Dont ya just hate it when...

B

Benreturns

New member
Your recording never seems like it does in your head??

Ive written a great song with a top melody and its very catchy. Everyone I play it to ends up humming it. Great. Buuuut.... I can perform the song on guitar (the chords are simply - C - G - Am - F - F/G) and sing its catchy verses/choruses etc.... The song is complete from the writing part.Even the harmonies. I also got the beat down cold too on my sequencer. I think this song could be great. I can see every major artist in the world possibly recording it (Ya know the feeling when you think your onto something). Then comes the recording. Keyboard part... nah - not the right sound. Piano? Nah too cheesy. Guitar part? Cant get the right feeling into it. Ok il keep it simple and just have acoustic backing and bass? NOPE it needs something!!! Try all 110 sound banks on my keyboard and play various things to it. Nope nothing fits. I then try every special FX on those sound banks possible.... NOPE!!!!!!!!!!

Does this ever happen to anyone else? Ive been working on this song for nearly 3 weeks. It just aint happening for me!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
 
Drop the song, start something new, then come back to it in a couple of weeks with a fresh perspective. If it still doesn't come together, drop it for good. :)
 
I think we've all put together absolute masterpieces in our head. The rest is the hard part. Worse than that is when you're walking down the street and you've written "Dark Side of Seargent Rapsody's Bohemian Pepper Band"...But by the time you get near something to at least hum into, it's gone...disappeared into mid-air.
 
RAMI said:
I think we've all put together absolute masterpieces in our head. The rest is the hard part. Worse than that is when you're walking down the street and you've written "Dark Side of Seargent Rapsody's Bohemian Pepper Band"...But by the time you get near something to at least hum into, it's gone...disappeared into mid-air.
Click to expand...

Yup that happens to me all the time....
 
Its like a jigsaw puzzle....

I know exactly what i want the picture to be, i just cant find the corner pieces yet. Im thinking of recording it just myself and acoustic but then i dont think the people at A & R would realise its commercial potential. Prob best if i start on another song and come back to it. Damn frustrating though.

Thanks guys!
 
The problem might be that you're trying to do too much on your own.

So you came up with a good melody and guitar part. Cool.

Now it's time to get some people -- like a band or group of musicians -- to come up with the other stuff.
 
only 3 weeks? I do stuff like that for 3 monts, years, decades. But I pick up another piece in between. I have a project on the first song number on my DAW, then I work on it, then put some new ideas on the next 10 song numbers, back them up, do some work on them, archive them, and get back to #1, add some stuff, do some playing/experiments on a few more new ones, backup, delete, and it's back to idea 1. Not very linear, but it works for me.
 
chessrock said:
The problem might be that you're trying to do too much on your own.

So you came up with a good melody and guitar part. Cool.

Now it's time to get some people -- like a band or group of musicians -- to come up with the other stuff.
Click to expand...
Spot on. Nailed it. Right on the money and the button.
 
Benreturns said:
Your recording never seems like it does in your head??

Ive written a great song with a top melody and its very catchy. Everyone I play it to ends up humming it. Great. Buuuut.... I can perform the song on guitar (the chords are simply - C - G - Am - F - F/G) and sing its catchy verses/choruses etc.... The song is complete from the writing part.Even the harmonies. I also got the beat down cold too on my sequencer. I think this song could be great. I can see every major artist in the world possibly recording it (Ya know the feeling when you think your onto something). Then comes the recording. Keyboard part... nah - not the right sound. Piano? Nah too cheesy. Guitar part? Cant get the right feeling into it. Ok il keep it simple and just have acoustic backing and bass? NOPE it needs something!!! Try all 110 sound banks on my keyboard and play various things to it. Nope nothing fits. I then try every special FX on those sound banks possible.... NOPE!!!!!!!!!!

Does this ever happen to anyone else? Ive been working on this song for nearly 3 weeks. It just aint happening for me!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Click to expand...

Record the drums, guitar and vocals first and then try key sounds. You will get a better undersatanding of what fits. The sounds that fit may surprise you. Try to capture the feeling of the song and forget about anything else. Pretend that all the song will have is drums, guitar and vocals. Later, the parts will come out all on their own if you are talented in counterpoint techniques.

Good Luck!
 
Yeah...I hate that. That's why I've been buying new equipment for the last 2 mos and learning as much as possible from this forum.

