How you print sound to tracks is the one of the first stages of the actual ‘recording’ process. There are millions of ways to go about doing this. This part of the recording process can be broken down to two overall categories to start with: do you record the sounds ‘clean’ to the tracks and do the sonic production on the tracks during mixing or or do you print EQ, dynamics and effects to the tracks during the recording process?
As always, there is no right or wrong answers. When I began my recording journey I took note of what happened in studios where I was recording and spent a lot of time reading articles (today you can include watching videos) by people considered the masters of engineering and mixing.
I’ve always loved the work of Eddie Kramer, considering the roll call of famous musicians he worked with and the fact that he is still active and working on new techniques today. He was a ‘print to track’ engineer (compression, EQ, FX printed to the track) and a lot of what I do follows that format. I do add to tracks while mixing, but I try to get the essence of the sound while I’m tracking. One quote from him about sonics when tracking:
“To start with I’m a great believer in getting the sound right then and there, put it on tape and don’t think about it anymore. I’ll print with effects, I’ll print with dynamics processing. The bottom line is if I hear a sound in my head, I’m going to go for it – I’m going to print it to tape”.
Every session will have different requirements, so experiment whenever possible. But if you haven’t tried ‘print to tape’ give it a go.
Here’s a little Eddie Kramer clip you might enjoy:
ChurchHouse Productions Blog 