Yeah, choosing the most important element and letting everything play to that may be something to consider. I guess Metallica thought they wanted the guitars to really drive the album and the drums were there for an 'added effect', hence tracking that way makes sense. I personally want my drums to be the backbone of the timing and everything goes to that, but everything has its place. All depends on the style of music and the direction you want to go with it.

If they musicians aren't that experienced, you may not notice the difference, however. Just record it in a way that they are able to play to!

ChuckC


It seems to me Lars was playing to the tracks of everything else that had already been laid down...?   Do I have it backwards?  Is this normal?
 
Thanks guys.  This one kinda threw me off and has me questioning my methods a bit.

That's actually how I do it too Chuck...drums after the bass and guitars are done. However, I always record a click track first before I do anything else. I don't like the regular click track that most people use though. I like to create a midi sequence of the drum line and then guitars and bass are recorded. The reason I leave the drums for later is because I know that I will play differently when the core of instruments is there as opposed to playing without them.
 
Like for example, as a drummer I like to feed off of the bass guitar yet I may accent certain parts along with the rhythm guitars. If I do the drums first, I sort of lose this feel of feeding off the other instruments. We actually recorded my last album like this as well. Click track, guitars then bass, then our drummer came back and played along to us and the click track at the same time. Other times, we tracked at the same time with bass, guitars and a scratch vocal just so everyone knew where we were in the the song. The whole take at this point, was for the drums to be printed. But it really didn't matter which way we used..both were equally lethal and worked fine.
 
I leave all the special type instruments for last. You know...like back-up vocals, piano/keys, lead guitars, acoustics. However, if those instruments are main focal points in the song, they go down before the drums. But if they are just backing type instruments to fill things out, I always do them last. It really depends on the situation. It also depends on the band you're working with too. Some guys just need a different system in order to record properly. They feed off of different things, so you may find yourself accommodating.....which also goes with the territory.
 
But most times, I';ve been successful with all bands when I make them play to a midi drum beat as opposed to a regular click track. I pan it off to one side and it works great because just about every drummer has played to cover songs while honing his chops. Hearing a beat instead of a click sort of relaxes them so that they aren't trying super hard to hone in on just "that annoying click". So experiment and see what may work best brother. Good luck. :)
 
-Danny

what order do you record? 

it does not matter.


this is the engineering part, overlapping with the 'art' part.


todd rundgren, way back when he used to do his own drums, would walk into a studio, sit at the kit, and play along to......... nothing.


except what was going in his head.


then  he'd go back, and overdub guitars, bass, keys, etc.....


and even the engineer would not know where he was going with it, until enough have been put down to hear the arrangement.




the 'art' part of songwriting, is finding the method that works for you, and it does not matter what anyone else does.


don't force it, just find it.

Mike & Matt-
  Yeah guys for sure...  It seems to me if the drums aren't there first that the whole song will take on a different feel and other elements will be the ones pushing the song along.  I guess if it works for that band and that song all is well but my stuff tends to be aggressive and the snare really leads most of the songs, if it's on or behind the beat it would really get wierd to me.

Danny-  I wouldn't have guessed that you would tend to record that way, I'd have figured with access to a nice big studio (or two) like you do that you'd set up and lay most of it down at once, overdub as needed.
What ever works right!   I can understand how it would be easier for a band to record to a midi drum track rather than a click.  That makes total sense.  I have yet to program a drum sequence so that would take me a while the 1st time or too should I decide to try it. 

Bats- thanks for the input.  I don't know who todd rundgren is but it's funny that you mention that method...
The night that I was going to lay down the drums for our song "peace from my mind" (the one I recently posted a video for in the song forum)  it was only one guitarist and I that could make it to practice that evening so I figured I'd get that done to make use of the time.   He was really kinda throwing me the hell off as we were both trying to play to the click.  I ended up telling him to just play throught the intro then once the drums come in please.... just stop and put the guitar down.  I played the drums all the way through to just the click and nailed the 2nd attempt once we went to that method.  Everything else was tracked afterwards.

I worked on a collab where we took this approach:

1. The guitarist recorded scratch rhythm guitar and bass tracks set to a looped midi-drum track instead of a click
2. I muted the midi-drum track and recorded the final drum tracks
3. The guitarist re-recorded new rhythm, bass and lead tracks
4. I laid down the lead and backing vocal tracks

This method enabled both of us to have a sense of the other's parts when we recorded our own.

I worked on another collaboration with a keyboardist where some or all of the keyboard tracks were recorded before drums were laid down.  In this case, he was comfortable playing to a click, so he didn't feel he needed to play against the real drum track.

When I've recorded drums prior to any other tracks, I like to do so playing along with something as a point of reference.  If I can hear a guitar part, or keyboard part, I can lock into the groove of the song and avoid losing my place in it.  So many songs have such a repetitive drum pattern, it can be easy to let your mind wander if you don't have something to keep it busy.  YPMV (Your Professionalism May Vary...)

