Recording Ennui: 3 Methods of 4-Tracking (Part 3)
Part 3 of my 4-Tracks Series. Don't fear recording studios. Here are my best methods of tracking alone, whether it's Abbey Road or on a 4-Track. I'm still adding to this, but you can read it.
This is Part 3.
You will find Part 1, “My Journey from Skater to 4-Track Wizard”, here.
You will find Part 2, “The Day I Stopped 4-Tracking”, here.
You will find Part 4, “Technical Notes on a Tiny Medium”, here.
Part 3 Introduction
For those just finding this post, I went into more detail about my personal history with the 4-Track in a previous posts.
In this post you will find my creative insights in “how to” record with a 4-Track, particularly how to record by yourself convincing ‘band’ songs–playing every instrument. My goal in working with the 4-track didn’t start out with playing all the band parts myself, but this machine made it possible. No one taught me. I simply deduced it through constant tinkering. You can read about the first 4-Track Cassette recorder here.
Needless to say, by the time the 1990’s arrived, and I was old enough to make use of this kind of technology, inventive companies like Teac & Tascam had been mass producing consumer based 4-track machines for over a decade. The demand had jumped and bigger companies like Yamaha got into the mix. New smaller, alternative machines came out. The price point came down.
I got MT-120 for Christmas in 1992, not knowing anything about 4-track history at all, except for what the music store people and friend had told me.
This guy does a ‘Okay’ job of explaining my MT-120 machine.
Notes on this video
This guy sounds really nice. I hate to share a video than immediately debunk it, but here’s a couple things I want to expand on.
The Graphic EQ was nice, but it was only active for output. Meaning, you couldn’t use the EQ to low cut hum on a acoustic guitar or low pass a bass. Still, it helped in monitoring improved mixes.
He also doesn’t mention the tape speed or Varispeed ‘Pitch’ fader offerings. Particularly the pitch fader, which allowed me to pitch up the tape speed and record vocals in a key, later slowing down for lower singing voice–and other Varispeed effects.
Sadly, he spent a lot of time talking about ‘Bouncing Down’, which was audio quality-suicide if you tried it on a cassette 4-Track. It’s also called ‘Ping-Ponging’, or ‘Reduction Mixing’. Either wording you chose, it sounded really bad. The best practice in 4-Track recording is recording 4 things. If you have 5 things, then you are going to have to record 2 of them at once, fitting them into 4. This might mean that the Bass and Harmonica, or the Vocals and the Background Vocals, might need to be performed together into 1 channel.
If ‘bouncing down’ or ‘ping-ponging’ excites you, jump further down this post for more. I wrote about it for you. If it does excite you, call me. Let’s be friends 💋.
Three Methods of 4-Tracking
I love this stuff so much, but this section is comprehensive. And by comprehensive, I mean a nice long read.
Making 4-Track Cassette music well at home and listening back is magical, but that magic comes with a price. The price is hundreds of hours making technical mistakes. It’s the reason this writing became so long. I made all those mistakes.
I’ve come to learn that it’s crucial for, as a DIY recording artist, that I learned these concepts. I still use ALL of these cheap techniques. They’ve saved me thousands. I feel super confident going into a recording studio by myself, because I know what I can get done in the time I have.
Please bear in mind, these methods still apply, even though I’m sharing through the filter of analog 4-Track cassette recorder limitations. Only 4 channels. No undo. No digital. No expensive studio. In most cases, a single mic.
Method 1
The All Together - Band Method (with a 4-Track)
This is what most people imagine a band in a studio doing, though it’s the most irregular way of 4-Tracking, mainly because you need isolated sound rooms if you want true instrument separation between tracks. If you find yourself in a big studio with isolated rooms and they offer you a 4-Track–then something’s amiss!
So, for that reason, 4-Tracking with the band method doesn’t make much sense. For the sake of this article, let’s assume you bought a big home and have multiple rooms where you can isolate guitar amp(s), bass amp, drums, or vocalist. Or, maybe you don’t have extra rooms, and don’t care about microphone ‘bleed’ across tracks? In that case, you are just close mic-ing the amps and vocalist is either eating the mic, or plans to redo the vocal later.
