{"id":122,"date":"2021-08-31T14:34:44","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T14:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phil-c.com\/wphi\/?p=122"},"modified":"2025-11-08T13:30:03","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T13:30:03","slug":"on-multitrack-recording","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phil-c.com\/wphi\/2021\/08\/31\/on-multitrack-recording\/","title":{"rendered":"On multitrack recording"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>First tip: Don&#8217;t. (see <a href=\"https:\/\/phil-c.com\/wphi\/2021\/08\/31\/what-multitrack-recording-tells-me-about-music-and-life\/\">this blog post<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is <em>multitrack <\/em>recording?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>You record yourself playing one part of a duet, trio, quartet &#8230;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You record yourself playing all the other parts and mix them together with some kind of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Digital_audio_workstation\">Audio Workstation<\/a> (computer program for editing music).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You play most of the tracks while listening in headphones to the tracks that you&#8217;ve already recorded.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What&#8217;s so difficult about that?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Try it. Go on.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Now: Unless you&#8217;re playing on a keyboard and have some kind of quantizer, you&#8217;re going to find that your first attempt has terrible\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>timing (notes happening together)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>tuning<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>balance (harmonies at the right loudness)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>phrasing, energy, life, subtlety, interpretation &#8230; all the things you might want in a musical &#8220;performance&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There are some easy remedies &#8211; that essentially remove most of the art from the rendition:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Timing: Play with a click: This inevitably makes the performance sound mechanical and soulless.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Tuning: Play against an existing recording. This helps, but we soon discover that tuning adjustments are very mutual: Everybody&#8217;s doing it, all the time.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Balance: Post-production. This is obviously effective, but very time-consuming to create an individual volume contour for every bar of every track.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Difficult remedies\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Timing: I&#8217;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&#8230; what a pain in the arse. And the result is still a bit &#8220;stilted&#8221; because you&#8217;re constantly listening for the clap-track.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Tuning: The best approach seems to be <em>iteration<\/em>: When you&#8217;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 <em>live <\/em>musicians.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Somehow play <em>exactly in tune all the time<\/em>: There are many who would argue that this isn&#8217;t just impossible but is a meaningless statement. \n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Hint: pianos aren&#8217;t &#8220;in tune&#8221;.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Hint: &#8220;in tune&#8221; with what?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">My method FWIW<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Bearing in mind the thoughts in <a href=\"https:\/\/phil-c.com\/wphi\/2024\/07\/30\/what-multitrack-recording-tells-me-about-music-and-life\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"85\">thi<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/phil-c.com\/wphi\/2021\/08\/31\/what-multitrack-recording-tells-me-about-music-and-life\/\">s blog post,<\/a> the most likely reason for doing yet another one would be: to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=SYfTcXTyvE8\">see what a new arrangement sounds like with real instruments<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Hopefully nobody will listen to this seriously, but it still needs to be vaguely in tune, otherwise the conclusion will be &#8220;this new arrangement is rubbish&#8221;.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>And if &#8211; like me &#8211; you&#8217;re a perfectionist, you won&#8217;t be able to stop yourself from fiddling with it until either it&#8217;s <em>actually quite good <\/em> or it&#8217;s 4am.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>So, if I&#8217;m going to make a multitrack recording:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Microphones: See <a href=\"https:\/\/phil-c.com\/wphi\/2024\/08\/13\/microphone-positioning\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"230\">this blog post<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Record the first part without worrying too much about accuracy. Try to be moderately expressive and in tune<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Record all the other parts without worrying too much<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Maybe do a bit of tidying up (editing or punching-in) <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Now that we have all parts recorded, record all the parts again. This time we&#8217;re playing &#8220;with&#8221; the whole ensemble (and we&#8217;ve got used to the shape of the piece).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Spend a bit of time editing &#8211; any bum notes can probably be replaced by a phrase from the initial, draft version.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Apply pan (preferably binaural) and reverb.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First tip: Don&#8217;t. (see this blog post) What is multitrack recording? What&#8217;s so difficult about that? 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. So, if I&#8217;m going to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-multitrack"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phil-c.com\/wphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phil-c.com\/wphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phil-c.com\/wphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phil-c.com\/wphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phil-c.com\/wphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/phil-c.com\/wphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251,"href":"https:\/\/phil-c.com\/wphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions\/251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phil-c.com\/wphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phil-c.com\/wphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phil-c.com\/wphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}