The Importance Of Recording Di Tracks

Keeping Your Options Open.

In a world of audio production, were no-one wants to commit to a sound and the choices are infinite, it becomes increasingly clear that a Mixer's work load has increased substantially. Engineers loathe it when they pull up a session they've been sent and find 100+ tracks and no clear distinct path has been chosen for the song. Nothing as bad as auditioning endless guitar, vocal, bass and drum tracks trying to make sense of a jumbled mess. Sometimes these sessions don't even have a finished demo and it's left to the Mixing Engineer to somehow put the jigsaw altogether and create a masterpiece.

So how can you make it easier for all those that come after your tracking and recording, with what you believe, to be the best song in the world? Simple, start recording Di tracks. What are Di tracks? They are simply the dry, unprocessed audio signal without any added effects.

The power of the Di track is several fold. 

 For one if you find out later in the mix that what you believed to be the most awesome capture of your guitar though your favourite amp, is in fact actually unusable or just not fitting the mix, then no problem. If you recorded a Di track it can be re-amped and brought back into the mix. You simply couldn't do this without a Di. You would have to painstakingly re-record everything from scratch. Now you might say what's the problem? Well imagine you were in the moment and you just played the greatest guitar solo you ever played, by having recorded a Di track you can simply be re-amped, recovered and saved. Without the Di all would be lost and trying to remember the exact notes, let alone capture that same feeling and vibe you had originally, is impossible.

 Secondly the Di track can also be advantageous if a studio or mix engineer has better quality gear than you had originally and this allows for re-tracking through their superior equipment without wasted time having to have your mix sent back and re-recording parts and then sending it back to the Mix Engineer again. Time is money after all.
 Thirdly a Di track can help when mixing in your Daw of choice. The transients and audio waveform are much more pronounced and more visual. This makes editing a lot easier to do as things are more precise and easily identified. See the difference below, you can see how easy it is to see the transients of the Di over the processed track.

 Fourthly and by no means lastly, blending in a Di 'd track can enhance the recorded sound and add some presence that may have been lost, adding more realism to the audio.  That's the example shown in the video below.

 As you can see the possibilities are endless but one of the most important things of all, the Di track allows you the musician, recording your composition, to commit to a sound. Having the Di recorded means the door is always open for re-recording without the need for re-recording so to speak. It takes the fear factor out of the equation and worrying 'what if I want to change this later?' question firmly put to bed.
 Committing to a sound will speed up your mix and advance your workflow as well as that of anyone who will work on it later. Believe me your Mix Engineer will love you for committing and offering a Di for any later editing needs or requests. This in turn leads to less tracks in your session and the work load, for the Mix Engineer, becomes greatly reduced.

 In the video I demonstrate blending in two Di tracks to add presence and more realism to two guitar parts originally tracked through a guitar simulation package (Overloud TH3). But this can be done even if you've tracked through quality outboard gear too.