Recording as a group is certainly the most natural way to record and will sound most like your band. It’s the punk rock way. I love it. It is the fastest way to get a band recording, and the results are immediate. It’s basically a live recording that you can sweeten up and share–one where the vocalist can actually hear themselves and be heard. It’s fun, but not really why you bought a 4-track. If you are ready to track as a band, then studio time is well worth it. What eats up studio time is not the recording. It’s the setup and time spent layering over a song repeatedly and tediously.
The key with the band method is capturing 4 things to unique adjustable channels on the recorder. Imagine 4 microphones pointed at 4 things going into 4 tracks. Ideally, those 4 mics aren’t pointed at the same thing. If everyone’s in the same room, then those 4 mics will record ‘bleed’. You have to focus them really well and get the amplifiers at a good volume for the mics, not the room vibe. Turn down, way down. Even then, you will only reduce bleed.
The point of this method is a better recording of a band playing together, speeding up and slowing down as one. Their instruments are recorded as separately as possible into the 4-Track. Usually there’s a ‘best take’. There may be some spots where secondary tracking happens.
Typically, a vocalist will record their live vocal knowing they are going to replace it later. They sing a temp vocal during the live takes, then go back do the final–or ‘punch in’ to make improvements on the live take. A guitar player may wish to do the same, but the bleed will be a factor. Usually, the bleed makes the guitar sound bigger. Sometimes there’s space on the vocal channel during the solo section where a guitar player can punch in a solo. The drums are final as played, because punching in drums means overwriting the main tempo source. Choosing the best take is usually a no-brainer.
Method 2 - The Two Person // Scratch Track Method (with a 4-Track)
Two people make a multi-track recording together. If the song is going to have drums, they must be one of the initial tracks laid down. Drums are the time reference.
It’s nearly impossible to put drums on at the end, but people have tried. Much of Syd Barrett’s songs had drums put on later. I love those songs, but it’s super duper challenging to do. Unless all initial tracks have been performed to a metronomic ‘click’, putting drums on later is a massive challenge.
Having drums in the initial tracks makes life a dream. Having 1 person playing drums in initial tracks, makes it possible to record ANYTHING in multitrack ‘band’ form. ‘Drums’ in this instance could mean any tempo guide, like a metronomic click track. I’ll talk about click tracks later.
On songs where there were no drums, you just needed some kind of tempo guide. Songs without drums mask slips in tempo.
Remember, you only have 4 tracks for the band. The way I used to make 2-person 4-Track recordings was by recording the Bass and the Drums simultaneously with a single microphone, baking the performance of both instruments together onto a single ch1 track. The mic had to be placed in the room perfectly. The level had to be balanced. The bass amp volume and mic position, relative to the drums had to be level tested and good. Test recordings had to be made and checked. Only then could we record initial tracks.
What we lost by combining the two sounds, we gained in an available track. With the Bass and Drums in ch1, we’d fill the remaining 3 channels with guitars, keys, synth, vocals, backing vocals, handclaps, or etc. This entire idea of combining things, and what to combine, was song specific. It depends what you need for the song. If needed 2 guitars, bass, a vocal, and drums, that’s 5 things. Performed combinations were necessary.
Another two-person recording approach can evolve into a one-person method. Let say you wanted a cleaner sound and you don’t mind using up 2 of 4 channels in your initial tracks. You could plug the bass direct into ch2 and record initial tracks with the drums wearing headphones. I never liked the sound of direct bass. Playing with headphones isn’t easy.
Getting a good drum track is the target of initial 4-tracking. One could treat any accompanying track as a temporary ‘scratch track’, to be deleted later. These kind of methods were only there to help the drummer get those vibey drums just right in the context of the song. Way better than a click track.
