Live Tracking A Band In One Room

In a lot of scenarios, it so happens that the band may want to track live, either because multi-tracking is a more time-consuming process or because longer studio time may turn out to be too expensive for the band or simply because the band wants to record that way.

- Malik Arshaq

In any case, it’s a lot more challenging to achieve a recording where the tracks sound isolated and clean as opposed to when they’re multi-tracked. This is because, since all the musicians are being simultaneously recorded in the same room, it is inevitable to avoid the mics from bleeding into one another.

‘Bleed’ is basically what happens when a mic assigned to a particular instrument picks up sound from another instrument in the room. This results in the recording of that instrument having a lot of unwanted information, making it difficult to process. The key is to not try to eliminate the bleed entirely but to restrict it just enough to achieve a good recording.