Recording Drums Last Options

[mellotron]

would it be possible to record everything BUT drums to a click track, then burn these files individually to a cd (or better yet just bring the whole external hard drive) so the session will still contain multitrack files, bring all these files to another studio and track the drums to the pre-recorded tracks and click? or would the drums have to be recorded first in order for them to sync with the song?

[Levon River]

It not only can be done, it has been done, but I've never known it to be a picnic for the drummer.

(BTW: I've heard that "Sound of Silence" was an acoustic guitar and Simon and Garfunkel's voices originally--without even benefit of click track--and that the rest of it was all added later. The tempo in that song wanders all over the map. Must have been some fun trying to play to.)

The relative success depends a lot on the music itself, and how well your drummer can split the seam between the click and the vagaries of the instrument tracks. Of course if its multitrack digital audio, you can always edit any real offensively out-of-the-pocket hits (by any instrument or instruments) after the fact, and pull it all together. It's not my idea of fun and games, but definitely doable.