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Advanced Track Bouncing

© Rick DeCost

There comes a time when the limitations of a four-track become painfully apparent to the home recordist. Perhaps the most obvious is with the necessity of bouncing tracks. A sound engineer in a 64-track studio never has to even consider this obstacle. Nor do they need to consider the outcome of bouncing tracks – mono sound. Simply put, the more you bounce the more your recording faces the danger of a muddy, mono sound.

Let’s look at an example. Suppose you have a song that requires eight individual parts – 3 guitars (2 rhythm, 1 lead), bass, drums, percussion, and two vocalists. Recording the song live will mean that each of your four tracks will contain two parts. That leaves your stereo sound field greatly diminished. The same goes for the approach of recording each part separately. Eventually you hit the four-track wall and it will come time to bounce tracks. Let’s look at this also. Try a few combinations. You can only record two to three parts at a time before having to bounce them to the fourth track. That means a mono sound on the fourth track. Add a couple more parts and then you need to bounce again. Imagine a song with ten parts! Again your sound field suffers. The end result will always boil down to a recording that is inferior to a song produced with limitless tracks to play with.

There is a way around this. You can produce a wide stereo sound placing all eight parts wherever you want them. By applying the skills you’ve learned in recording and mixing simple songs, you can develop more advanced techniques. This is where your four-track really opens up. It requires patience and a good ear. If you have both then you’re halfway there.

How so? Simple. Record your first four parts. Let’s put your two rhythm guitars on tracks one and two, your drums on track three, and your percussion on track four. Uh oh, you just ran out of tracks. You screwed up, right? Wrong. It’s time to take out your mixing deck and mix your four tracks down to a stereo sound that you like. You can place each instrument wherever you want them in the sound field – put the guitars far right and left, the drums a little closer to the center, and the percussion you can pan right and left however you wish. Now that this is done, simply transfer your stereo recording back to the four track by hooking up the left and right outputs of your mixing deck to tracks one and two of your four-track (remember to make sure tracks one and two are set to left and right respectively!). Now you can add two more parts. Add your bass to track three and your lead guitar to track four. See where this is going? Go back to your mixing deck and go through the process again. Transfer it all back to your four track and you now have a stereo mix on tracks one and two containing your first six parts! Now you can concentrate on your two vocal parts. One goes on track three and the second on track four. Now you’re ready for your final, stereo mix.

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