Recording, overdubbing and multiple takes

With your mics set up and cue mix monitoring sorted, you should have everything in place to start recording. You might be recording a song from scratch to a click track or reference beat, or adding live instrumentation to an existing track. Either way, this is the point at which it really pays to have an understanding of how your DAW handles tracks, overdubbing, alternative takes and all the rest of it, so you can keep everything organised. This might sound a bit on the unnecessary side if you’re simply recording one track, but the unlimited track count found in many DAWs can result in an abundance of takes, and the more you record, the more you have to sift through later, so any streamlining features are surely welcome.

Different DAWs handle multiple takes and the ongoing compiling and editing of them in different ways. We’ll be looking at compiling on the next page, but first, let’s consider how they might handle a few takes.

Let’s say you’re recording a song from scratch. You’re recording to a number of individual tracks and want to do a number of takes. The obvious method is to record one take after the other sequentially in the arrangement window. You can see the takes laid out in front of you, and you can edit sections together for a master take if required. It’s a universal approach that does the job. However, some DAWs provide a virtual layer system that lets you stack takes on top of each other. Returning to our initial example, as long as you record the takes to a click and start at the same position on the timeline, this should be a more elegant solution. Plus, if you want to spin through and change your initial master take, even after you’ve continued overdubbing onto it, you can.