Drummers got a multitrack and a mixer ready to record with my band. Is it a wise choice to record all at the same time?(2 guitars and drums). We have no bassist yet but were going to put bass, vocals and lead stuff on top afterwards. My question is, will it still sound good recording the rhythm guitar and drums at the same time or is it much better to do it in layers?

Get the drummer to record to a click track, then guitars can record either to a click or to the drums. Then you won't get nasty bleed from all the other instruments in the mix, and you'll all be nicely in time

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Despite what the last poster said, I personally suggest recording live and overdubbing, it all depends on how good you are/what style of music you play. Me and my drummer/bassist do a complexish breed of old school death metal with a big doom influence (Think Early Immolation mixed with mid later immo/gorguts and throw in some Autopsy/Atrocity for good luck), we also practice alot and record some practices to make sure we are in time.

Staying in time is the key. Live recording yes you get alittle bleed and what not but its not that bad.

NOW for newer Death metal/Metalcore and all that, those guys prefer the more surgical method of recording seperately. I Personally think live recording can be good, but in the end its all about whether you can bring your A game live and if you have the practice in staying in time.

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i recorded our first album with live guitar and drums and it ended up sounding like crap

think about it. how well tightly do you play together in one straight go, like live or practice, compared to how well youd play if you recorded each individual riff. unless youer exceptionally well coordinated with your drummer chances are youre going to sound way tighter doing riff by riff

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sometimes alittle looseness is desirable (not all circumstances though)

Also if your going live but you both play along to a click track it helps.

A friend of mine power tabs all his songs and when he records with his band they play along with that. I don't know if thats a good or bad suggestion but a thought

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i'd probably record live.
with albums like the wretched spawn you can really tell.
it's (to me) IMHO more atmospheric.

Thanks for the insight people, my band is like experimental technical thrash metal influenced by a wide range including death, cynic, slayer, watchtower, megadeth etc. I think we are gonna try recording live first.

Ehhh depends techy music can be hard to record live, id say just put the best guitarist in the live room with the drummer, that way the one who isnt as good doesnt fuck up a good drum take with amp bleeding into the mic. and put the bassist's amp in an iso booth to possibly. It all depends on how well you work together.

And for the most part i agree live is more atmospheric

damn i almost totally contradicted myself in this post.

Either way try both (live first my nizzy)

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its hard to play to a click track, and it does sap a bit of the feel.

when doing home recording what we'd always do was get our best live take all together, and then each of us would record solo to that, instead of a metronome.

I've done that a few times, I like it. BUT if your going for quad tracked guitars it can be a pain in the assss!

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It's very simple:

Record a live version of everyone playing (or whoever) and make sure it's a good and tight session.

Get the drummer to put on a set of headphones and listen to the recording.

Now he can go ahead and play the single drum track while 'listening' to the band.

Voila.

You owe me some cash.

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Yeah seriously. This is all i do.

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Ok, so we took a shot at recording a song with both rhythm guitars and drums at the same time. We managed to get the song tight enough, its just the guitars sounded very distant and too quiet on the recording, and if we turned them up higher they would probably just distort on the recording. Anyone know why were having this problem?

I say to hell with the click. Just feel it. Its music. Not mechanics.

Don't bother turning them up. Overdub 2nd rhythm tracks now. It will bring the levels of the guitars up. It sounds like you guys did not mess with mike placement before you recorded of the guitars sound distant. No worries though it can be fixed. Like I said overdub 2nd rhythm tracks.

Check out the songs here http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pag...m?bandID=692104

This is my band and these are live recordings. The only overdubs were leads and small parts where one of us might have messed up a bit during the recording of each song. These are all single tracked rhythms.

Doesn't sound half bad. Not my kind of music but i liked the vocals. Very full and lots of balls.

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If you want professional results, you really should be tracking one instrument at a time. When you get to the mixing stage you need to be able to mix each track with no bleed at all. If you have bleed then you have to mess with noise gate settings and your EQ will go to shit.

Since the quality of releases are quite demanding nowadays (well maybe not for black metal) I feel it is quite important to get the best results you can get. I recommend either a click track, or record a "dummy" version of the song with you all playing along, and then playback through the headphones for the drummer to record to, then the bass etc.

I know some posters above have recommended it and it is very good advice. If you do a decent job of tracking, and also have someone who is good at mixing and mastering you can get some very good results.

www.myspace.com/theutopiamachine - Listen for a good example, the guitarist recorded this in his studio.

I guess recording live in the same room using drum and amplifier baffles these days equals unprofessionalism. Especially when the end result is a demo. I also guess that bands such as Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, U2, Def Leppard, amongst others were unprofessional in their approach as all recorded live for all of their famous albums.

When you record, the idea is to utilize what works to get the best performance out of the musicians. Period, end of story. Those with real recording experience in a real studio know this. If you can capture the essence of the band recording live do it. If it works best for your music to record track by track do that.

To the guy who took a dig at my band's music as being unprofessional, that is your opinion. If you can get better results tracking each track separately on your music that is good for you. But who the hell are you to comment on how my band is professional or not? We did what worked. I also stated that the guitar tracks were single tracked live. IOW, this is the drum mix, we have not gone back to overdub the guitar rhtyhm tracks. The idea was a demo, not some cd ready work that will never be heard by anyone outside of myspace or others on the internet.

If the above post by Necrovore is directed at me, I suggest you edit your post. I never even considered your band when I wrote the post, I was trying to give some helpful advice to the original poster.