album recording at home

[gummblefish]

hi, im a songwriter and producer i have had experience in recording for a number of years and playing live but since i have come to recording my album it seems i have hit a bit of a brick wall..

I use Cubase and Logic to track, through a Edirol firewire. I am lucky enough to have my "control room" set up in a small room beside my bedroom which is where i do alot of my tracking.. I usually flip the bed over and use it as a gobo...the room itself is quite bare and lively

Some problems i am having

1) getting a real good acoustic sound
2) trying to do everything at once (running between rooms)
3) over production of songs

When i record other bands it relatively painless and i can make better decisions on the spot, but because im doing everything i cant always concentrate on making music.
Anybody else in my position got ANY suggestions? Greatly appreciated they would be.

 

[gecko zzed]

some thoughts . . .

1 getting a good acoustic sound. Maybe you mean getting a good acoustic guitar (or other instrument) sound? Don't try to mix tracking for a specific song with trying to capture a good sound. If you are doing your own material, you can afford to spend an afternoon just messing around with mike placement and other experiments. Concentrate on trying to capture the sound you want. Once you have done this, remember the settings. Then don't worry about it any more. Instead, you can then concentrate on the material itself.

2 doing too much. Shift out of the control room and into the bedroom. Bring your gear with you (or, alternatively, shift into the control room). If you are doing stuff yourself, you will drive yourself silly running between one room and the other. Maybe your mikes will pick up too much computer noise. So what? If you are doing stuff for yourself, live with it while you work things out. Once you've done this, then redo stuff while minimising noise. Save your feet and your nerves.

3 over-producing. this is maybe the biggest challenge. I find once I have an instrument in my hand its next to impossible to put it down. suddenly it appears throughout the song. Some people know when to stop. Often I don't. Again, don't worry. Chuck it on whenever you want. But . . . having done this, listen carefully to the track, where you think changes should occur, where dynamics should be, where it needs to be full (or empty) and start deleting. Be ruthless.

People have different ways of working. Sometimes they are clever enough to know exactly when to add something in what amount. If this is not your thing, then try subtracting stuff you don't need.

 

[gummblefish]

yeah thanks alot for the help, like i said because im doing it myself between rooms its really, really frustrating (especially when you hit record and balls up a take) to capture a good pass at a track. I have had some sucesses with tracks which i will post as soon as i get them on to a good Mp3 website. Also i know that i should be ruthless, i always am when working with bands or whatever, but i tend to hide behind instruments and cram to much crap in there, i guess all i really want is a nice room sound and my voice, a guitar or two and maybe a piano...but really simple....should be no problem right? anyway thanks for your help

 

[chessrock]

Go to a real studio, or hire an engineer to assist. Problem solved.

.

 

[gummblefish]

good point, but this is a Homerecording post! Of course i could go into a studio, but i have the equipment and time to do it at home so why pay more for a job i can do?

 

[LemonTree]

record everything you have to record...all the parts for all the songs. Once you have them all down give it a break for 2 weeks. Then go back and mix it with a fresh mind

 

[up-fiddler]

record everything you have to record...all the parts for all the songs. Once you have them all down give it a break for 2 weeks. Then go back and mix it with a fresh mind

This works best for me too. When I track it I oviously think it sounds great, otherwise I'd be doing something else. After time passes I can be less emotional and more analytical. Try takin' a break.....

 

[gummblefish]

thanx for the advice guys, im gonna start rerecording tomorrow, i have already recorded a few of the songs and im not overly impressed with the direction i was going in so im gonna keep them pretty bare as the melodys and lyrics are strong..thanx for all your help

 

[JeffLancaster]

yeah thanks alot for the help, like i said because im doing it myself between rooms its really, really frustrating (especially when you hit record and balls up a take) to capture a good pass at a track.

Sounds like you could use some remote transport controls to save you some trips between rooms. 3 possible solutions:

1) a laptop networked with your DAW running some sort of emulation program to control your recording computer (do a google search for VNC)

2) Get a reverse KVM switch (something like this perhaps) along with an extra long kvm cable and a second keyboard, monitor and mouse for the bedroom.

3) Check out one of these. These units look totally cool.

Good Luck!

 

[demensia]

That transport looks cool.

 

[gummblefish]

thanx again, was looking into one of those Tranzport units..was also thinking of some way to possibly control cubase's transport bar and other features with a midi keyboard as an external control, still trying to figure out how to do it but im sure it can be done anybody know anything about this...but ultimately external control is definetly a way that i want and need to be heading in for my situation.