Recording Idea

[RLeahey14]

I would like to try and record a professional sounding ep with my current band, I just finished recording our demo with free computer recording and I feel that I can get good sound out of guitars and bass but drums and vocals were lacking.

My idea was that over Christmas break I would record the guitar and bass myself and then try to take our drummer to a studio to record his drums. Now I don't know how studios work but would I be able to take my mp3's of the guitar and bass and mix the drum parts right there to make sure the timing is on, and then just exit the studio with drum tracks, and then I would get the vocals recorded at a studio also.

I'm hoping to post our demo in the CD Releases section by the end of the week, it sounds very raw but since we recorded it our equipment has vastly improved so I feel I could get an improved EP on my own, I'd like to mix the final product myself, so will this work by getting drum tracks and vocals professionally recorded, and how much will this cost? If anyone has any ideas or input please feel free to help. Thanks

[Team Transylvania]

Hey dude, a good set of drum mics will get you a good drum sound. Im all for people doing it themselves. Theres a few places in the area that record music. data music services is one. its an ok place. i recorded there before.
I personally like recording myself. if you are strapped for cash, and cant find a place to record drums and vocals, let me know. I record music and it sounds pretty good. In fact, end of the sun is going to start recording our album, and ill be recording and producing that.

Anyway, good luck, man.

[DrumAndDestroy]

why not just do it all at a studio.

there are engineers that are skilled in every type of music. you might be surprised the bang you could get for the buck.

[RLeahey14]

i dont want to do it all studio because me and our guitarist are able to multitrack like mad, ive never played with someone who can be so spot on before, listen to our demo when we posted it, i recorded 2 tracks of bass one with distortion and one without and our guitarist recorded 4 takes of each guitar part solos included, this gives us a fuller sound doing it this way and i dont feel like paying any money for something that we can do high quality ourselves with a little practice

this one im going to do the bass and my guitar tracks since im trying to make this recording sound more like the band i want, and then our other guitarist is going to do his parts also so we should get a killer guitar and bass sound, and the drums are what worries me... not even the vocals so much as if i was able to get a hold of a quality vocal mic i could even do the vocals myself

and the final reason i want to do it myself is i dont want an engineer messing around with my music, i know i may sound like a dick head, but i dont want my recording turning out like STANGER, and that was a professional engineer, id rather do things my way for right now since im doing this for fun and not for anyone else, i dont want a producer to take away our sound for a radio sound cuz my recordings will never make it to the radio anyway, im realistic.. my friends band took his stuff to a place and it turned his metal songs into like an emo sound, very wierd and not cool at all... so ill stick to my guns and try to make a killer recording that way i can put all the blame on myself not anyone else...

ok im done ranting, haha

[Team Transylvania]

makes sense

[DrumAndDestroy]

i hear what you're saying.

i don't see why you're idea isn't realistic...seems like anything can be acheived nowadays. i would imagine that taking your guitar/bass tracks to a studio and laying down drums tracks would be do-able.

keep us posted on how it all turns out.

[RLeahey14]

yeah ill def keep everyone posted... like i said ill post our original demo this week sometime i just have to work out the levels on some of the tracks

and i guess your right nowadays anything can happen, im going to look into things some more cuz i got a couple months before we have to do the drums

and our demo is in a different tuning than what we usually play our bassist just kinda left right before we recorded the demo and i figured we'd just do the demo as a three piece that way it didnt slow us down any

[Team Transylvania]

If your stuff is better or just sounds better, RERECORD it! you always wanna put your best effot out there. Dont sell yourself short by using old stuff just because its allready recorded. do it right, and you'll be happier with the result.

[RLeahey14]

well i feel this is a solid effort and it stands up with recordings people are posting on here, we just dont have a set lineup that i would like so right now im the only contributing songwriter which doesnt bother me because it gives me more freedom to experiment with different things and develop my own style..

im tired of waiting around cuz we tried to record last year and it sounded like shit so my new strategy is to just keep recording as i keep writing songs which is only going to make me more proficient at both..

[Banned]

If you plan to use the existing guitar and bass, were the original takes recorded to a click track or metronome? Otherwise you might have to deal with natural variances in the timing. That could make it tough for the drummer to "groove" while re-recording.

[Ron]

Like Jimi mentioned, if you don't have a click track on a separate track, then you will spend more studio time, (and frustrating time at that), trying to sync up the live drums to the guitar and bass. You'd be better off re-recording the entire session.

I also see that the guitar and bass tracks are in mp3 format. If you don't have the original multi-track, then can the whole idea. Once the drums enter the mix you won't be able to adjust the guitar/bass as separate tracks, and will probably create mix-down issues. Mp3s are also compressed digital tracks made more for small size than sound quality, so the sound quality of the final guitar and bass tracks will also suffer.

