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The best tracks don’t just come together on their own. To really get in the mix, you’ll want to pick up a multitrack recorder.
“A multitrack recorder allows you to record one or more sources of sound at the same time to separate tracks, and then later process and mix these tracks independently,” explains Justin DeLay, a marketing director at online music community and gear buying site, Reverb. “[It’s] something that’s crucial for maximizing the sound quality of your recordings.”
For instance, say you want to record a band with vocals, guitars, a keyboard, bass, and drums. With a multitrack recorder, the singer’s microphone, the output of the guitars and keys, and each individual drum in the kit can be recorded independently. That gives you the ability to tweak each track separately — say, turning up the voice or turning down the cymbals — before mixing the track together into your final masterpiece.
“At its most basic, a multitrack recorder works like a traditional tape recorder,” DeLay explains. You hit a button and the recorder starts capturing all audio that is played into it, whether from a microphone, instrument or other sound source. When you are done recording, you hit stop and you can play back the sounds you just recorded. A multitrack recorder also lets you edit, mix and add effects to your track. It’ll also let you edit separate sections of a track without having to load and play the whole song each time.
While you can record directly onto your computer, you often have to add a solid sound card, preamps and other components in order to start putting your tracks together. With a multitrack recorder, everything you need is in the box.
“The benefit of a multitrack recorder is that multiple sources of sound can be plugged in and the sounds can be captured independently,” DeLay says. “Each microphone, instrument, etc. are plugged into one of the available inputs on the recorder.”
“After recording, most multi-tracks allow you to further tweak track volumes, as well as overdub, erase, or add more to your recording,” he continues. “Depending on the features of the multi-track recorder, you may be able to add effects, adjust panning and more.”
