How do you lay your tracks?

[Jampy]

Just wanted to put some feelers out on how you fretters are laying your tracks or better yet in what order ?

I tend to use the following ( keep in mind I play guitar )

1 - rythym guitar ( just your basic chord structure )
I will sing along to work on my timing and use a click count to stay on time

1a - Vocals if needed

2 - Intro/Lead/Outro & Fills

3 - Filler guitar ( I usually add a second guitar sound following the same chord pattern to add a "fullness" to my recording.

4 - Drum track

5 - Bass track ( this is last due to lack of owning one )

then I will mix and record if I like it


So how do you roll ?

[R_of_G]

Drums and/or bass first for me. Any kind of lead playing I do in a non-solo capacity is based on locking into some kind of rhythym groove first. guitars on top of that.

[Jampy]

Drums and/or bass first for me. Any kind of lead playing I do in a non-solo capacity is based on locking into some kind of rhythym groove first. guitars on top of that.

yea, I have tried so many times to lay a drum track down and play along, just can't do it. The click beat works beat for me. As my drums are computer based loops I like to mix these in after the guitar and vocal tracks to get the over all feel correct.

[sunvalleylaw]

So far it is just record over the backer, adjust my lead left or right a little, and adjust volume to suit. I have not done one from scratch yet, though I have laid down some rhythm, then played over the top of it. I want to get a drum program and/or machine to start cooking my own. I should also be able to add in digital piano via USB.

[R_of_G]

i've been working on laying down a simple drum track to play over and then going back and replacing it with a more interesting drums/percussion after i play. keeping it simple helps my playing, but i like the post-play tinkering to get a better overall sound.

[t_ross33]

I haven't done too much recording on my own yet, but I tend towards:

• Drum Track
• Rhythm Guitar (so I have some structure to follow)
• Fills, hooks, what passes for "leads" in my world
• Vocals

[wingsdad]

1. Acoustic Rhythm guitar guide track. May or may not keep.
2. Basic Drums - bass & snare/hi-hat only. A detail on #1, so to speak.
3. Bass guitar
4. 2nd Rhythm guitar. May replace #1
5. Additional drums: fills, accents, ride & crash cymbals, picking up on 3 & 4.
6. If not instrumental, guide lead vocal.
7. 1st pass Lead guitar
8-9. Keys, if needed.
10-13: more guitars, lead or rhythm
14-17: percussion.
18-24: more vox, lead, bg

Depending, there'll be submixes of different things like collecting all the drum & percussion parts, some guitars, in between stages of tracks. Vocals are always recorded last, but setup to mix first. Everything else goes underneath them.

[aeolian]

1. I work out the structure of the song
2. I make up a drum track using a software drum program
3. I record rhythm tracks. Usually at least 2 tracks here
4. I record the lead instrument, sometimes as many as 4 or 5 layers
5. Bass track comes last

It should be obvious I do instrumentals. There's only ever been one song that I've done that has one line of vocals.

[Jampy]

So far it is just record over the backer, adjust my lead left or right a little, and adjust volume to suit. I have not done one from scratch yet, though I have laid down some rhythm, then played over the top of it. I want to get a drum program and/or machine to start cooking my own. I should also be able to add in digital piano via USB.

Yea, I am thinking of getting trigger finger from M-Audio to throw down dem beats. :

[zeusse]

There's a ton of ways to hit this depending on what you have for recording gear or software or even plug-ins for the software...really its your ear that decides, everyone does it different

My way of doing it
1. Create my rythem for the song and record that
2. Design drum track around that
3. Record rythem guitars...35%pan left and separate track played 35% right with variance in tone usualy no chorus or delay....then a mix of the two together on another track right up the middle
4. Bass track
5. Keys or any other doo hickeys needed
6. Solo
7. vocals
8. backing vocals
9. mix to submix and EQ in wav.
10. mp3 done

I would say as much as you put into your time writing the song an equal or more time should be spent mixing...anyways this is my way of doing it in short form. Each track recorded is always mixed separate.

10.

[Jipes***]

Like R of G I tend to get first a drum track to lay down a first guitar, usually I add bass after the guitar even if it seems odd but most of the time I just need to fell free and not be dependent of a bass line which can sometimes restrict myself (specially the loops stuff)

Only rule is Vocals almost at the end just before the small lead parts if I intend to do some