BTW, it's pretty well known that the Black Album drums were a huge hodge-podge. They were practically doing DAW level editing on tape. The folks involved have talked about how they'd end up with a tape so full of splices that they would immediately bounce it to another tape because they didn't trust it to stay together more than one run through. They put up a bunch of mics, placed all over the room, then chose a bunch of them and, from what they said, EQ'd the crap out of them.

Yeah that video talks a lot about it.  Sounds like a PITA to me and while the drums sound big, I dodn't think they sound so much bigger that it was worth all that.  especially because they were dealling with tape and manual destructive editing.  Must be nice to have a drum recording budget (per song) that exceeds what most bands have to do entire albums by a lot. 
    IF my drummer turned to me and said "NO!, today I am only doing the verses for this song, tomorrow the choruses, and one wednesday If I am up to it we'll get the fills down..."   I'd have a new freakin drummer by wednesday.   I watch that video an I am thinking.... what I premadonna!?   He's solid as a drummer but he isn't all that.  Neil Peart?  I could understand if he tracked that way, but not Lars?  I could be pissing people off by saying it but I just never thought.... Wow that guys incredible.  He plays heavy but it's not technical or overly complicated.  Keep in mind though I am saying this based on their hits(radio/MTV.  I have never liked Metallica enough to buy a single one of their records or singles.  They, like a lot of gangsta rap always turned my off by trying to front a really "tough" image and taking themselves too seriously.  It was never my cup of tea.

mike_mccue


Hi Chuck,
I just went and listened to the Black Album.

The drums actually sound like they are played last... they sort of sound that way both mix wise and arrangement wise. It seems as if they were played right on top of everything else. The drums react to the guitar rather than serve as a core foundation. They do form a frame work or reference to the tempo... but it's more like a net thrown over the top.

I listened to the whole album and never got the sense that a bass player and a drummer were locked up and throwing down a groove. (Actually, Struggle Within almost sounded like a band playing together... but the guitar timing was sloppy if you regard the drums as the reference... go figure.)

The whole band seems to follow the percussive strumming of the guitar strings or occasionally a slow motion bass arpeggio.

It is a distinctive sound and if you are looking for that type of feel then it seems like  playing drums last is a good approach.

best regards,
mike

Mike, if you watch that documentary I linked to in the CH thread, you'll see exactly how they did the drums - the whole band playing together, doing multiple takes of the song (presumably to a click, that wasn't clear), then the best parts of the various drum takes were spliced together.

This also how Daniel Lanois approached Manu Katche's drums on Peter Gabriel's  'So' sessions - ''bar 32, take 6, yeah that's the one, use that..''

Very time-consuming obviously (especially with tape and razor blades!), but the ethos was that they wanted the 'ultimate performance' to go on the record.

ChuckC


Danny-  I wouldn't have guessed that you would tend to record that way, I'd have figured with access to a nice big studio (or two) like you do that you'd set up and lay most of it down at once, overdub as needed.
What ever works right!   I can understand how it would be easier for a band to record to a midi drum track rather than a click.  That makes total sense.  I have yet to program a drum sequence so that would take me a while the 1st time or too should I decide to try it.  

That's mostly for myself Chuck and how it happened to pan out when we did my last album in 2004. There really are no rules though. For example, my original band...we track in real time. It depends how well our sounds are set up. If we go through the motions to really set things up, we'll track things and go back and over-dub our mistakes. If we don't go through the motions for perfect sounds, we track for the sake of the drums only and go back and redo our parts completely with really good sounds.
In my cover band, we tracked it all live and then went back and fixed any blatant mistakes. You just go with what works for a band in that particular situation really. :) Good luck man.

jamesg1213

mike_mccue


Hi Chuck,
I just went and listened to the Black Album.

The drums actually sound like they are played last... they sort of sound that way both mix wise and arrangement wise. It seems as if they were played right on top of everything else. The drums react to the guitar rather than serve as a core foundation. They do form a frame work or reference to the tempo... but it's more like a net thrown over the top.

I listened to the whole album and never got the sense that a bass player and a drummer were locked up and throwing down a groove. (Actually, Struggle Within almost sounded like a band playing together... but the guitar timing was sloppy if you regard the drums as the reference... go figure.)

The whole band seems to follow the percussive strumming of the guitar strings or occasionally a slow motion bass arpeggio.

It is a distinctive sound and if you are looking for that type of feel then it seems like  playing drums last is a good approach.

best regards,
mike

Mike, if you watch that documentary I linked to in the CH thread, you'll see exactly how they did the drums - the whole band playing together, doing multiple takes of the song (presumably to a click, that wasn't clear), then the best parts of the various drum takes were spliced together.

This also how Daniel Lanois approached Manu Katche's drums on Peter Gabriel's  'So' sessions - ''bar 32, take 6, yeah that's the one, use that..''

Very time-consuming obviously (especially with tape and razor blades!), but the ethos was that they wanted the 'ultimate performance' to go on the record.

It has been my impression that if I were to watch that video that I would probably never actually listen to the record, so I started with the record and now feel like I don't need to see the video. :-)

I did go listen to the earlier records later in the afternoon and that reminded me what a great band Metallica is at times.

best regards,
mike