First tip: Don’t. (see this blog post)

What is multitrack recording?

• You record yourself playing one part of a duet, trio, quartet …
• You record yourself playing all the other parts and mix them together with some kind of Audio Workstation (computer program for editing music).
• You play most of the tracks while listening in headphones to the tracks that you’ve already recorded.

What’s so difficult about that?

• Try it. Go on.
• Now: Unless you’re playing on a keyboard and have some kind of quantizer, you’re going to find that your first attempt has terrible
  • timing (notes happening together)
  • tuning
  • balance (harmonies at the right loudness)
  • phrasing, energy, life, subtlety, interpretation … all the things you might want in a musical “performance”
• There are some easy remedies – that essentially remove most of the art from the rendition:
  • Timing: Play with a click: This inevitably makes the performance sound mechanical and soulless.
  • Tuning: Play against an existing recording. This helps, but we soon discover that tuning adjustments are very mutual: Everybody’s doing it, all the time.
  • Balance: Post-production. This is obviously effective, but very time-consuming to create an individual volume contour for every bar of every track.
• Difficult remedies
  • Timing: I’ve tried making a click track that incorporates changes in tempo (sing through the whole piece while clapping; Sub-divide for ralentandos; Give up-beats after pauses… what a pain in the arse. And the result is still a bit “stilted” because you’re constantly listening for the clap-track.
  • Tuning: The best approach seems to be iteration: When you’re playing (especially the first track!) none of the other parts will adjust to your tuning. For a quartet, playing every part three times means that the tuning can to some extent settle. But this is time-consuming and still far more difficult than it would be with live musicians.
  • Somehow play exactly in tune all the time: There are many who would argue that this isn’t just impossible but is a meaningless statement.
    • Hint: pianos aren’t “in tune”.
    • Hint: “in tune” with what?

My method FWIW

Bearing in mind the thoughts in this blog post, the most likely reason for doing yet another one would be: to see what a new arrangement sounds like with real instruments.

• Hopefully nobody will listen to this seriously, but it still needs to be vaguely in tune, otherwise the conclusion will be “this new arrangement is rubbish”.
  • And if – like me – you’re a perfectionist, you won’t be able to stop yourself from fiddling with it until either it’s actually quite good or it’s 4am.

So, if I’m going to make a multitrack recording:

• Microphones: See this blog post
• Record the first part without worrying too much about accuracy. Try to be moderately expressive and in tune
• Record all the other parts without worrying too much
• Maybe do a bit of tidying up (editing or punching-in)
• Now that we have all parts recorded, record all the parts again. This time we’re playing “with” the whole ensemble (and we’ve got used to the shape of the piece).
• Spend a bit of time editing – any bum notes can probably be replaced by a phrase from the initial, draft version.
• Apply pan (preferably binaural) and reverb.