So You Want To Make An Album? (part 21)
KeithHandy posted in Producing, So You Want... on October 19th, 2007
To read the entire series, go to the “So You Want…†category.
Installment 21: Some general advice on tracking
These are just some thoughts to keep in your head during that long stretch in the middle of your project (the bulk of the work), when you’re doing the actual recording — actually playing the parts, choosing what takes to keep, and, somehow or another, smoothing out the rough spots. In particular, the tracks that people won’t be paying direct attention to: the “boring” basic tracks that form the song’s skeleton, the wind beneath the wings of your diva vocal track and your Eddie Van Halen guitar solo.
1. Be simple, but clever. When you come up with a rhythm guitar part, a drum part, a bass part, “clever” can be as simple as using a fairly common and clichéd riff, but just changing one little thing about it — adding in a note, leaving a note out, anticipating something (playing it a half beat early) rather than playing it on the beat. Playing the absolute most obvious thing you can think of is fine, but do a few takes and see if it evolves a little. Listen to your mistakes and see if they’re any good, because sometimes a “mistake” is actually your subconscious trying to make a suggestion. Leave holes. Play less. Dumb it down. Do at least one take where you say “screw you guys, I’m playing something totally different this time just because I can”. In that moment of rebellion you’ll find a little nugget or two of gold; keep those nuggets, but keep the rest fairly straightforward.
2. More tracks = less reverb. Reverb is additive. (Fast readers: I said “additive”, not “addictive”, but that may apply to you as well.) It sometimes sounds cool to have a significant amount of it on a sparse mix, where you have maybe no more than three or four tracks total, and therefore have holes for those trails/tails to fill. If you like to do heavily layered stuff, with two or three rhythm guitars, two or three keyboards, and extra instrumentation beyond that, you’ll need to leave it relatively dry or you will lose definition.
3. The drums and the bass together are one instrument. I don’t care that rationally, we know otherwise; for production purposes, they are one instrument. If they don’t sound like one instrument, they’re not tight enough.
4. We hear timing both horizontally and vertically. Before you adjust the timing of a particular note relative to the other instruments, be sure it’s going to feel good relative to its own previous and subsequent notes. If you’re not sure, solo the track. A track will sound better if it’s consistently lagging (or consistently rushing) than if one perfectly timed note stands out in the middle of a string of lagging or rushing notes, messing up its “horizontal” rhythm. If you’re using editing to tighten rhythms, just be sure to check both the vertical and the horizontal.
Incidentally, I don’t think of using software to fix performances as “cheating”. I think when you do multitrack recording, you actually have some handicaps that you have to make up for. For one, you’re initially playing without hearing all the instruments (you have to hear them in your mind), so it is much harder to get into the right vibe right away. Besides that, you don’t have the energy of an audience to feed off of, so at first you feel like what you’re doing is “fake”. Recording is its own artform, though, more like painting than theater, and some of the talents it will showcase are your abilities to listen well and make good-sounding decisions.
5. As listeners, we’re more fussy and demanding at the beginning of the track. (To a lesser degree, we’re more fussy and demanding at the beginning of an album, but you never have a guarantee that people will listen to your album in sequence.) Make sure things are super-tight and super-in-tune when it kicks in. Then it’s okay for it to loosen up a little as it goes along — not sloppy, just a little looser — because hopefully by then we’ve “accepted” the song, and have an internal beat and tonal center going on in our brains. First impressions, and all that.
6. If you feel like you’re playing/singing a good take, you probably are. Use the take you feel best about while playing/singing, even if it has a few glitches that need to be fixed.
7. Every little thing you fix will make progressively smaller flaws more noticeable to you. Sometimes it’s good to “under-fix”, meaning adjust it only part way. Modern sequencers, for example, let you select a percentage when you quantize. This means you can compromise, retaining some of your original feel. Even if you know you’re going to quantize a keyboard part, play it the best you can, so you have the option of quantizing at a lower percentage. Besides, if you play really badly, the quantization will push some of your notes in the wrong direction! Check by first quantizing 100% to make sure it’s interpreting your performance correctly, and then undo-ing and experimenting with smaller percentages to taste.
