General Music Chat

Ive been playing for years and have a dozen or so original songs that i absolutely love. I want them recorded. And like most things in my life. I will go it alone. But i would love advice!!! Please help me!! Tips and tricks and gear that i should have!! Let me know!!

My personal route was to find a good studio, budget my money and practice, practice, practice. if you record track by track, i.e., instrument by instrument (as I do), paying by the hour can get expensive really fast. Even if these are songs you've played for years, sit down, write 'em out, and leave nothing to chance. This will result in nailing each take efficiently-and save you a bundle of cash.
There are many other options, such as home recording...but I can't help ya with that! LOL!

Good luck to ya, man.

Download audacity. It's a free multitrack recording program. It can use your existing 1/8" stereo audio input jack.

I chose not to go the home recording route. I record at a friend's studio, who cuts me some deals. I usually have a couple of drummers that I use since I couldn't play drums to save my life. If possible some rehearsal time with them before the session saves money. Usually we go in and record three to five tracks with just the rhythm guitar and drums. If there is time at that session I will lay down the bass and additional rhythm tracks, and possibly a scratch vocal track. I get a cd of the board at that point and go study it for a week. I will then return and make corrections/replacements, and maybe record lead tracks. I then get that mix to the vocalist with my crappy vocals as a guide. Once the vocalist is ready to record (a week or two?) we lay the vocal parts down. Eventually the tracks are ready to be mixed, and then finally mastered. As you noticed this process takes some time and money. Expect to pay from $300-500 per song, although I confess to spending $1000 on one song before. But it's all worth it to me. Good luck!

I do mine at home using Audacity, I use a Tascam cassette multitrack unit to get a line signal from a Shure PE35L mic into the line in jack on my sound card. Works great, and I'm going to try it and see if I can run my old Wurlitzer electric piano directly through that instead of an amp, not sure if it will work but I think it will.

You can also just use Windows Sound Recorder and a condenser mic for your practice tracks, or to get a general idea how a song will work, that will help you find out general info about mic placement and so forth. You can also set it up for longewr than a minute by recording silence (turn the mic level all the way down) then save the file, open it and do it again until it's 3 or 4 minutes long. Then use that file to record and asave it with a different filename.

In your opinions. would it be ill advised to utilize home recordings as a promo CD.?

Depends on the quality, sans. Sometimes they're quite good enough to use as a rough demo. I've done it myself with good results.

Yes that goes without saying Philby. The overall quality and apperence of the package ya know. I guess I was just thinking out loud. Was a stupid question. Sorry.

I heard some of our genre' of music on a radio station on my way to the hospital yesterday. I feel our music is much more powerfull than a lot of the stuff they had on the air. Promotion is my responsability, as is lack thereof.

Cash flow has become a more serious consideration for the band and our members of late. Seems satin don't like me standing on the edge of the lake of fire flipping him off.

The only stupid question is the one you don't ask.

I've used home recordings as demos for finding gigs several times. Some were better than others, and I did some I multitracked with a reel to reel and cassette deck that came out decent. Quality and musicianship vary even from one song to the next using the same equipment, so you have to make a dozen sometimes to get two usable tracks.

Just make sure it's actually the current band or close and be picky about sound and recording quality, and don't overdo effects. If the bass player, for example, has been recently replaced, let the listener know, that might not be a major issue while you get new recordings together, but the last band I was in the guy wanted to use recordings made several years before with an entirely different band, and we only played a couple of the songs on the CD, made from a live recording that was not the best I've ever heard to say the least. Wouldn't listen to me and used it anyway...Then again that band was a mess I wished I hadn't fallen into from the word go...