In this, the first of a series about multitrack recording principles and techniques aimed at the musician rather than technocrat, Richard Dean outlines the case for and against multitrack recording.

Let's face it, being involved in the business of making music can be (and usually is) a very exhausting experience. As if musical and group performance problems weren't enough, musicians frequently have to tread areas of expertise outside their natural spheres of talent. Details relating to promotion, gig itinerary, transport and finance frequently intrude on artistic concentration. Many of these responsibilities can of course be delegated to a trustworthy manager. But contemporary music demands a measure of technical knowledge which no musician can afford to be without for the best presentation of his or her music. Sound International is, of course, very much about bridging this gap between artistic and technical matters.

How many times have you chanced upon an article on a technical subject of which you know very little and settled down with a fact-hungry glint of ignorance flashing in your eye, only to find that getting an extra cushion from upstairs and changing into your Christmas slippers was a waste of time — the article tells you nothing? The experience is not uncommon and such articles tend to suffer any of the following reader mismatch problems: 1 Far too technical, 2 Far too simple, 3 A token gesture towards readability followed by a merciless onslaught of technical club-talk, 4 Just a load of old waffle couched in quasi-technical jargon.

The point of mentioning all this is that, in defence, it's not easy for writers to gauge successfully the middle ground between art and science, and readers' response is very useful. So don't hesitate to moan, because we aim to satisfy your needs — as far as information goes, anyhow.

And so to the theme of this series. This getting-to-know-you first chapter actually has the gall to challenge multitrack working as an option to the medium-sized band, and discusses demonstration tape requirements generally. Subsequent articles will assume you have opted for multitrack as a medium and end up finding you in a state-of-the-art automated 48-track commercial studio — so hopefully we'll be tracing your potential recording career and the facts you'll need to optimise it. But for the moment, here you are with a small (commercially speaking) band, or some songs, or both. You want to record it, or them, and perhaps know somebody with a tape machine. Alternatively you want to invest in a machine yourself. Either way you'll need to understand something about the recording process, and any decision of whether to consider multitrack or not would be guesswork if you knew nothing about recording.

So let's look briefly at the general modus operandi of tape recording. Fig 1 shows the sequence involved. As the tape travels at a constant speed from left to right it is first cleared of any old signal by an erase head, magnetised according to the new signal by the record head, and then replayed either simultaneously or after the event by the replay head. Some cheaper stereo machines don't have a separate replay head, but instead switch the record head to a playback amplifier for replay. Let us assume we are using such a machine. What are its capabilities?

Well, apart from performing the basic function of recording, not a lot. As a creative tool it is restricted by not having a separate replay head, as we shall see in a minute. But for recording 'live' sound, whether via a mixer or a simple pair of mics, it's fine.

However, the requirements of the recording and replay process are different. 3-head machines were first introduced so as to provide dedicated record and replay heads and amps designed for each purpose, to improve quality. They also offer simultaneous monitoring off-tape — but this feature is of limited significance to the musician, as the delay caused by the distance between record and replay head prohibits off-tape monitoring while playing (just try it!).

The real advantage of the 3-head machine to the creative user is that it offers the facility commonly known as 'sound-on-sound'. This is not to be confused with the practice of masking or turning off the erase head to add sound to an existing recording (a most unsatisfactory procedure). Rather, it describes the process where sound previously recorded on one track is mixed with live sound to produce a 'doubletrack' effect, or to allow different sections of instrumentation to be completed in stages. Nowadays, most 3-head machines have a sound-on-sound recording position. Sound-on-sound is perfectly adequate in coping with modest recording requirements, which is why it's included in this article. It is quite different from multitrack recording in both principle and technique.

Firstly, multitrack recording involves the use of a number of separate tracks on the original master tape. Generally speaking tracks can be recorded separately until near perfect, in several sections, if necessary. The level, stereo position and equalisation of each track is then manipulated through a mixer to produce the desired effect, and the output fed to a stereo master tape machine (see fig 2).