8. Everything you add will make your previous tracks sound different. So when you’re putting down the first few tracks, yes, fuss over tuning and rhythm, but don’t spend too much time adjusting the sound (EQ and effects). At this stage, shoot for “dry and clean” (some effects like distortion and delays are of course “part of the sound”, but don’t get too deep into perfecting compression, EQ, or reverb before the rest of the instruments are there for context). Once you have more instruments down, you’ll have a better idea of what needs to be adjusted on the earlier tracks — or, as you play with the mute buttons, you might even find some of them superfluous and leave them out altogether.
9. The extra steps you take to make your basic tracks tight, clean, and in tune will pay off thousandfold when you get further along in the tracking. The little extra flourishes that you occasionally put into those tracks will make the finished product more lively and interesting, even if they’re “in the background”, as long as you don’t overdo them.
10. “Nobody’s gonna really be paying attention to this part” is a bad attitude. Remember you’re playing not just to the listener’s conscious mind, but also to the subconscious. Every little thing adds up.
11. There are good flaws and bad flaws. Yes, I know it’s a challenge to know the difference. Resist the quantizers and the autotunes for a minute, and listen with your heart.
12. Simply having more experience of going through the whole process will improve your confidence and your ability to “trust the music”. If you’re three-quarters of the way through your first project, and stuck in that awful love/hate relationship with it, the sooner you finish it up and move on to something fresh, the saner you’ll be. The first project will not be perfect. Do your best and move on. Even if you’re not ready to wrap up that first project, start sketching out some ideas for the next one, and imagine the future you, looking back at the first one as “ambitious and endearingly naïve”, and happily having bigger fish to fry — this will give you a healthy sense of perspective.
13. Do not judge yourself harshly, if your project got off to a bad start and is headed in a direction you don’t like. If you do enough recording, you will like at least some of what comes out of it. Pay attention to what works for you, and don’t get hung up on what doesn’t work.
14. There’s a series of DVDs about classic albums. In fact, it’s called “Classic Albums“. I’ve only seen three of them, but I want to see them all. Even if you’re not into most of the bands featured in the series, you should pick a few you don’t mind and check them out. Quoting Wikipedia:
The music, and its production, is dissected by the musicians and/or producer playing the multitrack recordings and singling out tracks that one does not usually consciously hear when listening to the music, giving insight into the way the sound is built up.
This is probably your best bet for getting a feel for what kind of basic tracks will lend themselves to creating the “overall sound” that you’re looking for in the end. Beyond that, the programs will simply give you extra inspiration to fight lethargy and circumstance, and simply go forward. I can’t recommend this strongly enough.
15. Everything you do will one day be “old”.
16. Everything you do matters. Have a noble spirit. If you have a total audience of three people, show them your appreciation by creating a fantastic performance for them. And besides, you’re not just playing to a present audience, you’re playing to a future audience as well, including people who may hear it long after you’ve moved on to another plane of existence.
17. “Perfect” and “wonderful” are on two different axes, at 90-degree angles from each other. They have nothing to do with each other. Aim for wonderful, and if you can make it perfect too (without sacrificing wonderfulness), make that your second priority.
18. I do this kind of thing because, when I put down one track, and get it the way I like it, even if it’s just a basic part that’s going to be in the background, I get excited about it. I hope you get excited about each little step too.
19. Make recordings that will inspire other musicians to make recordings. Pass along pointers and advice that you pick up along the way, in your own words. Yes, you’re making history, but it doesn’t end at you.
20. At any given time, someone out there, someone you’ve forgotten, or someone you’ve never met, could be listening to your song while driving, or walking, gardening, or who knows what. They might even have a rough mix or early demo that you weren’t totally happy with. But they kept that song in their rotation, because they got something out of it; it meant something to them. Someone, somewhere, is listening. Remember this any time you get discouraged. Keep going.
