General Music Chat

As some of you know - I'm pretty lame when it comes to recording. I've been struggling with Reaper - to dumb too know what questions too ask, but figured it out by trial and error.

Music and vocal? Well...at least I got them to mix. The vox sadly, is me. I do vocals to describe what I want as a songwriter to the singer. Note that I consider it his starting point, not the end point. But my voice doesn't do the job.

Anyhow - this is called 'I see my death in your faces' and it's my interpretation of Agatha Christie if she wrote from a 'metal' perspective. It's from a thing I'm working on, the segment described thusly: "When people still died 'normal' deaths."

I realize this is not a great recording (quite literally my first mix) and I have caught a few phrasing errors that will seem obvious. What I can't quite figure out - what is this I'm doing genre wise? (I had thought it was metal) It's not quite what I anticipated.

Talbot

It's not on your profile. Is there some place you keep this stuff?

It's the 5th song on his profile player

Aha! Thanks.

Heavy rock maybe? I think you'd do better to get your guitar/music part recorded solidly first - seemed like you were slipping into chords at points like you hadn't quite figured them out. Doing them to a backing drum track (even a repeating loop) would make it a little more cohesive, too.
As your vocals are just a demo for a singer, you may not care about improving them, but if you used a pop filter (make one out of your girlfriend's old pantyhose and a wire hanger or buy a cheap one like this: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pop-filters/musicians-gear-pop-filter ) - it'll help get rid of those pops and also is good to keep you planted at the right distance from your mic when recording - just put your lips right up it, with it set up a few inches from the mic.

Thanks for the tips Mike. Now that I know how to do this (kinda) I'm looking to quality. Been studying up and trying out different drum tracks, midi loops and so on but haven't got it figured out totally yet - I could create such a thing for songs I write, or at least know what they should sound like at a real basic level. Just haven't completed my checklists on steps to create such a thing, use it with other tracks, how looping works in Reaper etc.

Set to play this weekend with a singer plus the two of us. I usually play bass at times like that but take my guitar along to show chords and such when we do new stuff.

Anybody can play guitar. But it takes a real man to play bass!

Talbot

i'd be interested in hearing that again after you get it more developed, mike. some interesting ideas there for sure.

as for genre.....meh. genre schmenre.

Set to play this weekend with a singer plus the two of us. I usually play bass at times like that but take my guitar along to show chords and such when we do new stuff.

Anybody can play guitar. But it takes a real man to play bass!

Talbot

oh, yeah. amen brutha! i've been playing a lot more upright (and acoustic w no amp) these days. it don't get more MANLY than that! hell, just hauling that mofo around...

then again, i played a 2 hr solo gtr corporate gig yesterday and after not doing one of those in awhile.....i felt pretty manly to have gotten thru it w only a few clams.