Linksters,

A few questions for the musicians out there:

1) On my favorite album, Fair Warning, I've heard Ed say that they basically just recorded that stuff live and ran the tape. But if you listen to the guitar on songs like "Hear About it Later" and "Dirty Movies" there's a lead and a rythm guitar in both those songs. How did Ed pull this off on the 1981 tour?

2) When the recording process is started, does the band play it live, or do they record the instruments one at a time? (I've heard references to a 'click' for Alex when they do keyboard tunes).

3) And if they do record one instrument at a time, what order do they do it in? It seems that the first instrument to record would be pretty hard to keep the beat with nothing laid down yet.

4) And If you were already so kind to answer the first three questions, how does the recording process compare with some of the other rock bands that are recording today? What do you like/not like about the way VH does it? How do you think they could do things better? Or what is good that they shouldn't change?

THANKS A BUNCH FOR EVERYONE THAT CAN LEND INSIGHT INTO THESE QUESTIONS!!!!!!

peace out.

well, basically i think they record almost live and when they need they add overdubs.
Many bands record like that.

When bands need to play one instrument per time they:
record the song live, each instrument in a separate track
then they start re-recording every instrument they need.

For example: the band record the whole song live each instrument on a separate track: then the guitarist record another track and that will be the final version of guitar. On another track he could add some overdubs. Same thing the bass, and the drumme in that way could re-record his part.

I hope it was clear...

Anyway. Ed always played live and answering your first question VH arranged always their song for a single guitar (soloing without a background guitar, or playing rythm instead of solo or a hybrid of both)

4)Metallica recorded until the "black album" one instrument per time, doing so you can record almost perfect songs.

I like the most live recordings, they have more feeling (like VH's recordings).
Metallica did great things recording in that way (ever heard the Master of Puppets cd?), but the two band are so different and plays so different music....
Well.. i think the recording process depends on what kind of product you want to have...
VH use the apprpriate way to make GREAT recording... but that's only my opinion

Van Halen has always been a 'live' band, meaning they usually play all together.

When they recorded the early stuff they jammed the rhythm parts all together at once. (that's Alex, Mike and Ed) For the first two albums I believe they did it in one room.

Subsequently, they separated their instruments into various rooms in the studio and used headphones to hear each other. This is to avoid microphone bleed over from one instrument to another.

Then Eddie and Dave did their parts in the overdub on separate tracks. They then spend the next millenium mixing it all together.

By no means is recording as simple as I've stated above. For more on this, I'm going to send this to the Musicians Corner.



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