Also, in terms of instruments, what should I record first? I am doing all guitars and vocals and my friend is doing bass. We have a drum machine and programmed synths.
When to record..
Okay I am working on an album of old school themed metal, and I have most of the material written. My question is, should I finish writing all the material and then record the songs in a succession of recording sessions, or record them as I finish writing and practicing them?
Also, in terms of instruments, what should I record first? I am doing all guitars and vocals and my friend is doing bass. We have a drum machine and programmed synths.
Also, in terms of instruments, what should I record first? I am doing all guitars and vocals and my friend is doing bass. We have a drum machine and programmed synths.
# 1
If you are going to mic up an amp or cab then it is better to record all of the parts for all of the tracks at the same time - at least if you want to have the same guitar tone throughout the entire album. Same goes with the drums.
If you are recording direct though, the beauty is that you can go to the studio once a year and use the same settings and guitar and it will always sound the same.
You recording at homeor in a studio with an engineer? If its in a studio then you should wait a couple of months before commiting to a session - the tracks should grow and change with practice. If it's at home and you are recording direct then that is no problem, just jump back in and make the fix or add the new section as you please. It's much easier to arrange at home, then when you are 100% happy you can book studio time. A word of warning though, it is very time consuming in a studio so unless you have the parts down 100% and can nail them within a couple of takes you will waste all of the time trying to do punch ins where you could have been getting the engineer to work on the mix (speaking from experience). I only go to the studio now when I can play each track and solo through without making any mistakes so I can make the engineer work on the mix and not waste valuable time on editing.
Hope that helps.
If you are recording direct though, the beauty is that you can go to the studio once a year and use the same settings and guitar and it will always sound the same.
You recording at homeor in a studio with an engineer? If its in a studio then you should wait a couple of months before commiting to a session - the tracks should grow and change with practice. If it's at home and you are recording direct then that is no problem, just jump back in and make the fix or add the new section as you please. It's much easier to arrange at home, then when you are 100% happy you can book studio time. A word of warning though, it is very time consuming in a studio so unless you have the parts down 100% and can nail them within a couple of takes you will waste all of the time trying to do punch ins where you could have been getting the engineer to work on the mix (speaking from experience). I only go to the studio now when I can play each track and solo through without making any mistakes so I can make the engineer work on the mix and not waste valuable time on editing.
Hope that helps.
# 2
hmm... if you had a full access account I could point you to several multitrack tutorials I've written taking you through the whole process.
Obviously, there's many different methods of songwriting and recording but my general method is to use the recording software as a writing tool.
I set up Cubase with an empty page and the first step I do is go through my entire hard drive looking for some drum loops to inspire me.
So basically I'll randomly pick a certain BPM, like 120BPM for instance.
Then I'll use a search utility to go through all my hard drives looking for anything at that speed. (luckily I've spent many years cataloguing my loops so they're relatively simple to find)
Once I get a list of several hundred loops I'll drop them into a program called "AudioFinder" that lets me listen to each loop very quickly, look at the waveform and get a general estimate of how many bars each loop contains.
When I find a loop I like, I'll drag it temporarily to the desktop.
Then I'll just keep doing that until I have a whole ton of drum loops, rhythms, guitar loops etc.
Next step is to drag and drop all those loops into Cubase and mute them.
Then I go through them one at a time and start picking and choosing loops that fit together. Keeping in mind to keep some kind of song structure in mind (intro, verse, chorus etc).
Once I have a complete 4 minute song copied and pasted containing all those various loops I'll start jamming on the guitar or guitar synth coming up with ideas.
From there, the song almost starts to write itself.
I think of it like painting a canvas or doing a sculpture.
I'll drag and drop stuff around in the song. Record guitar parts and temporary vocals. Add synths or prerecorded royalty free sound effects.
Then maybe a week later I'll have the basic draft of a song and a fare idea of where I'm going to take it.
At the same time, I'm also using a program called MasterWriter to organize my lyrical thoughts.
Once the song is at the point where it feels like it's completed.
I'll go back and start replacing all the temporary tracks with either real instruments or better quality loops.
So for instance, instead of using a guitar loop I grabbed off the hard drive, I'll rerecord it live... maybe double it up on a second track and then use Amplitube and other plug-ins to blend it into the song.
For lyrics you can begin by just setting up your mic to the background music and mumbling nonsense words. Just sing whatever comes to mind with all the emotion behind it and do several tracks over the course of a week or so.
Then go back later and listen to what you did.
While you're listening to yourself you start to find actual lyrics to replace the mumbling that you originally did.
If you're lucky, you can even come up with something that makes sense, fits the music and appeals to a wide audience with some kind of universal experience that people can relate to.
Then you just keep going back over the song improving on each track, re-recording instruments and doing like you'd do with a painting or sculpture...giving it the final touches that (hopefully) turns it into a masterpiece and not just another piece of art.
The next to last step is to put it away for awhile so that you can come back to it later with a fresh perspective.
Then you go in and mix the song down. In most cases you end up removing tracks entirely, or editing it down...doing several alternate mixes..
The final step once you've taken the song as far as you can take it, is to master it. Which is a whole other subject.
