VEGANGELICA

Hello, All,

I would like advice on how best to record drums so that they are in synch with my previously recorded vocals and/or electric guitar tracks using Sony's ACID Music Studio 7.0. The problem is that when I play along with the metronome, the drum tracks always have a delay that is longer than the delay that occurs with the vocals and guitar tracks, which are recorded separately.

I am using a fairly old Highball Unidirectional Dynamic Microphone, which I place down low in between my snare, floor tom and bass, and it does a decent job capturing all the sounds from the drum set. However, when I do recordings in time to the ACID Music Studio metronome (which I listen to through Vic Firth ear protecting ear phones), the actual drum track ends up with a slight delay that is *longer* than the delay that occurs with the guitar and vocal tracks (the guitar and vocals tracks are also always slightly delayed with respect to the metronome).

Since the delay with the drums is longer than with the vocals and guitar, the result is that the 3 tracks (guitar, vocals, and drums) do not line up (although the electric guitar, which I record with the microphone right in front of the amp, lines up with the vocals fairly well).

I have tried to compensate for the longer drum delay in two ways:

(1) When I play the drums, I try to play slightly in advance of the metronome tick (but sometimes this leads to the drums being too early when I overcompensate);

(2) I've tried to use ACID Music Studio 7.0 to add in a few milliseconds of time to the guitar and vocal tracks to delay them with respect to the sluggish drums, but have not gotten this to work. It seems as if all the tracks get the time delay added, and not just the non-drum tracks.

I would appreciate any suggestions you have for easily getting the drums in synch with the other instruments in recordings. I had thought it would be as simple as playing along with the metronome, because I hoped all recordings (drums, vocals, guitar) would have an equal time delay with respect to the metronome tick, but it isn't this simple.

Thanks!

--Erica