Recording - October 2014 - 24

elements, and then building the rest of the arrangement around
that performance, is a good way to have your cake and eat it too.
But this can be applied to songs even where there is no initial live
performance, like the one-man-band scenario.
If I need to record a tune where I have to perform all the musical parts, I'll initially get down a skeleton reference-sometimes
drums, but more often a guitar or keyboard part that can define
the various sections of the song more clearly. If there's a vocal, I
like to have a scratch track of that at this point as well, if possible.
Then I'll overdub drums and bass, and begin building up the rest
of the arrangement. As the tracks get fleshed out, I can revisit some
or all of the previous recordings while listening to the more fullyformed arrangement and re-track some or all of them. I can react
musically to the subtle little licks and twists in the existing tracks,
just as I would if I were part of a live ensemble of musicians listening and reacting to each other as they play. Obviously, this is
time- and labor-intensive, but the results are well worth it-the
resulting track can have much more of that elusive "ensemble feel,"
even if it's only one or two players doing all the work.

Keeping time
Of course, overdubbing parts can introduce timing issues that must be dealt with.
Playing along with a pre-recorded part-no
matter how well that part was played, and
how good the musical "feel"-is not the same
as playing along with another musician live.
The recorded part can't react to what you do;
it plows along and you must follow.
While some musicians play along with
overdubbed parts effortlessly, others struggle
against the unyielding performances already
recorded, despite being able to perform very
well with live musicians. And the most
unyielding of all, cold and musically unfeeling to boot, is the dreaded click track!
To click or not to click?
In any recording scenario, live or overdubbed, you'll have to confront the issue of
whether or not to make use of a click track.
Most DAWs (with the possible exception of
Pro Tools) assume you'll be playing to a
metronome click, and most of the cool digital editing capabilities we take for granted
nowadays-rearrangement, quick comping,
time compression/expansion, MIDI quantizing-will require the music to be referenced
to the Session Tempo via the click, or at least
perform better when it is. But most musicians
can be very colorful when describing how
they hate playing to a click, as it can suck all
the vibe out of a performance.
Still, many recordings make use of a click,
sometimes despite the musicians' distaste for
it, simply because of all the creative options
Fig. 1: A diagram of a setup for a typical
ensemble session, with piano and drums
in iso booths, and baffles (gobos) separating the players and (scratch) vocalist
in the main room.
it facilitates down the line. If you're producing a session, you'll have to decide when to
use one and when not to (and deal with the
consequences later).
I learned to play piano years ago with a
wooden metronome clicking away, but I
found that recording to a click was a new
skill that had to be specifically practiced.
No amount of ensemble playing will substitute for it. I've seen many sessions where a
performer or a whole band assures me that,
"yeah, sure, no problem, I/we can play to
a click, no sweat"... only to discover in
short order that they couldn't.
From that experience, I learned that as a
producer or recordist, you just can't force the
issue. If a performer can't do it, they can't do
Fig. 2: Various baffles and gobos. Top
row: Auralex MAX-Walls; Primacoustic
GoTrap and FlexiBooth. Bottom Row:
Drum and amp isolation panels from
Clearsonic.

RECORDING October 2014

Recording - October 2014

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