Talk:Multitrack recording

Er - Why?

This article is a long way from being perfect, but one I thought thing it did have going for it was a pretty good structure - first an overview which tells you what multitracking is, then a history of it's development up to and including the advent of affordable home units, a note about the manufacturers of those units, a great contribution from 193.251.135.124 on the use of personal computers for multitracking, a note on the manufacturers of the software, and an endpiece - it works for me.

So, I'm at a bit of a loss to understand the intended purpose of the 17:37, 7 October 2005 edit.... for one thing, putting the providers of the PC software before the discussion of PCs seems to me to be getting it all backwards, and altogether deleting the section about multitrack recorder providers in an article about multitrack recording makes no sense whatsoever, as far as I can see. If there's any kind of reasoning behind this, I'd love to hear it. Meanwhile, I'm reverting. Sorry. :) TheMadBaron 18:47, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Many years passed since this discussion posted, I had cleared some of your bits. gggbgggb December, 2010. —Preceding undated comment added 11:36, 30 December 2010 (UTC).

My explanation

Hi, I'm glad you like the Using a personal computer as a multitrack recording device section. Thanks! The reason for my edit is that the paragraph you are referring to:

Some of the leading providers of multitracking software for a personal computer....

is repeated twice in the article.

If you read the History section's last paragraph you will see it there. Then if you read the Using a personal computer as a multitrack recording device section, you will see it there as well with a slight addition.

I deleted this paragraph from the Using a personal computer as a multitrack recording device section, since it had to be deleted from either one of the two sections.

The reason I deleted it from the Using a personal computer as a multitrack recording device section is because the History section has a line about how multitracking software has been written for personal computers:

At the same time, with the power of the personal computer increasing, multitracking software was written for it ... 

And this is where this paragraph was originally.

If you see the edit differences between my deletion and your addition, you will clearly see the paragraph appearing twice.

If you think that the paragraph belongs in the Using a personal computer as a multitrack recording device section instead of the History section, that works for me too!

Hope you will find my explanation adequate. 193.251.135.124 01:16, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

My bad!

I have just realized that you were right and I was wrong. I think I must have gotten confused because I deleted the multitrackers paragraph thinking it was the multitracking software paragraph. Thanks for your correction! 193.251.135.124 02:50, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Finally, it all makes sense! No problem, and thanks for the explanation. TheMadBaron 12:27, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Concert music

Is it true that classical recordings tend not to be recorded in multitrack before mixing down?

I'd be very surprised if most classical music producers didn't use digital multitracking. They'd be unlikely to record each individual instrument to a seperate track, but recording at least the individual orchestra sections seperately (though simultaneously) on to several tracks would seem to be the obvious way to go about it, and if anyone wishes to dispute this, I'd like to see their sources.

Having said that, recording practises do vary tremendously, and it was still the case in the days immediately before the advent of Compact Disc that classical recordings would sometimes be made without the use of multitracking.

While the average vinyl rock album was less than 45 minutes long, classical music albums could extend to over 30 minutes per side; generally, a noticable increase in hiss is caused if a side exceeds approximately 22 minutes of music. In order to eliminate the possibility of additional tape hiss spoiling listeners enjoyment during the quiter passages (not often an issue with rock music), until the advent of affordable (by record company standards) digital recording, classical albums were sometimes recorded "direct to disc" (there's no article by that name, but there probably should be); rather than tape the performance at all, they'd literally cut the master disc from which the (several intermediate stages occur - mothers and stampers) vinyl LP would be pressed while the orchestra played. The process was time consuming and therefore costly, since the mastering process was something of an art - not only did a mistake by the orchestra mean a spoiled master, but a mistake by the cutting engineer meant the orchestra had to start over from the beginning. The finished products were more aimed at hardcore audiophiles, and often more expensive than albums recorded first to tape.

By the late 1970's, direct to disc recordings were becoming rare; the really fussy classical producers could use the early digital recording equipment (albeit stereo rather than multitrack). Even then, there were issues with digital recording - there was audible distortion, clearly demonstrated by running a signal through an analog to digital converter, running the result through a digital to analog converter, and subtracting that result from the source.

