I suppose everyone has their own way…
I usually do a click track first.
Then play the song all the way through on a guitar so I know where I am in the song.
That track usually gets tossed after bass, drums, the “real” rhythym guitar, lead guitar, vocals etc are added.
cliff
Click track, that’s the way to go, madmann. Then you can line up whatever you want, stretch loops, etc.
whats a click track? What do I do with it? I know nothing about mixing really.
These days, many, many recordings are played to a click track - a metronomic click that is actually a wav file or a separate track on tape or a midi click track - so that digital editing is really easy.
Somtimes the click is just a click, sometimes it is a basic drum track, sometimes it is a fully realized drum track…actually, anything that can serve as a time keeping function will work.
N-Track has a metronome to use for this, although lots of people use drum loops or VSTi drum machines.
So the upside to using a click is ease in editing.
The downside is that it tends to produce music that doesn’t have much in the way of feel.
Given where you are in the process of learning about all this, here’s what I’d do.
I’d put together the drum loops you want to use so that you have a complete drum track arrangement.
Stick in
loops even where there won’t be drums in the final mix
e.g., where it’s just guitar - these will serve the timekeeping function, and when it comes time to mix everything down, you can just edit out those loops.
Once you have your drum track copmplete, then play the other instruments on top.
The only problem with doing it this way is that you need to have the arrangement all worked out (so many bars intro, so many bars verse, so many bars chorus, so many bars second verse, so many bars bridge, etc.), so you know which loops to put where.