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KevinHi Henning,
Well, whether or not you are the producer, the band should have their shnizzle together. I mean, the drummer has his sound, the guitarist has its sound, etc. Your job is to capture that sound as authentic as possible.
I also prefer to record the whole band together as one take. However, if there are certain instruments like brass section, percussion, backings, add lips, etc. you better do this separately. I also don't see the benefits of recording the solo immediately. You can work yourself in a lot of trouble by doing that, but hey, it's your party.
Some things to think about:
- If you have the space, set up the drummer on a riser.
- Record at least drums, bass, guitars, and keyboards together. If you want, you can record a scratch vocal if you have a separate vocal booth or give the singer an SM58 and let him sit next to you in the control room.
- spend enough time in micing up everything and making headphone mixes.
- Put the musicians in one room, so that they can give signals to each other.
- Put the amplifiers and cabinets in another room, so that they don't bleed into the drum mics and room mics. Heck, set them up outside if you need to.
- Work fast and let the magic happen.
- Musicians are not machines. Even if you record only 4 takes per song, after 2 hours of intensive playing, many musicians have had it. Spread the recording over more days if necessary. If that's not possible, it's better to record 6 songs very well rather than 10 songs worse.
- Get the sound that you want right from the source. So, get the guitar- bass- sound that you want out of the cab's. Tune the drums carefully and regularly. If the drummer uses a piccolo snare, tell him that he doesn't get the snare sound of "The Red Hot Chilli Peppers" that he wants. Put new strings on all the guitars, a day or two before the recording.
- Get the manuals of the keyboards! "Nice sound, but can you mute that delay please?" "Euh... Is that even possible?" : )
- Get copies of the lyrics!
- If you want, you can use reference music. Don't try to copy the sound, but try to make it a lot better!
- Be relaxed! If one song doesn't go very well, just try another song. Never get angry! Talk about something else than music. This takes away the tension.
- Don't project your aesthetics on the band.
- Lastly, and most importantly, HAVE FUN!
Hope this helps.
Kevin