Recording - August 2013 - 27

retracking these parts later. (And when
you do, check out Joe Albano’s article in
this issue for tips on how best to do it!)
Whether recording electric or acoustic
guitar, you’ll usually want to situate the
musician as far from open microphones
as possible, although some of my favorite
guitar tones came as a result of hearing
the pick and strings in the room along
with the amplified guitar signal!
I hear voices
The concept of “scratch vocals” is
almost certainly a direct result of how
completely unusable a vocal recorded
during a band session can be, considering all of the leakage from the drums,
amps and guitars that usually finds its way
into those vocal tracks. Even if that bleed
could be considered acceptable, missing
a note or forgetting a line would mean
overdubbing it with everyone else playing
along, which is definitely not the best way
to go. Encourage the singer to sing with
an energy that is just loud enough to be
clearly heard, without being so loud that it
makes its way into the other mics. Stops
and a capella breaks should be sung
extremely softly or even mouthed, so as to
keep the vocals out and the excitement in.
Here’s a really cool trick I developed
from my desire to “use all of the buffalo”
when recording basic tracks: When listening back to the rhythm tracks, try muting
and unmuting the scratch vocal track. You’ll
usually find that the drums sound a lot more
exciting and alive when the scratch vocal
isn’t muted, even though the performance
or sound of the vocal itself leaves a bit to be
desired. This is because you essentially
have an extra “room mic” at your disposal.
Intros, riffs, segues and solos where there
are no vocals can be bolstered by this phenomenon, by simply muting or deleting the
sections of the scratch vocal track that have
vocals (Figure 5 shows an example, with
the Lead Vocal on Track 8 as a guide for
where to cut out the Scratch Vocal on Track
7). The end result is a depth and “kicking
up a notch” to the drum sound behind these
instrumental sections, lending an even more
thrilling and live-sounding dynamic to the
band’s presentation.
Can you hear me?
In addition to the visual cues we’ve
touched upon, audio monitoring is key; if
your band can’t hear the music correctly,
they can’t communicate it clearly, either.
Again, depending upon your situation,
solutions will vary.
Most professional studios have headphone amplifiers with more than enough
outputs to ‘feed the cans’ for a large
band. PreSonus, Behringer, Rolls, ART
and others all provide solutions that can
power up to 4–8 pairs at a time. You may
not be in the market to upgrade your studio in this way just yet, so once again,

you may need to improvise. If your interface or digital multitrack has two headphone outputs, you may be able to feed
4 pairs of headphones, utilizing cable
splitters you can find at Radio Shack. This
doesn’t necessarily provide you with a
bona-fide “monitor mix”, though. It will
be the same mix for everybody, with little
or no ability to customize it to suit anyone, much less everyone!
If you have the ability to send a monitor
mix (or even better, multiple monitor mixes)
to the main headphone outs (or preferably
a headphone amp), you’re probably good
to go. This is a good way to make use of
the multiple outputs provided on many midpriced audio interfaces.
Start by taking the drums out of the
headphones, except for the bass drum,
which helps to anchor things for the rest
of the band, especially the bass player. A
decent vocal level is really one that’s just
loud enough to guide the players through
the song with lyrical, melodic or verbal
cues. More than that is usually overkill
(except to the vocalist, of course).
The bassist often asks for a lot of himself
in the monitors, but this can come at the

closed-back circumaural ones that wrap
around the ears and keep the sound confined. Closed-back supraaural (on-theear) phones can also work if they seal
tightly enough, and don’t discount in-ear
monitors if the band does a lot of gigging... they’re what the players are used
to, and provide great isolation.
It’s alive!
The time for tracking and listening back
has finally arrived. Be sure to record
count-ins at the beginning of each song.
Something that goes “1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2... ”
with the last two counts silent works great
and gives you cleaner band intros.
Setting and/or readjusting your levels as
the band performs will get you to a point
where the session starts to drive itself.
Relax, have fun and remember that
you’re enjoying the privilege of making
and recording music!
At the end of these rhythm sessions, you’ll
be able to use all of the space, mics and
other gear to get great sounds in the overdub stage. Close-mike the guitar amp and
add a room mic as well. Record the family
piano in the corner. Sing in the hallways.

Figure 5: In this song, the lead vocal is on Track 8. We use it as a guide to see where to
remove audio from Track 7, which is the scratch vocal. What’s left behind on Track 7 is a
nice extra room sound that can really liven up your mix if used judiciously!

expense of unwanted distortion, because
the bass frequencies are hard for the small
speakers in the headphone to reproduce.
If your monitor send has eq, you could cut
those lower frequencies, allowing for a
higher overall bass level.
The guitar or keys need to find their
space somewhere between all of that and
it can be an arduous process to find a
happy middle ground for all. Eventually
you will arrive at a place where you can
move forward, but keep in mind that you
can’t usually get a great performance
from a musician who’s unhappy with
what they’re hearing. A little extra
patience and effort here will pay larger
musical dividends later in the session.
Headphones that are open-backed will
bleed into nearby mics—try to use the

Stomp and clap in the living room. Explore
and discover. This is all the fun part!
Once you’ve recorded all of these
tracks, you can then return to your DAW
or multitrack and focus more on the finer
points of editing, eq-ing and otherwise
effecting your tracks on their way to the
final mix stage. Arriving at your previously stated destination: A recording that
sounds like you and your band on your
very best day, giving your very best performance.
Sven-Erik Seaholm (seaholm@recording
mag.com) is an award-winning independent record producer, singer and songwriter. His latest release is Seaholm
Mackintosh’s Monarchs. Check out his
website at www.kaspro.com.
RECORDING August 2013

http://www.kaspro.com

Recording - August 2013

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