100+ tracks for one song

[Jay Reynolds]

Did you ever hear the story about how Foreigner's producer printed stuff so hot to tape to get his "sound" that if a musician messed up a part they had to just start fresh on a new track because the erase head would never completely get rid of the previous signal?

so a Foreigner tracking session went something like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty-1zWsXFNs

Please tell me you're not tracking with that old, over-rated thing. All the real studios are using the SDF1.

*fires the wave motion gun at your mom*

That's not a wave motion gun. Or if it is, its pretty tiny

keep your eyes on YOUR urinal, buddy!

Its so awful I can't take my eyes off it. Like a car wreck. A really, really horrible car wreck. With blood and body parts everywhere.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

edit: oh, snap! Foreigner 4 was produced by Mutt Lange!

somewhere very very deep in the depths of my mind i knew that.

So the anecdote in question might be him or Roy Thomas Baker, or maybe even Mick Jones, who produced a bunch of Foreigner records. Or about 6 other people. Who knows.

well certainly RTB was famous for pummelling the tape, and we know that to be true. i dunno what mutt lange's tendencies were, but it doesn't matter because it just doesn't hold up. i mean, here i am with my curly mullet about to coax a blistering solo outta my 6 pickup les paul, hitting tape at +24, and oh...i missed a note, gotta start all over.

can't use that track boys! patch it over to track 17.

oops i did it again.

track 18!

and so on, and now we can't record any vocals on this song because all of the tracks have blistering solo residue at -40.

no sir. not buying it.

[JGriffin]

edit: oh, snap! Foreigner 4 was produced by Mutt Lange!

somewhere very very deep in the depths of my mind i knew that.

So the anecdote in question might be him or Roy Thomas Baker, or maybe even Mick Jones, who produced a bunch of Foreigner records. Or about 6 other people. Who knows.

well certainly RTB was famous for pummelling the tape, and we know that to be true. i dunno what mutt lange's tendencies were, but it doesn't matter because it just doesn't hold up. i mean, here i am with my curly mullet about to coax a blistering solo outta my 6 pickup les paul, hitting tape at +24, and oh...i missed a note, gotta start all over.

can't use that track boys! patch it over to track 17.

oops i did it again.

track 18!

and so on, and now we can't record any vocals on this song because all of the tracks have blistering solo residue at -40.

no sir. not buying it.

No, no, I'm right there with you.

[jckinnick]

I read an interview somewhere with Broken Social Scene and they said they used 100+ tracks on some of their songs.

[RefD]

Did you ever hear the story about how Foreigner's producer printed stuff so hot to tape to get his "sound" that if a musician messed up a part they had to just start fresh on a new track because the erase head would never completely get rid of the previous signal?

so a Foreigner tracking session went something like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty-1zWsXFNs

Please tell me you're not tracking with that old, over-rated thing. All the real studios are using the SDF1.

*fires the wave motion gun at your mom*

That's not a wave motion gun. Or if it is, its pretty tiny

keep your eyes on YOUR urinal, buddy!

Its so awful I can't take my eyes off it. Like a car wreck. A really, really horrible car wreck. With blood and body parts everywhere.

well, that would be from your mom.

[Jay Reynolds]

Did you ever hear the story about how Foreigner's producer printed stuff so hot to tape to get his "sound" that if a musician messed up a part they had to just start fresh on a new track because the erase head would never completely get rid of the previous signal?

so a Foreigner tracking session went something like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty-1zWsXFNs

Please tell me you're not tracking with that old, over-rated thing. All the real studios are using the SDF1.

*fires the wave motion gun at your mom*

That's not a wave motion gun. Or if it is, its pretty tiny

keep your eyes on YOUR urinal, buddy!

Its so awful I can't take my eyes off it. Like a car wreck. A really, really horrible car wreck. With blood and body parts everywhere.

well, that would be from your mom.

I was going to make a joke about storing medical waste "in there", but I won't stoop to such a level

[RefD]

Did you ever hear the story about how Foreigner's producer printed stuff so hot to tape to get his "sound" that if a musician messed up a part they had to just start fresh on a new track because the erase head would never completely get rid of the previous signal?

so a Foreigner tracking session went something like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty-1zWsXFNs

Please tell me you're not tracking with that old, over-rated thing. All the real studios are using the SDF1.

*fires the wave motion gun at your mom*

That's not a wave motion gun. Or if it is, its pretty tiny

keep your eyes on YOUR urinal, buddy!

Its so awful I can't take my eyes off it. Like a car wreck. A really, really horrible car wreck. With blood and body parts everywhere.

well, that would be from your mom.

I was going to make a joke about storing medical waste "in there", but I won't stoop to such a level

and by "there" you mean?

[JGriffin]

neutral corners, guys. This isn't...that other place.

[RefD]

neutral corners, guys. This isn't...that other place.

dang, i wuz jus' funnin'!

[JGriffin]

neutral corners, guys. This isn't...that other place.

dang, i wuz jus' funnin'!