[RLeahey14]

i have no idea what a click track is...

i would record the guitar and bass with a metronome and the mp3 mix would just be set up with a metronome on the mp3 also so our drummer has the tracks so he can play along with them, and then we will use the mp3 there to do a sample mix to make sure that the timing is on with his drum tracks...

ill have the original versions at my home so that i can mix them myself...

and it doesnt really matter if the drums are perfect the whole time if there are slight ups or whatever it doesnt matter, that will just add a little dynamic to the track... i dont want to us to sound like a machine...

and if weve been playing these songs for months then our drummer should be able to play along with the track with out slowing down or speeding up... isnt that what a drummer is for anyway?? keeping time??

i dont know honestly i dont play drums, but if me and the other guitarist are able to multitrack our stuff spotless then the drummer should be able to lay down at least one track that mixes perfect with the track??

[songsmith]

i have no idea what a click track is...

iand it doesnt really matter if the drums are perfect the whole time if there are slight ups or whatever it doesnt matter, that will just add a little dynamic to the track... i dont want to us to sound like a machine...

and if weve been playing these songs for months then our drummer should be able to play along with the track with out slowing down or speeding up... isnt that what a drummer is for anyway?? keeping time??

i dont know honestly i dont play drums, but if me and the other guitarist are able to multitrack our stuff spotless then the drummer should be able to lay down at least one track that mixes perfect with the track??

The short answer: no.
Try this experiment: Have someone sit near your computer with a set of headphones. Start a track on the computer. You play along for the intro and first verse. Then have the friend plug in the ehadphones and listen to them while you continue to play the song on your own. Watch him laugh as you get further and further away from what's on the track. Towards the end of the song, have him unplug the headphones and let you hear how far off you got. I've done it, if I wasn't trying to get some work done, it'd be hilarious.
In order to get a good product, you'll most likely have to rerecord. If you had started with the drums, you'd probably be okay, but you're working backwards... it can be done, but it's kinda like driving from Altoona to Bellwood... in reverse gear.
A click track IS a metronome, in fact, on my home stuff, I just record a cheap Quicktime metronome for 5 minutes on the first track, or have it on while I'm laying down a scrub track (a scrub is a reference track you use to know where you are in the song... you simply play the song onto one track without worrying about sound quality, record all your other tracks for real, including good tracks, then get rid of, or "scrub" the reference track). Playing to a click track may seem like it would take the "live" feel away, but it doesn't... if you follow it. It also makes editing worlds easier. You can take the best verse part you played, for instance, and copy and paste it over a verse you didn't do so well. Before you say that's not how they do that, well, yeah it is... studios did that even back when everything was on tape, it was just a lot harder to do then.
Also, if it's on mp3, it's not going to sound very good on a decent stereo. mp3's, like Ron said, are just compressed files, made small so you can fit lots of them on your Ipod. They're not even close to CD quality. You'll be amazed at the difference you hear when you squash your songs like that. Of course we all do that, but just to get the songs on Myspace or whatever. Make sure you save all final mixdown takes as .wav files, at least 16-bit, at least 44.1kHz, otherwise you may as well record them with a boombox, they won't sound any worse. Don't skimp, or rush yourself. Most home recordings take a long time to do... you're not paying for studio time, so you have all the time in the world, and anybody here can tell you about how they regret not spending more time on a recording. Look at it this way: every minute you spend working on getting the best recording, is a minute less you spend apologizing to people listening for not having the best production. Good luck!-------->JMS

[DrumAndDestroy]

i agree with ron on the click track.

though, i have heard of some people preferring not to use one.

even the best of guitarists fudge timing sometimes. same with drummers. the click track is just a virtual metronome to keep everyone on time with each other.

so even if you and the guitarist think you're playing spot on...you might not be. remember, what sounds dead on to you might still be off time with everything else...and you will be able to tell on the finished product.

[RLeahey14]

aight yeah ive had someone explain a click track to me before.. i just didnt know that was the name for it haha

and yeah i know what youre talking about having a hard time overdubbing and multitracking, just listen to blizzard of ozz with some headphones and you can hear all the mistimings the great randy rhoads had pretty much in everysong...

and yeah i did the headphone thing playing along with it at first its real hard to stay with it... but trust me its easy to practice that til youre good with youre timing, if school wasnt pounding me so hard this week id already have our demo up here, but listen to that because we basically used the same strategy just without the best mics on the drums..

i actually didnt think our guitarist was practicing so we recorded 4 tracks of guitar for each songs and i wanted to mix them and show them how far they were off so we could motivate him but i was mistaken and they mixed perfect except for one mistake here or there which is over powered by the three other tracks so its almost inaudible, but i know where they are, like one of the bass tracks i took an extra second to switch my phase shifter off and switch to my distortion pedal and it sounds like the bass cuts out for a second in one of the songs and for the one bass solo/fill type thing on one of the tracks i did vibrato instead of bending which adds some character i think so i kept it underneath...

so you guys will have to be the judge and let me know what you think, i know some of the sounds on our demo are off because we recorded in different environments with different equipment the whole time and some songs/parts sound better than others in my opinion.. but you only learn by trying things...