I'm going to do a before/after comparison after my final piece of gear arrives later this week. I'll take a song I recorded 6 mos ago...redo everything with the new gear and knowledge...then see how much better (or worse) it has gotten. But most importantly, see how close it matches the sound in my head. :)
 
When that happens to me (regular thing) I put it down and listen to as much other stuff as I can... Part to change my perspective and part to listen for ideas on interesting layering.

Remember not all songs need to be epic! Get a perspective of space. :cool: Listen to your favourite tracks and work out what makes them sound that darn good!

Just remember this is supposed to be enjoyed. If you get too caught up with little things you'll lose the feel.
 
yeah iv recorded the drums and vocals for now (there is an acoustic guitar rhythm part for the vocals to go along with but i dont think the final version will have it).

Im gonna focus on getting the lead vox and the 2 backing vox right first then try to fit the jigsaw pieces around that.Maybe im thinkin to much about it. Its a strong melody so maybe the backing needs to be a bit minimal. I would love to post it up here for you guys to hear but i havnt got anything i can rip MP3's from my CD's that i make with my Masterlink (see "got rejection letter this morning" thread in the Marketing forum!)

Thanks for all the input guys! Nice to hear some constructive info!
 
I have learned that for me, it's important to get the song down without nailing all of the parts or getting that *perfect* sound at first. If I dwell on every little detail I lose sight of the arrangement and structure, as well as the emotion or subject that I am trying to express. If I get the song down, minus every perfect overdubbed part, then the song is there. I'll burn it to a cd and throw it in the car stereo and listen to it a bunch in the vehicle. The sounds that the song needs, and the accents and such become more clear. Then I will re-record it, this time trying to nail the parts as much as possible without going overboard(which is the hard part). The individual sounds will come ez'er after listening to it several times, which makes the whole process more fluid and quicker. Learn when to say when. It will rarely be as good as it is in your head, unless you've mastered all of the instruments you're trying to record.

It helps me to not be baked either, I can never get my mind off of rocky road ice cream. Mmmmm, rocky road ice cream!!
 
chessrock said:
The problem might be that you're trying to do too much on your own.

So you came up with a good melody and guitar part. Cool.

Now it's time to get some people -- like a band or group of musicians -- to come up with the other stuff.
Click to expand...

BINGO! That is the majority of all the problems that exist in todays home recording situations.. We all try to do everything and it ends up not being what we thought it should be.

There is no way you can do it all. It took me 15 years and a super hard head to finally realize I would be happier if I would just ask for help.
 
I think it's more a matter of your skills and knowledge. Ofcourse, if you can't lay something down because you just don't have the chops: get someone else to lay it down for you. But soundwise, if you can't find what's in your head back in your keyboard, look further. Try every f*king VST plug in the world just to get the sound you want. That's the way I do it. I have about 20 piano sounds alone (classical, jazz, bright, dark, honky tonk, rhodes, wurlitzer etc.). Don't stop if it ain't in your keyboard. It's only one machine, look a little further.
 
There are some great points above. I go through this as well. When you have a band, you can mix and match pieces and see if something works with the song as a whole. Being a one-person home recorder as well, I know that it's tough to figure out if something works...it requires more recording just to see if it's going to work....and this causes quite a bit of backwards progress when something doesn't work.

My only comment is to think about why the current sounds are not what you are hearing in your head. This may not be a matter of sounds or plug-ins. It may be the difference between recording a keyboard direct versus putting it through an amp with a mic across the room....
 
Just to say...

As of yesterday afternoon i think I nailed it. Since you all sympathised with me plight I thought id let you know what I did.

Redid the bass. Made it funkier. Lets patterns and more stabbing riffs punctuating phrases. This brought the drumbeat to life for some reason.

I wanted something 'sprinkly' so i used a guitar with a pitch shift setting on it recorded with my outboard rack gear. Again kept away from the cheesy runs and fills and played short sharp punchy notes at random in between vocal phrasing. Some of these notes were not even in key and I just went with feeling. The song is very melodic over a rather trad chord sequence so these little stabs of riffs provide an interesting counter... (point?melody??).

So thats it. 3 tracks of vocals over a drum track with bass and a couple of weird guitar fills.

Cheers for all the input on this guys!
 
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