Multitrack recording
From Freepedia
Multitrack recording ('multitracking' or just 'tracking' for short) is a method of sound recording that allows for the seperate recording of multiple sound sources to create a cohesive whole. This is the most common method of recording popular music.
Multitrack recording devices are available with varying capacities, such as the number of simultaneous tracks available for recording. When recording, audio engineers can select which track (or tracks) on the device will be used for each instrument.
Each of the tracks on the recording device can be set to record or to play back at any time. For example, a musician might record onto track 2 and listen on track 1 at the same time, allowing him to sing or to play a duet in harmony with a performance already recorded on track 1. He might then record on track 3 while listening to track 2. All three performances can then be played back perfectly synchronised, as if they had originally been played and recorded together. This can be repeated until all of the available tracks have been used.
When recording is completed, the many tracks are "mixed down" through a mixing console to a 2 track stereo recorder in a format which can then be duplicated and distributed. Most of the records, CDs and cassettes commercially available in a music store are recordings that were originally recorded on multiple tracks, and then mixed down to stereo.
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Flexibility of multitrack recording
During multitracking, multiple musical instruments (and vocals) can be recorded, either one at a time or simultaneously, onto individual tracks, so that the sounds thus recorded can be accessed, processed and manipulated individually to produce the desired results. For example, after recording some parts of a song, an artist might listen to only the guitar part, by 'muting' all the tracks except the one on which the guitar was recorded. If he then wanted to listen to the vocals in isolation, he would do so by muting all the tracks apart from the vocals track. If he wanted to listen to the entire song, he could do so by unmuting all the tracks. If he did not like the guitar part, or found a mistake in it, and wanted to replace it, he could do so by re-recording only the guitar part, rather than re-recording the entire song. This kind of editing freedom is one of the biggest benefits of multitracking.
If all the voices (including human and instrumental voices) in a recording are individually recorded on distinct tracks, then the artist is able to retain complete control over the final sculpting of the song, during the mixdown (re-recording to two stereo tracks for mass consumption) phase.
If the artist wanted to apply one effect to, for example, a synthesizer part on track 3, and a different effect to a guitar part on track 7, while applying a 'chorused reverb' effect to the lead vocals on track 2, and different effects to all the drums and percussion instruments, occupying tracks 12-24, he couldn't do so if they had all been originally recorded together onto the same track, but if they have been recorded onto separate tracks, then the artist can blend the different voices that the song is comprised of, according to his vision, with complete freedom.
Multitracking a song also leaves open the possibilities of remixes by future artists, such as DJs. If the song was not available in a multitrack format recording, the job of the remixing artist could be very difficult, or impossible, because once the voices have been recorded together during the mixdown phase, they are inseparable. Theoretically, one could use frequency selective filters for this, but in reality this has not been done to any great degree of success, possibly because of the multi-harmonic (having many frequencies) nature of many musical instruments.
History
The first musician to use multitracking was guitarist Les Paul. In 1947, Capitol Records released a record featuring Paul playing eight different parts on electric guitar. These recordings were made with wax disks; Paul would record a track onto a disk, then record himself playing another part with the first.
Paul commissioned Ampex, an American audio company, to build the first eight track tape recorder, at his expense. His idea was for a recording head which could simultaneously record a new track and play back previously recorded ones. Ampex released commercial multi-track recorders in 1955, naming the process "Sel-Sync" (Selective Synchronous Recording). The earliest multitrack recorders were analog magnetic tape recorders with 2 or 3 tracks.
The artistic potential of the multitrack recorder came to the attention of the public in the 1960s, when artists such as The Beatles and The Beach Boys began to use multitrack recording extensively, and from then on virtually all popular music was recorded in this manner. The technology developed very rapidly during this time -- at the start of their career in 1963, The Beatles recorded in mono on 2-track machines; by 1965 they were using 4-track to create pop music of unprecendented complexity. Their final studio album, Abbey Road, was recorded on 8 tracks with many bounces (copying two or more tracks to one in order to re-use them). Frank Zappa's Hot Rats was among the first 16-track recordings to be released.
The advent of the compact audio cassette in 1963 eventually led to affordable, portable 4-track machines (such as the Portastudio) becoming available to hobbyists and semi-professional musicians during the 1980s. Cassette based machines cannot provide the same quality as reel-to-reel machines, but serve as a useful tool for professional musicians in planning studio recordings - Bruce Springsteen's 1982 album Nebraska was reportedly recorded on such a machine, Springsteen apparently preferring the demos to the studio recordings.
