Since most folks here seem to do rap and hip-hop, I'll tell you the way I record when I'm working with a rap/hip-hop artist.
Generally, the beatmaker will bring in his MPC/Motif/Triton/Whatever with his sequences. I'll bring my good gear to the session. We'll track out the individual instruments. If a part wants more (say, a horn section) I'll route MIDI from his (for example) horn track to my pieces and bring up a nice horn section to stack. If it's a synth bass, it often gets replayed on the Moog. If we're using the Moog, I'll record one pass, retune the oscillators and record another pass. Sometimes I'll get low bass with one pass and a higher, nasal bass with the next bass. (That way, I have control during mixdown: if I want to bring up the presence of the bass, I can bring up the level of the nasal bass, and not mess with the EQ on the main bass.)
Done? Vocalists have their parts written? Time to lay down the hook. Sometimes this is one guy, sometimes it's two guys trading off parts, sometimes it's a solo singer, sometimes it's harmonies. I record each part 3 times. If it's a dense hook with lots of trading parts, I record only 2 passes of some parts (I'll thin them out more during mixdown, too, to put them in a different space.)
Hook done? Snip out any paper rustling/coughs, etc. How long are your verses, guys? "16 bars." "But we're at 70bpm! That makes over 5 minutes with all three of you doing verses. I thought we want this on the radio!" "Damn! Okay, give us 12-bar verses. (or "Give us two 16-bar sections; we'll trade off two guys for the second verse." Paste copies of the hook where they need to be in the song. (Don't forget to move your instrumental arrangement around to follow them, if you need to!) This way, the vocalists can feel how they're coming into and out of the hook while they perform (and avoid messy overlaps, too!)
Time for verses. I usually like to have at least two mics set up in the vocal booth. I like to use a bit of hardware compression. An 1176 set for fairly fast response, and fairly aggressive compression alongside an LA-2a set medium conservatively for the other mic makes me happy.
First vocalist: One pass onto two mono tracks, with both mics recording. I pan these tracks center (and use the same idea as the bass: want brigeter? bring up the brighter mic.) Was that take perfect? If not, make it perfect. Can't get it after a few tries? Let another vocalist do his verse. Stack it twice, using only the brighter mic. In mixing, I'll pan one of these pretty hard left and the other one pretty hard right. Now, lay two ad-lib tracks using the duller mic (again, to make mixing easier later. I pan one medium-left and the other medium-right, after cutting out the bass and boosting the high-mids.) Repeat with the other vocalists and their verses.
Have somebody run down to that BBQ joint on the corner. Half a chicken for me, please, and collard greens, not cabbage. Get whatever y'all want for yourselves.
Bring in a second set of ears (if you can) who hasn't heard the project yet. You hear anything that needs to be fixed? Okay, let's mix it.
Get good tones (you've been thinking about this part since you tracked out the music, and you did a lot of the work when you selected what sounds to record, and whether or not to EQ them on the way in.). Does the song need any drop-outs? Put 'em in by snipping out different instruments in 8-bar sections (or 1-bar or 1-beat cutouts... whatever.) Set up some delays and automate the send from the vocals to the delays to acent certain words.
Bounce it down. Burn a CD from it. Check it in the car. Check in in the home stereo. Check it in the club. Check it on somebody's old busted boom box. Can you hear all the vocals? Can you understand all the words? Is the bass bangin' like it needs to be?
Back to the studio, make any changes and bounce it again.
Now, time for stems. Mute everything but the Kick. Bounce it down. Now mute everything but the snare/clap/snap. Bounce it down. Mute everything but the rest of the percussion and bounce it down. Mute everything but the bass. Bounce it down. Mute everything but the other keys and bounce it down. Same for Verse Vocals, Hook Vocals and Guest spots (your mixtape guy doing an intro, whatever.) The idea is that now anybody, at any studio, using any software can pull up the same mix, no matter what plugins they have, or what audio system they're using. So if you need to bleep out a curse word, or remove that Guest Star because he tried to sue you, you just edit the stem, and bounce the song again with all faders at 0 and no EQ, and you get the same mix. No sense paying for more studio time when you can fix stuff at home, right?
There ya go. That's how one guy does it, who's been doing it for a while. Hope it helps.
-Hoax