These days, digital recording has improved tremendously, and since most classical music's going to end up on CD anyway, there's not much reason not to digitally multitrack it.

Of course, multitracking an orchestra would require a big mixing desk....

"Audiophiles believe that this complex signal chain degrades the quality of the signal and lessens the spontaneity and integrity of the musical performance....

....Techniques applied by recording engineers who are audiophiles include the use of exotic high-end microphones, the use of a smaller rather than greater number of microphones, tube-driven rather than solid-state electronics, and the minimum amount of processing in the production chain."

So, there are probably still some snobs recording orchestras through a single microphone directly onto gramophone record in the misguided belief that this somehow produces better results than CDs recorded with state of the art digital multitracking equipment. Bloody Luddites. TheMadBaron 23:33, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Classical music is rarely recorded with each section mic'd separately, as described by the writer of the first paragraphs of this section (who apparently is not in the business of classical recording). One stereo pair of microphones is a very popular way to do it; stereo with no further mixing. Often, other mics are used; a spot mic for a specific soloist (especially a singer), one or more additional stereo pairs closer or farther from the orchestra, or rather than a pair, a triple or quintuple set of mics. But individual section mics are uncommon. Blending a small amount of a distant pair with the sound from the main pair is not very similar, conceptually, to modern multitracking as used in popular music, although it's very similar technically. All the pro/anti-digital and pro/anti-analogue diatribes and name-calling are irrelevant. Real high-quality classical recordings are very frequently made with only two microphones, either to analogue tape or a digital medium. It would appear that the writers of the article and many of the comments are simply unfamiliar with classical music and how it is recorded in the 21st century. 4.154.226.171 (talk) 18:15, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

This isn't music discussion page, this is wikipedia editing discussion page. I had done this section, and I'm happy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gggbgggb (talk • contribs) 11:37, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

indeed. there is & should be no "this is the only correct answer & you're all wrong!" nonsense either here or in the article.

many great "classical" (& I abhor that catch-all; do you mean solo voice? string quartet? solo piano? or a 90-piece orchestra? say the one you mean, & please for the love of god stop saying "classical"- it refers not to the orchestration of the performance but to an arcane set of rules governing the composition, the harmonic movement & so forth... /end rant)

ahem. many great recordings were done with one mic, or a blumlein pair (look it up), or otherwise fairly minimal techniques, & typically a published recording will preserve as much of an ensemble performance intact as possible, with some editing of the entire thing afterwards.

the use of multiple mics, though, & some multitrack recording, is & has been widely practiced for decades, not to facilitate "drop-ins" or repairs of individual contributions (this would be near impossible because of the lack of acoustic isolation) but to allow the electronic rebalancing of the levels of different sections of the ensemble (whether this be a choir, an orchestra, a small jazz combo or a string quartet or whatever) so that the producer can make subtle redirections of the listener's attention.

purists may frown on this practice, of course, but to say it doesn't happen is simply misleading.

duncanrmi (talk) 11:14, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

Multitrack or Multichannel

I see both of those here and there. Does anyone know their differences? Agrimia (talk) 23:43, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

@Agrimia

in case this helps someone else a decade or more later…

Mixing consoles have input channels (typically multiples of 8): 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 56.

Tape machines have tracks: 1 (mono mix), 2 (stereo mix), 4, 8, 16, 24, 32, 40. Doug Grinbergs (talk) 17:49, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

to elaborate on that a bit, if I may.... equipment (such as a mixing console with more than two outputs), recording machinery (tape or computer-based) that can record more than one source separately & simultaneously.... this is the *infrastructure* that supports the technique.

whether you refer to this as multitrack or multichannel is not important so long as the context is understood.

that said-

"multichannel" has its own connotations in the context of consumer immersive audio, & that lexicon has its own issues (dolby atmos, for example, prefers to deal in "objects" rather than discreet channels, & thus has a flexible channel count depending on the replay system being used.)

