19 2011, 03:41 PM']The best thing to do is walk away from it and come back when your ears feel refreshed. There's nothing worse than realising you've spent the past 2-3 hours putting a coherent recording together and then over-egged it. It's easy just to keep throwing tracks on top of each other and then finding that you've lost the ability to be subjective about what you've just recorded.[/quote]
Amen to that.

For me i need to be working on 4 or 5 songs at a time so that i don't spend too much time on one. My ears and objectivity are only good for about an hour per song. Most of the stuff i delete is after that first hour period when i start using Asian scales and samples of Sparrow farts and such like.

[Lifer]

IMO it's easier to take stuff out, chuck everything you can think of on there and then start messing around with it.

[ThomBassmonkey]

[quote name='Lifer' post='1274883' date='Jun 19 2011, 04:14 PM']IMO it's easier to take stuff out, chuck everything you can think of on there and then start messing around with it.[/quote]

You're totally right for computer recording but not if you're bouncing down because you're limited to 8 tracks. Once it's bounced you can't do the mix again and if you decide to take something out, you've shot yourself in the foot for no reason.

It's also a shame to waste loads of time when you could've recorded over a couple of sessions instead of trying to get it all done at once.

Though if you're enjoying playing with ideas, why not?