I just wanted to avoid the blood on the walls, you never know how this stuff's gonna go down. I ain't no moderator, though, so as far as I'm concerned, if you're having fun, keep it up.

[RefD]

neutral corners, guys. This isn't...that other place.

dang, i wuz jus' funnin'!

I just wanted to avoid the blood on the walls, you never know how this stuff's gonna go down. I ain't no moderator, though, so as far as I'm concerned, if you're having fun, keep it up.

well, it's only fun if both parties have a good time.

*hopes superaction80 understands he was not intending offence*

[joel hamilton]

There really is no "correct" number of tracks for any given song.
There is subjective decisions about what the tracks add to the experience, but the decision is not about the NUMBER of tracks. I wish! Like , if you just use 21 tracks, it is "better." or 15 tracks... or 34 , or 12, or 4, or 1.... or 128....

[drumsound]

I read an interview somewhere with Broken Social Scene and they said they used 100+ tracks on some of their songs.

But that's only 2 tracks per member of the band.

[Professor]

I love you, prof, but the analogy to a recording engineer (which is, in reality, an artist) to a mechanic (which has a set way on which he must operate) isn't a fair one.

Robert Pirsig makes a pretty good argument in favor of the "mechanic-as-artist" in Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

One of my favorite books.
I still have the copy I bought during my junior year of high school, and also have 25th Anniversary copy although I've yet to have enough time to read all the extra bits.

I one had someone over at Unicornation (DP messageboard) tell me that if a song wasn't 100+ tracks it wasn't a professional recording. I feel like that's an extremely arrogant and uneducated thought.

Ironically, is it any different or less arrogant to say that any recording with more than XX-number of tracks means the musicians and/or engineer are incompetent or uncreative?

There always seems to be an unfortunate tendency of musicians to believe that their particular chosen genre is the only valid, creative, beneficial, artistic, worthy, redeeming, profitable, soulful, brilliant, honest, enjoyable, and/or musical one.
I see it and have seen it for years at the music schools where the classical guys only begrudingly accept the jazz guys, and the jazz guys refuse to acknowledge the rock-n-roll guys, and on and on.
Since I work with lots of different kinds of groups, I see it with every genre that comes through the door. Not every artist, but I've seen it within every genre.
And I suppose it only makes sense that since so many musicians have become their own engineers that the same sense of superiority of style would exist there.

I'm not picking on anyone in particular about limiting the track count, just trying to illustrate that it can be kinda silly, especially from an engineer's or producer's viewpoint.
Now if you're creating your own music in your own bedroom and you find it stimulates you creatively to limit the track count, then great.
What I try to do as an engineer for various genres of other people's music is to make the process as transparent as possible. They don't need to know how many tracks there are or aren't - I don't want that to limit their creativity.
If I need to cut a guy off from taking dozens of takes of a song or an overdub, then I just say so outright and explain my reasoning. I suppose there are times when I could make it easier on myself by claiming the technology is the limitation, but usually I sense there is some deeper issue that is leading to the massive amounts of retakes and address that instead.



The sessions where I have used upwards of 80-100 or more tracks were indeed hip/hop and R&B tracks.
I did a bunch of demo work with the younger sister of one of the biggest R&B acts out there, and a well-known star in her own right. These were just song writing demos where she would write out the lyrics, sing through a few sample melody ideas. Then she would track & retrack to get a perfect master take of the verses and choruses - all through punch-in overdubs, no auto-tune, no editing on my part other than cleaning up & cross-fading the punches. Then she would would lay down 4, 5, maybe 6 or more 'doubles' of the chorus. If she didn't like an inflection on a word or came up with a different idea, she would punch in the replacement on all of the copies. Then she would improvise a backing harmony a few times until she liked it, and then would put down 4, 5, 6 or more 'doubles' of that. And then maybe a 3rd or 4th harmony and again with all of the doubling.
She was a consummate musician, one of the best I've ever worked with, and in addition to her voice, the studio was her instrument and she played it like a master.
And the most amazing thing to me was that these weren't even for release. These were just song writing demos to get other artists excited about her new songs so that they would pick them up, record them and release them on their albums.
I was grateful to be the mechanic and glad to have all the tools available for those sessions.

And I'm equally glad that when a little frat-rock group comes in for a 3-song demo, I can pull it off with 8-10 tracks without a hitch.

It's nice to have a good set of tools.

-Jeremy

[Jay Reynolds]

neutral corners, guys. This isn't...that other place.

dang, i wuz jus' funnin'!

I just wanted to avoid the blood on the walls, you never know how this stuff's gonna go down. I ain't no moderator, though, so as far as I'm concerned, if you're having fun, keep it up.

well, it's only fun if both parties have a good time.

*hopes superaction80 understands he was not intending offence*

*comes back from losing yet another freeze/all tracks to files battle with Logic Pro 8 as detailed here http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jsp ... 33#7392333...again*
What'd I miss?