Click Track: A believable multitrack ‘band’ recording by a few people, even a single person, relies on cohesiveness. A real band can easily sway dynamically together. This can be very dramatic. The alternative is playing to a set tempo, by listening to a click track while you play. If you do it right using a 4-track, theoretically, you could record drums as a penultimate step. This is a perfect world logic though. Performing to a click is an incredible skill honed through dedicated and regular practice. It’s one of these things you think you’re good at, but listening back tells another story.
In utilizing click with a 4-Track, the first thing you’d do is record an over-length 5-6 min sound of a click into ch4 of your 4-Track, from a metronome or putting a mic to one. You’d have to decide up front the tempo of your song. This is also one of those things you think you’d be good at, but listening back would tell another story. You would record this click on a non-adjacent channel, like Ch4 until you recorded over it. This click would be your new drummer. You could play your guitar and sing to it, then later put drums on. Once you had the drums, guitar, and vocal on channels 1-3, you’d overwrite the ch4 click with bass.
I never liked click track because it felt so animatronic. Some songs benefit from it stylistically (very slow or spacious songs, as well as songs that gallop at speed, for example). So many things about the click require practicing with it and being comfortable with it. For me, they are difficult to perform to. They tend to rob me of my feeling for the song, even if I practice up.
The idea of a ‘Scratch Track’, or a click track, leads to the one-person band method. A method of recording that’s truly magical in the results.
Method 3 - The One Person Band (with a 4 track)
Let’s imagine for a second you are Stevie Wonder, and you want to record the entire album,“Innervisions” by yourself, playing every instrument. Or let’s imagine for a second you are Paul McCartney and you wanna record “Back in the U.S.S.R.” all by yourself, playing every instrument. Because we are imagining, let’s say you had to use a 4-Track. You’d first have to know how to play all those instruments. Even then, it would be impossible to play the drums, bass, keyboards, guitars and sing all at once.
There are 2 solutions to recording a ‘band’ song by yourself on 4-track. I’ve explored both. They each have a couple options inside them. There are reasons for choosing one or the other, which are driven by the song’s desired feel or complexity. Again, you are going to need a tempo reference to track against and this is a 4-Track we are talking about.
Tempo-Lock - Incorporate and record against a metronomic reference (click track).
Loose - Memorize the song and play drums first.
In the Tempo-Lock method, you have a couple options.
Tempo-Lock Option 1: You would record a click onto a ch4, then layer 3 more channels against it. The final 4th track would destructively overwrite the click track channel. In this method, you could not save the drums to the end, because the click lives on channel 4, and you’d need that for drumming. I found this method produced bad results in a 4 track setting. In digital, you have loads of tracks, so this method is prevalent.
Tempo-Lock Option 2: You would record a click onto a ch4, then immediately record a guitar/vocal to ch3, using ch4 click as a guide. This guitar/vocal would be a ‘scratch track’ on ch3. Then on ch1, you’d record drums listening to ch3 temp guit/vocal and ch4 click. This temp guit/vocal is a song-guide for the drumming, the click a time reference. You want these drums on ch1 to replace the click. So, it’s important that during the drum tracking you make a count in and, if the drums rest in the song, that you play through the rests on the high hat, keeping time with the reference click. Once the drums are recorded into Ch1, you have your new time bedrock: The drums. Ch2 is still untouched. So, before overwriting anything, you’d likely re-record the final acoustic guitar nondestructively on the empty ch2. After that, you’d record over the ch4 click with your vocal. Ultimately, the final thing you’d track would be your bass over the temp guit/vocal ch3.
In the Loose method, you have a couple options.
Loose Option 1: Memorize your song and perform the drums with no reference except your memory into ch1. Immediately following, record the guitar, bass, or vocal or whatever you need to make the song have a more identifiable structure into ch2. Continue tracking out everything else. I loved this method because I liked to sing along with bass and drums. It required a lot of rehearsal. That only made me better at the song when I recorded the parts. This method changed the way I performed the guitar too, reacting to the drums and bass. I also liked that I could speed up and slow down, unconsciously. I don’t like wearing headphones while drumming. It truly gives the song a human feel. When you are recording alone, this is key to selling the magic of a ‘band’ song. I definitely spent hours not knowing what time it was with this approach.
