Matthew Walsh
New member
It has been a whole YEAR-plus since my last post. Man!
Anyway, I figured I'd consult you guys before I sat down for recording an album-length project in my li'l MIDI studio. I'm trying to do an album-length project with vocals. The TRICK is, I can only play boards, so I've tracked everything in MIDI: guitars, drums, bass, acoustics and everything else. Over the last couple of years, I've experimented with trying to record stuff like real instruments. In other words, I split the drum kit into mono kick, mono snare, mono specialty percussion, like tambourines, side stick, cowbell, etc., stereo "overheads" and stereo toms, then, record stuff in mono that would actually be recorded in mono, like acoustic guitars, electric guitars and bass (by unplugging the stereo output and recording those keyboards in "mono mode"). HOWEVER, my question becomes ... sometimes, that stuff is recorded "for real" in stereo. I'm in a quandry right now because, I'll track a guitar via MIDI in stereo and it will sound fine. Some of those guitars have built in chorus, overdrive and reverb, though I don't get as much spread in the audio recording as I would if I laid down two mono guitar parts and panned them hard left and hard right (and nudging either the right or left track a bit forward to get a slight delay). So ... what's the proper way to do all this? Can you record a stereo guitar, even if the spread isn't quite as vast as the more traditional two-mono guitar track system? Is that acceptable?
I've also recently been planning out this project, realizing that you have to envision how the "band" is laid out on the sound stage, so I think of it in terms of, when I would record a stereo guitar, that would be our pretend lead singer playing the guitar part, and when I record two mono guitars and pan 'em hard left and right, that would be two accompanying guitarists and the lead singer's got his/her hands free. My panic is consistency for the overall album -- if one song's guitar is stereo but not as spread as another song which has two independent guitars (or three, if I also drop in an acoustic or have two distorted rhythm tracks and one clean electric or whatever combination). Should I just relax and do what I feel? Or is there a protocol for all this?
Anyway, I figured I'd consult you guys before I sat down for recording an album-length project in my li'l MIDI studio. I'm trying to do an album-length project with vocals. The TRICK is, I can only play boards, so I've tracked everything in MIDI: guitars, drums, bass, acoustics and everything else. Over the last couple of years, I've experimented with trying to record stuff like real instruments. In other words, I split the drum kit into mono kick, mono snare, mono specialty percussion, like tambourines, side stick, cowbell, etc., stereo "overheads" and stereo toms, then, record stuff in mono that would actually be recorded in mono, like acoustic guitars, electric guitars and bass (by unplugging the stereo output and recording those keyboards in "mono mode"). HOWEVER, my question becomes ... sometimes, that stuff is recorded "for real" in stereo. I'm in a quandry right now because, I'll track a guitar via MIDI in stereo and it will sound fine. Some of those guitars have built in chorus, overdrive and reverb, though I don't get as much spread in the audio recording as I would if I laid down two mono guitar parts and panned them hard left and hard right (and nudging either the right or left track a bit forward to get a slight delay). So ... what's the proper way to do all this? Can you record a stereo guitar, even if the spread isn't quite as vast as the more traditional two-mono guitar track system? Is that acceptable?
I've also recently been planning out this project, realizing that you have to envision how the "band" is laid out on the sound stage, so I think of it in terms of, when I would record a stereo guitar, that would be our pretend lead singer playing the guitar part, and when I record two mono guitars and pan 'em hard left and right, that would be two accompanying guitarists and the lead singer's got his/her hands free. My panic is consistency for the overall album -- if one song's guitar is stereo but not as spread as another song which has two independent guitars (or three, if I also drop in an acoustic or have two distorted rhythm tracks and one clean electric or whatever combination). Should I just relax and do what I feel? Or is there a protocol for all this?
