Studio recordings: What is the systematic approach? | Thread profile

Sweet. I think Chippy's answer is what I was looking for the most. So the thing with a drummer recording merely to a click IMO is that the energy of the band or fake track is not there to fuel your playing, and it may sound rather dead by comparison. Would you all agree?

you'll have to get past me first :P there's one female audio engineer student here.

Yeah, I've met like 2 in my entire life. Both went to school with me for awhile, until I quit school. Then went to a different, better engineering school. Now it's me and 2 other guys. poopty, but more time with the gear, so better none the less.

I know a couple of female engineers too lol. Good at what they do and hot so its win win

Hehe...it all sounds like a really bad keng fu movie.

I wish I played to a click. My timing needs loads of work!

This is how I have done it most of the time. Drums and bass and a guitar. Guitar will be a scratch. Bass and dums should be able to lay it down as a unit. Sounds more fluid and like real people are playing it...less robotic. If your timing sucks, use a click. I can do three takes of a four minutes song and the time will vary no more that 2 seconds per song with out using a click, so I ry not to use them if possible. After the bass and drums...

I record my drums while listening to a guitar, bass and click track "rough draft" Then my brother lays down all the other tracks on top...tah-dah.

Well...the usual method would be drums, bass, keyboard (if there is any), guitar, vox. Like you said, there are two ways of doing things. Either the drummer plays to a click track and then everything else gets layered on top or the guitarist would do a rough take to a click and then everyone plays over top of that, then the rough track gets deleted.

when my band recorded we first recorded a scratch track with everyone on it AND i was playing to a click. the engineer practically insisted we use a click track because that made it easier for him to do edits, punch-ins, and so on. it helped me too because i didn't have to worry about keeping an even tempo.