**SHARE AN EXAMPLE HERE RYNO
Loose Option 2: This Method is only quasi-loose. I’d perform an acoustic guitar/vocal scratch track without click reference into ch1. Then I’d practice drumming along to that reference a stupid amount of many times in a row. So many, that I’d memorize it’s tiny idiosyncrasies. Once I felt confident I could lock in, I’d perform the drums to it in a single stressful pass. Because it’s me recording with me, a wild thing would happen. I could lock into to my own funky sense of time. Occasionally it was really off, but many times, it’d be a complete time lock. If I did drift, then I had these ‘close-enough’ drums as a new tempo-guide to re-record everything against. The spooky cool thing about this method is the voodoo time lock when recording alone. You tend to breath at the same moments, etc. It’s a magic. I don’t recommend it.
Getting the music off the 4-Track machine.
Every time I wanted to make a playable tape for the car or walkman, I’d have to connect the 4-track to another cassette recorder and perform a live mixdown. moving the faders, rotating the panners. This mixing log-book had instructions on making those mixdowns. It’s also served as an index of what’s on the tapes. It’s 45 pages deep.
I’d rewind the tape to the beginning, hit the zero-out counter button, and FF to the right spot on the tape.
I’d be moving the faders, rotating the panning wheels, and sometimes using ‘pitch’ knob doing Varispeed effects.
If I was to do any mixing today, I’d return to these balances.
‘Bouncing Down’ or ‘Ping-Ponging’ to get more tracks (extended gear talk)
In the video (way up above) the gentleman says you can increase your track count by making reductive mixes up to 32 times, but with the MT-120, he’s wrong. Indeed, I remember a shop owner in Phoenix pitching this notion of increasing your track count to me and my mom in 1992. It’s a strong selling point, but totally turns your audio into doo-doo. I did it once and wasted an entire day.
If you were naive enough to do it, the max total on the MT-120 would result in 7 independent layers, baked into 4 channels.
You can learn about how Abbey Road engineers pioneered the ‘ganging’ of multiple 4-track machines through electrical current to aid the Beatles the 1960s here. They did do reductive bounces (aka, ping-ponging), but were much more clever at it. Really the fettuccine sized cassette tape is the big problem. It’s like slicing a blueberry into 1/4s - everyone still starves.
In the home 4-track version like mine, you are spilling content from 2 tracks to an available track. So you can only do it twice.
Think about it. Every time you bounce multiple tracks into 1, you are locking off a track. After you lock 2, you only have 2 left, so no more reductions can be made.
All 4 channels of a 4-Track are inherently mono. You’d start off by recording into channels 1-3, either at once or layering in. Once you had those filled, you’d bounce them all into the empty track 4, locking it off. This would mean new material could be recorded into channels 1-2, overwriting what what you bounced into 4. Since 4 is now closed, you have 3 channels remaining, but you need channel 3 as your bounce recipient. So, you’d then overwrite channels 1-2 with new material and re-record/combine/bounce those channels 1-2 onto channel 3, overwriting what was on channel 3.
After this, you be out of space.
Your total number of independently recorded layers would be = 7 channels on 4 mono tracks
Ch1 = layer 6
Ch2 = layer 7
Ch3 = layer takes 4, 5 combined
Ch4 = layer takes 1, 2, 3 combined
Just one reductive bounce down would sound awful–I did it once, then never again.
You will find Part 4, “Technical Notes on a Tiny Medium”, here.
About the author
Ryan OToole (aka, RYNO) is a skateboarder from Arizona with too many film degrees, who writes songs for Pretty City Lights—a new music project based in Seoul, South Korea. His songs have been described as, "alternative rock for people dying of middle age". Formerly associated with the band, Amateur Blonde, his songs have been featured in television and film - notably, The Walking Dead (S10 Ep21). RYNO is the author of Behind The Lights a freemium substack publication, documenting the Pretty City Lights song & album creation process with the slogan, “watch me make music”.