John here. 59 years old, been playing guitar and performing in classic rock, variety and blues bands since I was 14. Mostly the rhythm guitarist, but some leads, and am going through time investment learning to become a much better lead guitarist. Also sing primary and harmony (not so good, but no one ever complained to me so far).
Retired in October with 35 years, last 25 years in IT, want to start a band that plays good driving blues. Keys, drums, bass, 1-2 rhythm guitars, lead guitar, possible front person singing all the tunes. No problem, been there, done that. With all previous bands, we have always had good sound techs that recorded our music. Last band evaporated about a year ago, and I thought it would be cool to record a 10 song "resume" by playing guitar and singing against backing tracks. Hey, I was in IT, simple, right? Was I wrong or what!
Did some research on audio interfaces, went with AudioBox (one xlr, on guitar line in but I don't use that, I just mic the amp). Should have got one with two xlr and two guitar in but that's ok for now. Studio One Artist comes free with the hardware, but it seemed a bit daunting out of the box,and the help kind of useless, so I was told by another guitarist to try Audacity. Recorded a couple songs against imported backing tracks in Audacity, cool, it works but I found myself struggling with an better but still quirky interface. Tried Ableton Live, I couldn't even get the guitar signal to show up in the software!
Went back to Studio One Artist since the HW manufacturer seemed to support that well enough, and have been forcing myself to understand the modifying and editing of guitar tracks, and will work with added voice tracks next. Ok, I'm good with this approach but two questions for this part:
1. Where can you get good quality backing tracks that actually match studio released music (the right intro, verses, chorus, outro)? Willing to pay.
2. Do any backing tracks let you separate the actual instrument tracks?
With this approach I can satisfy Part One.
Now Part Two
Once I started getting the hang of things, I have to admit that for the first time in my life I wanted to experiment creating my own riffs and songs! Better late than never. Studio One lets me capture lots of riffs that might come in useful some day. Cool. But I hit the wall with drum tracks.
1. Let's take a simple 12 bar blues? With these small drum loops, how in the heck do you create a full drum track against the 12 bars, complete with fills, changes in intensity, adding intro, adding outro? Where is the damn manual for this approach? I don't play drums and can't say I ever attempted it, so how do you even start?
2. Same goes for bass. I'm happy to simulate a bass on my guitar, and can get away with riffs, but how do you change the guitar signal to emulate a bass and possibly the cabinet/amp as well?
3. Guess I should throw keys in there too! I can't play piano, so am I able to emulate this?
For drums and bass, I think my Digitech Trio+ drum/bass line generator and looper can give me a partial, half ass solution to drums and base. For now, but I would really like to figure out the building a drum track on my own when I start drifting to new song ideas...
Thanks so much, hopefully the length of this wasn't too much a turn off.
John
Retired in October with 35 years, last 25 years in IT, want to start a band that plays good driving blues. Keys, drums, bass, 1-2 rhythm guitars, lead guitar, possible front person singing all the tunes. No problem, been there, done that. With all previous bands, we have always had good sound techs that recorded our music. Last band evaporated about a year ago, and I thought it would be cool to record a 10 song "resume" by playing guitar and singing against backing tracks. Hey, I was in IT, simple, right? Was I wrong or what!
Did some research on audio interfaces, went with AudioBox (one xlr, on guitar line in but I don't use that, I just mic the amp). Should have got one with two xlr and two guitar in but that's ok for now. Studio One Artist comes free with the hardware, but it seemed a bit daunting out of the box,and the help kind of useless, so I was told by another guitarist to try Audacity. Recorded a couple songs against imported backing tracks in Audacity, cool, it works but I found myself struggling with an better but still quirky interface. Tried Ableton Live, I couldn't even get the guitar signal to show up in the software!
Went back to Studio One Artist since the HW manufacturer seemed to support that well enough, and have been forcing myself to understand the modifying and editing of guitar tracks, and will work with added voice tracks next. Ok, I'm good with this approach but two questions for this part:
1. Where can you get good quality backing tracks that actually match studio released music (the right intro, verses, chorus, outro)? Willing to pay.
2. Do any backing tracks let you separate the actual instrument tracks?
With this approach I can satisfy Part One.
Now Part Two
Once I started getting the hang of things, I have to admit that for the first time in my life I wanted to experiment creating my own riffs and songs! Better late than never. Studio One lets me capture lots of riffs that might come in useful some day. Cool. But I hit the wall with drum tracks.
1. Let's take a simple 12 bar blues? With these small drum loops, how in the heck do you create a full drum track against the 12 bars, complete with fills, changes in intensity, adding intro, adding outro? Where is the damn manual for this approach? I don't play drums and can't say I ever attempted it, so how do you even start?
2. Same goes for bass. I'm happy to simulate a bass on my guitar, and can get away with riffs, but how do you change the guitar signal to emulate a bass and possibly the cabinet/amp as well?
3. Guess I should throw keys in there too! I can't play piano, so am I able to emulate this?
For drums and bass, I think my Digitech Trio+ drum/bass line generator and looper can give me a partial, half ass solution to drums and base. For now, but I would really like to figure out the building a drum track on my own when I start drifting to new song ideas...
Thanks so much, hopefully the length of this wasn't too much a turn off.
John