similarly, "multitrack" can refer to tape machines that offer (say) four tracks recorded across the width of the tape, but which are used one at a time or in pairs (for mono or stereo) to increase the storage capacity of the tape. thus they may accomodate four tracks but only one or two actual channels of information at a given time.

duncanrmi (talk) 11:02, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

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False information

Does anyone else read falsities in this article? Norcalangela (talk) 13:23, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

The Wikipedia is made of contributions by a vast number of editors, just like you. If you see a problem, please fix it. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:24, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Problematic pasage

"Before all tracks are filled, any number of existing tracks can be "bounced" into one or two tracks, and the original tracks erased, making more room for more tracks to be reused for fresh recording. In 1963, the Beatles were using twin track for Please Please Me. The Beatles' producer George Martin used this technique extensively to achieve multiple-track results, while still being limited to using only multiple four-track machines, until an eight-track machine became available during the recording of the Beatles' White Album."

If this is a claim that the Beatles on Please Please Me were using twin-track tape in such a way as to 'bounce' material from one track to another, leaving one track always free for recording, then the Please Please Me article seems to support the idea. But the source used there (Lewisohn) is not the one cited here—does George Martin actually make the assertion in All You Need is Ears? Either way, the paragraph could use some rewriting, too. Harfarhs (talk) 16:32, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

agreed. it needs clarification.

there did come a tipping point in the beatles' recording career when their status as artists coincided with the availability at abbey road of a four channel machine; so many publications have variations on the actual details of this, but the technique is an obvious one, & was widely practised from the very early days of multitrack recording. surviving submasters (i.e the first generation multitrack tapes that were bounced down) have yielded useful stems that can be synchronised with the subsequent multitrack derivatives using modern techniques to facilitate remixes, surround mixes & so on.

duncanrmi (talk) 10:50, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

Short description suggestion

Hey Bubba73, I saw you updated the short description on this page. Do you have thoughts about changing it to read “Simultaneously recording multiple independent audio tracks”? I think it’s important that we highlight the simultaneity while also noting that each track is discrete Idontknowwhatshappening (talk) 01:12, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

The tracks are generally not all recorded simultaneously (in fact very rare for the last 55 years). The point of multi-track recording is that you can record some of the tracks and later record more tracks, synchronized to the preceding tracks. However, it is hard to think of a short description that conveys all of that. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:33, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

"very rare"?

no. it is in fact quite common practise for a performance to be captured "live" to multitrack, & for the band members to then replace some or all of their individual parts afterwards, as required.

an example- "won't get fooled again", by the who, was recorded live to sixteen track, with some overdubs & (so far as I could tell) no punch-ins or other repairs.

duncanrmi (talk) 10:45, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Reading Culture

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2022 and 11 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Zurasalad (article contribs).

this bit.... needs a rewrite.

"Multitrack live recording is a lot like gigging"

what? in what way? playing devil's advocate here, to some degree, as I've done lots of both, but this whole section is like a braindump at the moment, lacking detail, citations, whatever, to properly explain the issues of mic placement, rehearsals, subesquent processing.... the differences between a workflow where the intention is to be able to replace a part completely (for reasons of good take, bad take), which requires near perfect isolation from other sounds, & a simpler workflow where perfect isolation is not needed, & the idea is to be able to change the relative balance among the instruments. orchestral recordings don't generally benefit from the former approach, even with significant soloist-led passages, because the important component is an ensemble performance of the whole piece, & because the required acoustic separation simply isn't realistically possible. multitrack recording will enable the producer to shift the balance of sounds after-the-fact, & direct the listener's attention, but little else in this context, & to facilitate immersive mixes (quad, 5.1 & so on). similar considerations attend live multitrack recording of other music, but better isolation of individual instruments & voices is often possible, & replacement of parts more practicable, by dint of the way the sounds are captured (mic vs direct injection of the instrument/amplifier signal).

this, per wp's definitions & rules, requires a decent peer-reviewed account & not these (with the greatest of respect) random scribblings.

duncanrmi (talk) 10:41, 25 April 2026 (UTC)