Sound-on-sound differs in that layers of sound are built one upon the other, so access to any individual 'take', apart from the most recent one, is impossible — you have to mix as you go (see fig 3). Also the ultimate output is always in mono, unless you use two machines, where instead of recording on alternate tracks you record on alternate machines.

It's right at this stage
When you've shelled out the dough,
That you'll yearn for the multitrack age.
What's that mini, that tiny, that weeny machine?
It's the 4-track recorder; oh no!

True enough, the 4-track machine does have to enter the story at this point. By the time you've bought two machines for stereo sound-on-sound you could have afforded one of these examples of multitrack-on-a-plimsoll-string, with a bit left over. But, having decided to enter the multitrack league, does a 4-track machine really qualify? The short answer is yes, such machines are genuine multitrack — but there isn't much of it, and it's not of a very high quality. These factors could spell unsuitability for your music, or could be irrelevant. Either way, results are bound to sound humble (perhaps more so than you had been led to expect), because in practice four tracks are a tiny number to work with. You can however drop in and out (record bits) any number of times during a song without affecting other tracks, like on any multitrack machine — but beware of in/out clicks!

A point commonly overlooked when using a single 4-track machine, is that one track is always lost for mixing, with typically only two tracks available for additional material (see Fig 4 — this shows a common sequence which in essence involves a combination of multitrack and sound-on-sound technique). Extra channels of sound can of course be incorporated for a given number of submixes by recording instruments or vocals 'live' during sub-mixing, but that rather goes against the principle of multitrack recording. A number of sound channels could, however, be mixed on to each component track which is fine if the channels are similar and don't involve particularly creative decision making, because this should be reserved for 'instruments down' situations, in this case the sub mixes, and ultimately final mix (D). This final sound will constitute three tracks at fifth generation (ie recorded five times), two tracks at fourth generation, two tracks at third generation, and two tracks at second generation. Final mix, of course, in mono.

To end up with a stereo mix you must go the whole multitrack hog and use a separate mixdown or mastering machine. It is questionable whether investing in a second machine in this way is justified by the mere four tracks you have to play around with. In any multitrack system, leakage between channels or crosstalk must be kept to a minimum, and the cheaper 4-track machines tend to suffer in this respect. But for mono demonstration work where only a small number of tracks are required they work reasonably well — particularly good for getting an impression of a band's live performance, where a stereo feed from the PA system can be supplemented by ambient mics at the gig (see Live For The Record in SI September '78).

Before leaving the lower end of the multitrack scene, it's worth touching on an aspect of recording which seems to baffle an awful lot of people — especially those with standard 2-track semi-pro machines. It's not uncommon to find a band's lead singer, who somehow always seems to take more interest in recording than any other group member, having the supposedly bright idea of laying down a live mix of the band, minus him or her, with the intention of perfecting a vocal in a number of sections and laying this down on the other track. Sounds like a good idea until you try playing it back, intending to mix the two components together. The fact is that the two tracks are out of synchronisation — this is because the vocalist is listening to the other track via the playback head while recording the vocal track via the record head. The distance between these two heads causes the delay which ruins the chance of a mix in this fashion. How is this overcome on a proper multitrack machine? Simply by feeding the vocalist or whoever with the sound from the other tracks picked up not by the playback head, but by the record head.

Record heads on all multitrack machines, including the mini 4-tracks, have a 'sync' or replay mode where their recording function is inhibited. Without this sync facility, multitrack machines would be good only for mixing live tapes, and the staple ingredient of the World Recording Industry, the overdub, would be devastatingly absent. As a result, the record head on a multitrack machine is almost universally referred to as the 'sync' head. The sound reproduction quality of this head is not optimum, as the head is designed primarily for recording. When recording complex material a number of similar tracks are often 'bumped' or 'bounced' (mixed) down to a stereo pair to allow room for further recording, using signal taken from the sync head in each case, once again to preserve synchronisation with other tracks.

Next: Into the jargon jungle and up to 8-track.