My band will soon be recording in Studio A and we are coming up with strategies to execute our music. We have one important practical concern we need to figure out how to address. We are a 3 piece, bass drums and guitar, recording live with basically no overdubs (perhaps a few guitar overdubs at most, though not sure yet) However, we will be overdubbing vocals (our drummer is our singer) and are wondering how to best pull off the following:In a couple of songs, the drums cut out and the band is not playing anything rhythmic. In these sections, our vocalist will need a tempo cue so that he can sing in time, that way when the band re-enters, his vocal is still in time. All of these sections last only a couple of bars.The first solution we thought was that when tracking the band, the drummer can do stick clicks, and then we can remove the stick clicks during the mixing phase. Would this be the best way of achieving this? Fortunately 90% of these sections do not have cymbals and therefore we don't need to worry about cutting off the cymbal resonance, and he can wait a beat or two to let the toms ring out naturally before stick clicking. However in one or two sections, there are cymbal crashes, and cutting the sick clicks out may be problematic.Therefore I ask, how should be best plan for these sections to pull them off?Thanks!

tmidgett, i had that same idea. that sounds like a good solution if it's possible to pull off.all very interesting ideas, ill speak to our drummer/singer and see what he thinks.

A bunch of possible solutions.If the drummer is up for it, the vocals in those sections could be sung live.One of the other musicians can count, hand claps or a mock vocal into a guide track mic, which will be discarded once the real vocals have been recorded.The drummer or another musician can use a foot switch to start a metronome for that bit, which will be recorded for reference, but doesn't need to continue running after that.So, basically, it shouldn't be a big deal.

Maybe set up a mic off to the side where he can reach it easily. Something with a sturdy screen on it.It will mic nothing as a keeper track, but you dump it to tape anyway.During the keep-a-beat part, he can tap the screen on the mic lightly instead of clicking his sticks. You probably won't have to mute anything in the mix, as the ambient sound of him tapping a mic will be much lower than a stick click. Could even put a cloth on the screen to make it more of a thump to tape than a click--wouldn't have any ambient sound then.I have done this at home a couple times, and it worked well. Only I did it with an electric guitar run direct, with the strings damped so they made no sound. Basically tapped right on the pickup with something metal.

tmidgett wrote:During the keep-a-beat part, he can tap the screen on the mic lightly instead of clicking his sticks. You probably won't have to mute anything in the mix, as the ambient sound of him tapping a mic will be much lower than a stick click. Could even put a cloth on the screen to make it more of a thump to tape than a click--wouldn't have any ambient sound then.I've done this same thing with some success.Chris GargesCharlotte, NC

seems that the easiest method for us will be to have our bass player count in those sections into a separate vocal mic. i imagine that if he counts quietly, the mics on the bass cabinet wont pick it up at all, and then we can just delete the track in the mixdown. this way he can count to cue the band, as well as give the vocalist a guide when overdubbing.

All good ideas... my advice would be to practice a few of these scenarios at rehearsal a bit before your recording date. As if you didn't know this...Also, what about contact mic on the floor next tot e drummers hi-hat foot... then during these parts he can just tap it semi-lightly with his toe (i,e. like chicking the hats). You can use this to trigger a rim shot sound on a cheap drum machine or just use the shitty sound of the contact mic to tape and in the headphones, etc...

mikoo69 wrote:seems that the easiest method for us will be to have our bass player count in those sections into a separate vocal mic. i imagine that if he counts quietly, the mics on the bass cabinet wont pick it up at all, and then we can just delete the track in the mixdown. this way he can count to cue the band, as well as give the vocalist a guide when overdubbing.Could play with the polarity on the bass talky mic as well, maybe run that at a real, real low level if you do hear anything out of the bass cab mic. Might cancel out any of the ambient stuff you do pick up. I imagine this won't be an issue in Studio A, but might be useful for those figuring it out at home.= Justin

as we get closer to recording, we are practicing different straegies for keeping a click in sections where our vocalist will need a sense of pulse that the instruments don't provide.1) for sections where there will be cymbals ringing out, our bass player is going to make clicking noises at a low volume with his mouth, and i imagine we'll have a mic setup for him so this can be tracked/heard by the other members in other isolation rooms2) for sections where there will be no drums/cymbals at all, we will have our drummer do stick clicks (and automate them/mute them out in the mix).is there any limitations to either of these? will we easily be able to mute out the drum clicks?

mikoo69 wrote:as we get closer to recording, we are practicing different straegies for keeping a click in sections where our vocalist will need a sense of pulse that the instruments don't provide.1) for sections where there will be cymbals ringing out, our bass player is going to make clicking noises at a low volume with his mouth, and i imagine we'll have a mic setup for him so this can be tracked/heard by the other members in other isolation roomsThis is totally fine. Your vocalist can also do a scratch track during the take.2) for sections where there will be no drums/cymbals at all, we will have our drummer do stick clicks (and automate them/mute them out in the mix).is there any limitations to either of these? will we easily be able to mute out the drum clicks?This sounds perfectly reasonable. Stick clicks can sometimes bleed through headphones indirectly through guitar pickups, so you might want to try hihat steps instead, but it'll probably work fine either way. When you get to the mixing stage you can just erase the clicks off the tape so you don't need to worry about them any more.