Personally I use T-Racks to adjust the EQ slightly to give it more top end or drop a bit of the mids out to make it sound less harsh. (or any number of other things)
Then I add compression to even out the sound a little and bring up the volume so it has more punch.
Then I add a limiter so that it doesn't clip and maybe some additional stereo separation.
(at this point you have to be careful not to 'brick wall' the entire tune. It's very easy to compress and boost a song so much that it loses all it's dynamics. It might sound ok on an iPod or the radio but on a decent stereo system it will sound like crap and tire your ears very quickly)
Then you do the most awful step.... take your nice clean, high quality .wav file and convert it to crappy MP3 so you can distribute it on the web.
Always try to convert at 320kbps if possible and avoid 128kbps unless absolutely necessary.
Anyways...long post ... this is just one way to write a tune...
Other times I've just come up with something on acoustic and almost had the song completed in my head before I even touch a recorder.
Other times, you come up with songs from riffs you come up with....
Basically just do whatever works for you. :)
If you have Full Access check out my lesson tutorials on multitrack recording. Once again, a lot of them are a few years old and in need of updating (which I'll be doing in the next few months). But regardless, even though I'm using an old Mac G3, the methods are still the same and it'll give you a good idea listening to the various audio files as the songs progress.
Obviously, there's many different methods of songwriting and recording but my general method is to use the recording software as a writing tool.
I set up Cubase with an empty page and the first step I do is go through my entire hard drive looking for some drum loops to inspire me.
So basically I'll randomly pick a certain BPM, like 120BPM for instance.
Then I'll use a search utility to go through all my hard drives looking for anything at that speed. (luckily I've spent many years cataloguing my loops so they're relatively simple to find)
Once I get a list of several hundred loops I'll drop them into a program called "AudioFinder" that lets me listen to each loop very quickly, look at the waveform and get a general estimate of how many bars each loop contains.
When I find a loop I like, I'll drag it temporarily to the desktop.
Then I'll just keep doing that until I have a whole ton of drum loops, rhythms, guitar loops etc.
Next step is to drag and drop all those loops into Cubase and mute them.
Then I go through them one at a time and start picking and choosing loops that fit together. Keeping in mind to keep some kind of song structure in mind (intro, verse, chorus etc).
Once I have a complete 4 minute song copied and pasted containing all those various loops I'll start jamming on the guitar or guitar synth coming up with ideas.
From there, the song almost starts to write itself.
I think of it like painting a canvas or doing a sculpture.
I'll drag and drop stuff around in the song. Record guitar parts and temporary vocals. Add synths or prerecorded royalty free sound effects.
Then maybe a week later I'll have the basic draft of a song and a fare idea of where I'm going to take it.
At the same time, I'm also using a program called MasterWriter to organize my lyrical thoughts.
Once the song is at the point where it feels like it's completed.
I'll go back and start replacing all the temporary tracks with either real instruments or better quality loops.
So for instance, instead of using a guitar loop I grabbed off the hard drive, I'll rerecord it live... maybe double it up on a second track and then use Amplitube and other plug-ins to blend it into the song.
For lyrics you can begin by just setting up your mic to the background music and mumbling nonsense words. Just sing whatever comes to mind with all the emotion behind it and do several tracks over the course of a week or so.
Then go back later and listen to what you did.
While you're listening to yourself you start to find actual lyrics to replace the mumbling that you originally did.
If you're lucky, you can even come up with something that makes sense, fits the music and appeals to a wide audience with some kind of universal experience that people can relate to.
Then you just keep going back over the song improving on each track, re-recording instruments and doing like you'd do with a painting or sculpture...giving it the final touches that (hopefully) turns it into a masterpiece and not just another piece of art.
The next to last step is to put it away for awhile so that you can come back to it later with a fresh perspective.
Then you go in and mix the song down. In most cases you end up removing tracks entirely, or editing it down...doing several alternate mixes..
The final step once you've taken the song as far as you can take it, is to master it. Which is a whole other subject.
Personally I use T-Racks to adjust the EQ slightly to give it more top end or drop a bit of the mids out to make it sound less harsh. (or any number of other things)
Then I add compression to even out the sound a little and bring up the volume so it has more punch.
Then I add a limiter so that it doesn't clip and maybe some additional stereo separation.
(at this point you have to be careful not to 'brick wall' the entire tune. It's very easy to compress and boost a song so much that it loses all it's dynamics. It might sound ok on an iPod or the radio but on a decent stereo system it will sound like crap and tire your ears very quickly)
Then you do the most awful step.... take your nice clean, high quality .wav file and convert it to crappy MP3 so you can distribute it on the web.
Always try to convert at 320kbps if possible and avoid 128kbps unless absolutely necessary.
Anyways...long post ... this is just one way to write a tune...
Other times I've just come up with something on acoustic and almost had the song completed in my head before I even touch a recorder.
Other times, you come up with songs from riffs you come up with....
Basically just do whatever works for you. :)
If you have Full Access check out my lesson tutorials on multitrack recording. Once again, a lot of them are a few years old and in need of updating (which I'll be doing in the next few months). But regardless, even though I'm using an old Mac G3, the methods are still the same and it'll give you a good idea listening to the various audio files as the songs progress.
# 3
