Starting in the Recording Studio

You have time booked at a profesional recording studio? No? You have a four-track at home? You're recording your band in your garage? Are you a MIDI composer and have a little something set up in the den? Whatever category you're in, for this Interactive Remix you must record your source material to a click track. Because Beatnik uses MIDI (musical instrument digital interface), your source material must be recorded or synched to a click track. If you don't record to a click, the loops that you choose may seem to be in time, but won't be guaranteed to be in time. This could get bad later...like, really bad...like, pulling-out-clumps-of-hair bad.

If you have a drummer who hates playing to a click track, try to get them to play in time with the click track just at the beginning of every different section. Since you will only be using one bar (if that) of their performance, you'll have enough from that opening bar to pull off this remix.

Using four ADAT's with a Big Remote Control, or BRC, we synched up with MOTU's Digital Performer and picked a beats-per-minute tempo. Then we tracked the drummer playing to the click in his headphones with live scratch tracks of bass, guitar, keys, and vocals. After doing these tracks, we re-tracked all the instruments one by one, getting really good tones with tube pre-amps and nice microphones. We did all this while letting the players hear the click track good and loud. We told them not to worry about performance too much as we would just pick and choose snippets of good parts (that are in time with the click track) out of which we'd make loops. This can save time and money in the studio; the source material does not have to be a completely precise performance.

If you or your band uses any type of MIDI instrument, you can not only record your instrument to tape (audio track), but you can record your performance data (MIDI data) right into the digital audio/MIDI sequencer you're using. This is the same program that is generating the click track for you. For MIDI enthusiasts, this can work out great; it lets you can quantize the performance to be in time, and apply MIDI effects, and it makes editing a snap.

Our example uses audio loops exclusively, but the more MIDI you use, the smaller your file size will be. Using a mixture of MIDI and audio together can also be quite effective.