The cassette was always designed to accommodate four tracks of audio, but whereas these would normally constitute the stereo channels (each consisting of two tracks) for both sides of the cassette, in a four-track cassette recorder all four tracks of a conventional cassette are utilized together, often with the tape running at twice the normal speed for increased fidelity. A separate signal can be recorded on to each of four tracks. (As such, the four-track machine does not utilise the two seperate sides of the cassette in the conventional sense; if the cassette is inserted the other way round, all four tracks are played backwards.) As with professional machines, two or more tracks can be bounced down to one. When recording is complete, the volume level of each track is optimized, effects are added where desired, each track is separately 'panned' to the desired point in the stereo field and the resulting stereo signal is mixed down to a separate stereo machine (such as a conventional cassette recorder).
Today, multitrack recorders can be analog or digital, and are available with many more tracks. Analog multitracks can have up to 24 tracks on a tape two inches wide, or 32 tracks on a three-inch tape, which is the widest analog tape available. Digital multitracks can have an almost unlimited number of simultaneous tracks and can record to and play back from a number of media and formats including digital tape, hard disk, and optical disk.
Starting around 1995, another revolution in multitracking began, with the arrival of cheap digital multitrack recorders, which recorded sound to a computer hard drive, a digital tape format (such as ADAT), or in some cases Minidiscs. The prices of these machines steadily dropped over time. Meanwhile, the power of the personal computer increased, so that today, an average home computer is sufficiently powerful to serve as a complete multitrack recorder, using inexpensive hardware and software (under US $1000.00). This is a far cry from the days when multitrack recorders cost thousands of dollars and few people could afford them.
Some of the leading providers of multitrackers are Tascam (hard drive or cassette based), Alesis (ADAT digital tape based), Roland (hard drive based), Fostex (hard drive based) and Yamaha (hard drive based).
Using a personal computer as a multitrack recording device
Today, a sufficiently dedicated and talented artist can literally produce a million selling album in his own bedroom, using only his personal computer as a professional tracking machine. This has been done by many artists already. In order to use a personal computer as a multitracking device, a minimum of three items are required:
- A personal computer which has a sound card
- Multitrack recording software installed and running on the computer (even inexpensive software like PG Music's PowerTracks Pro Audio would suffice)
- At least one or more recording sources such as a musical instrument like a guitar or a synthesizer, a good microphone to record the vocals of a singer and/or any other sources of sound to be recorded.
This is all that is needed to set up a multitracking studio at home capable of producing high quality recordings. The standard sound card in a personal computer can be used to capture sounds. This is done simply by attaching either a microphone to the microphone input jack if a vocal track is to be recorded, or by attaching a stereo cable from the electronic device (such as a synthesizer or a guitar amplifier) to the line input of the sound card.
The instruments and singers' voices are recorded onto individual files on the computer's hard drive, which function as tracks as per traditional multitracking.
Effects such as reverb, chorus, delays can be applied by the computer software. When the musicians are happy with the sound, the multiple tracks are mixed down onto two clean tracks, again within the multitracking software. Finally, the final stereo recording can be burned to a CD, which can then be copied and distributed.
Some of the leading providers of multitracking software for a personal computer are Digidesign (software called ProTools), Cakewalk (software called SONAR), Apple (software called Logic Pro) and PG Music (software called PowerTracks Pro Audio). Protools is regarded as the king of multitracking software, and is a standard in most recording studios in the US.
The drums go first - the vocals go last
In most modern popular songs, drums and percussion instruments are the first instruments to be recorded. There are various reasons for this. The drums are usually the rhythm leaders; it is much easier for musicians recording later tracks to keep to the common beat of the drums. A drummer would find it very difficult to play along with a backing track recorded without percussion, due to the likely variations in the musicians tempo. Furthermore, in order to accurately keep to a pre-established rhythm, a drummer would need the sound of the other instruments to be very loud to compete with his drum kit; apart from the possibility of the drum microphones picking up the sound of the other instruments from the drummers headphones, prolonged exposure to such volume might very well damage his hearing.
Also, though the drums might eventually be mixed down to a couple of tracks, each individual drum and percussion instrument might be initially recorded to its own individual track. The drums and percussion combined can occupy the largest number of tracks utilized in a recording. This is done is so that each percussion instrument may be processed individually for maximum effect. A common percussion effect is the slow back and forth panning of a percussive instrument's sound in the stereo field from the left to the right channel in a song.
The last tracks to be recorded are usually the vocals (though a temporary vocal track might be recorded early on to guide subsequent musicians). One reason for this is that singers will often temper their vocal expression in accordance with the accompaniment.
Also see
- Digital audio workstation
- Remix
- Reverb
- Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI)
- Module file
- Various sound effects including chorus, compression, delays, flanger, phaser etc.
- Tracker