[metalchurch]

Rich, sounds awesome, i can't wait to hear it, when do you think you will have it done?

Since you are in the process of building a rack, it might be a good idea after all to re-record all of your music.

Since you said that they were all recorded with different setups, and in different places, and different times.
While that might be a good thing, having different flavors, it might also be more beneficial in the long run to have your current sound and setup recorded.

And you'd have your own personal sound on it as well.
Just a little tit for tat.
More tit than tat of course, can't go wrong with the boobies!

I liked the demo that you sent me last week, that was real cool.

Anyway, good luck with the recording.

[songsmith]

Another bit of wisdom: Learn your song FIRST. Write it, then practice the crap out of it, until everything's right every time. I usually practice a lick until I can play it flawlessly 5 times in a row, which, due my inability to play well, takes a long time. This hint really pays off when you're using a pro studio (it cuts way down on record time), but also helps in the home studio because you're more confident when you know the tune well, and rock and roll without confidence is... well, it's gay.
Now obviously, lots of bands write in the studio, but they usually have a record company paying the bill, and it freaking takes months to record. Best bet is to rehearse it a lot. My best-known rock band weren't great musicians, but we were excellent "rehearsers," we didn't dick around too much at practice, and that focus paid off. We could go into Hazelnut Studios, lay down 5 or 6 songs in an afternoon, mix them down the next day, and have maybe $500 in the whole recording... and that stuff was tape-traded all over the world (the 80's equivalent of p2p networks), and was actually played quite a bit on radio. Sure, it could have been engineered better, but it did what we wanted it to, and it was cheeeeap. The quality's up to you, though.
I wish we'd had the opportunities available to young bands now. There was no home-recording then, save for some hissy 4-track cassette decks that cost more than a digital 8-track does today. Hell, I have a Tapco USB interface with 2 decent mic pre's on it that records better than all but the very best studios did back then, and it streets at $159.95. Even if we had that stuff, there was no internet to research how to use it, or distribute the product once we recorded it. A $5000 budget got eaten up very quickly back then, and that was 1988 prices, when gas was $1.15 a gallon and rent was $200 a month. For 5 grand now, I could record 10 songs at Bill Filer's AND get 1000 CD's with shrink and UPC's. And they'd be awesome quality.
I feel really old now. I'm doing the "kids these days..." routine. This is me, shutting up. ------->JMS

[floodcitybrass]

It could be mix down problem. For example: EQ, compression, effects.


How many tracks did you record?
And what software are you using?

[RLeahey14]

aight well our first recording is officially done, its very old school sounding, and it was done the way i descibed above (except we recorded everything ourselves), our band name is Lashur, you can listen to it here:

www.myspace.com/lashurmusic

[MeYatch]

did you record the vocals with an old gym sock?

[RLeahey14]

the vocals were rough to record which is why for our next recording i want someone else to do them and yes we covered the mic with various pieces of clothing because of the outside noise it was picking up and it would create a popping sound when i sang some of the words...

and we noticed that on some stereos it sounds better than others because on some that cant handle the amount of bass in our recording causes the vocals and some other parts of the recording to become distorted so i know exactly what you are talking about haha

[MeYatch]

Thats really funny, it wasn't a serious guess.

I don't mean to be a super critic, but there's no way I'd be satisfied with that recording. I've gotten better results with a single microphone placed in a corner of the room.

What kind of mics are you using?

[RLeahey14]

it was a shure, not sure the make or anything like that

and honestly i am actually pretty happy with that recording, it has an old school feel to it and thats what we were going for, the next recording we do i have a totally different idea for and if it turns out the same then i will be severely disappointed with it.. but for now i really like what we accomplished

[songsmith]

Metal Ward sounds pretty old-school, I liked it overall. There are timing issues, though... the drummer speeds up some coming out of fills. It's easy enough to catch up live, but on a multi-track the problem just keeps adding up. That's one of the reasons I suggested using a click-track or metronome. It keeps drummers honest (they often don't realize they're doing it). It's not the end of the world, I still slow down coming out of certain fills I play, so I'm not pointing a finger.
The vocals are pitchy as well on some songs. Again, I do that too, just not quite to that extent.
Overall, it reminds me of my first rock band, Blytz... raw and young, and you can hear that the musicians are having fun playing... like you can hear when someone is smiling as they talk on a telephone. Cool!---->JMS