Guitar/Vocals simultaneous - "Missed the Boat" by Modest Mouse cover

[Brian Miller]

Hey everyone,

I have always recorded guitar and vocals separately with great success, and I advocate this technique constantly on the forums. However I am working on an interpretation of "Missed the Boat" by Modest Mouse, a song with great significance in my life, and I'm just in the early demo stages right now. No matter how many times I tried to record the parts separately I just couldn't get the feel of the song right. So finally I decided to record simultaneously, and I'm hoping for some feedback before I go any further.

The primary performance here is the acoustic guitar/vocal performance recorded together (starts 0:18). There is also a vocal double I tracked separately doing the whistling sections and loud choruses later in the song, and a MIDI cello performance that I did very quickly.

Forget about the mixing/production aspects because this is just a demo as I'm getting a feel for how I want to do the final recording (and I can give a much better performance than what is recorded). What do you think about the separation of the acoustic/voice? Thoughts and/or techniques you prefer and would like to share?



Thanks!

Brian

 

[dudernut]

I would suggest covering a better Modest Mouse song…haha kidding. The only weird thing I hear with it is that during the verse, you strum the chords instead of that fingerpicked riff from the beginning of the song. I am sure that makes it easier when singing and playing at the same time. But since you ultimately prefer tracking guitar and vocals separately, I would go ahead and do it with the tricky riff underneath the vocals like it is in the actual song. Otherwise, fine job.

 

[Brian Miller]

Thanks for your feedback dudernut. The reason I strum the verses is because when I play this live it keeps the song moving forward, and also I focus on doing interpretations rather than covers. Still, I have the intention of doing the verse riff with a dirty electric guitar later in the process. There is a lot of instrumentation that I haven't added yet. I want to get the core of the song down before adding stuff. Appreciate you listening!

 

[mjbphotos]

Can't listen now (at work), but when I've been faced with this same type of quandry, I find just laying down the guitar/vocal take as scratch tracks is the best thing, then I can go back and retrack things separately.