How do I record this song?

T

TaintedDb

New member
Hi,

I have been lurking this site for years and I've run into an odd situation with one of my new songs that maybe someone with more experience could help with.

A little background. I have recorded one CD with "some" decent results :) After recording that CD, I wanted to shoot myself in the face so I took about 5 years off. I met a new lead guitar player who wanted to knock some ideas around and we ended up writting 13 new songs over the last 3 months, of which most don't make me physically ill. We did record them singer songer writter style with just an acoustic and vocals through a TL103 to "remember" them as we wrote them.

Today we tried to track what we think is the best song of the 13 new ones. It's tempo is all over the place. The verse sections are around 85 bpm and when the bridge starts the tempo changes to about 95 to 100 bmp. At the end of the song, out of the bridge/chorus the song sort of rocks out with the tempo going up to maybe 105 bpm.

I tried to lay a click for each section and record that (I am a drummer first, guitar/vocals next) so it's driving me crazy. The orgional rough take sounds good to me, but trying to "nail" the timing to a click is NOT working at all. I hate the idea of recording without a click but it seems it's the only way.

What are your experiences recording REAL tracks without a click/clock?
 
And for reference:

My home setup is:

Mackie D8B 72 channel 8 bus board. ADAT light pipe out to PC. Recording using Samplitude. I can generally track songs to around 60 to 70 tracks.

Other gear: Neumann ML 149 Neuman TL103 Bunch of 57's/58's.

Lex reverb, Focusrite compressor etc. Marshall half stack, two drum sets, two Taylors, Les Pauls, Roland fhantom with VirusB etc...

I should not have taken 5 years off damn it.
 
the first thing to decide is whether those tempo changes are important or not. Are they the result of a deliberate intention to create movement and energy in the song as it progresses? Or are they the result of not being able to keep time? Or are they the unwanted consequences of adrenalin (excitement, nervousness, or whatever)?

If the tempo changes are important, but programming (and playing to) a click track that maps those changes is difficult, then don't worry about it Play the song as it wants to be played and deal with the consequences later (mostly these relate to any subsequent editing later, of dropping in and out, and of synchronising later tracking . . . it's much more difficu;lt without bar markers to show you what's in line and what isn't).

If your original track is basically sound, use that as a guide, and drum along to that. Add any other tracks you want later. If drumming to the original doesn't work, and you don't like click tracks, then you are in a spot of bother.

Another option is to lay down the drums first, playing along to what you hear in your head, then tracking the guitar alongside this drum track.
 
Yeah, we tried to lay a click of 85 and play the entire song but it lost its "feel". This song is a bit more "emo" than I normally do but it's pretty powerful and the tempo changes are a part of the song.

I guess we are going to have to do this without a click which is going to make editing later a nightmare and when I DO have to lay down the drums it's going to be quite a task.

I was just wondering if there was a software out there that I was not aware of that could possibly gradually shift tempo. the tempo changes are not abrubt, they are on a slidding scale.

thanks for the reply. I guess I am just in hell..
 
gecko zzed said:
the first thing to decide is whether those tempo changes are important or not. Are they the result of a deliberate intention to create movement and energy in the song as it progresses? Or are they the result of not being able to keep time? Or are they the unwanted consequences of adrenalin (excitement, nervousness, or whatever)?

If the tempo changes are important, but programming (and playing to) a click track that maps those changes is difficult, then don't worry about it Play the song as it wants to be played and deal with the consequences later (mostly these relate to any subsequent editing later, of dropping in and out, and of synchronising later tracking . . . it's much more difficu;lt without bar markers to show you what's in line and what isn't).

If your original track is basically sound, use that as a guide, and drum along to that. Add any other tracks you want later. If drumming to the original doesn't work, and you don't like click tracks, then you are in a spot of bother.

Another option is to lay down the drums first, playing along to what you hear in your head, then tracking the guitar alongside this drum track.
Click to expand...
Just to add to this:

Mic the drums to record, and play along with the song with an acoustic guitar mic'd up in another room, monitoring each other through headphones. Track the drums, then add the rest of the song later.
 
That is not a bad idea Rokket. We did play it once with me on drums and the feel was all there. The one issue with the tempo changes though is that I had some GREAT parts on the VirusB locked to 85 BPM which won't fly in that situation without locking the song down to one click track. I guess I could do the virusB/guitar as an intro.

Why does music have to be so damn hard? lol

Nothing in life can not be improved with either oyster sauce or backing vocals.
 
TaintedDb said:
I was just wondering if there was a software out there that I was not aware of that could possibly gradually shift tempo. the tempo changes are not abrubt, they are on a slidding scale.
Click to expand...

I've only ever used Logic, Cubase, and ProTools, but they all do this, is there not a tempo map on samplitude? If so, there should be an option for slanted or abrupt changes.
 
Why not just stop and punch in at the tempo changes? If you can play on time, it will be no problem at all that way.
 
If I were you, I would program drum tracks first (with fill ins on parts where those are very important)
Drum track does not need to have constant tempo.
You can program increasing speed tempo (sliding scale), change measure, anything you want. There are not limits.
I do it in Cubase, but I’m sure, many other software does it as well.
Once you have bas drum track everything else is just fun.
 
mrhotapples said:
Why not just stop and punch in at the tempo changes? If you can play on time, it will be no problem at all that way.
Click to expand...

This is pretty much how I approach multiple tempo/time signature pieces.

Most of the time when we write a piece with a time change it starts on a down beat. So what I do is hit the crash or whatever for the down beat and stop playing while the "tape" keeps rolling just long enough to catch the cymbal decay.

I then reset the tempo, back up to before the downbeat (sometimes I have to move the track around to line up the down beat with the new metronome marks), monitor what I just played (I copy the OH's to two new tracks and pipe them out to the headphone amp), and then come in on the upbeat of the downbeat that I stopped on. I do usually have to fake a swing for the downbeat to get me in on the upbeat in time, better drummers probably wouldn't have to. :p

Then it's just a matter of doing a cross fade of the decaying downbeat with the new tempo'ed upbeat.

It may take a few passes to get into the grove, and it can be a pain in the ass at times, but it does work. :D
 
TaintedDb said:
Today we tried to track what we think is the best song of the 13 new ones. It's tempo is all over the place. The verse sections are around 85 bpm and when the bridge starts the tempo changes to about 95 to 100 bmp. At the end of the song, out of the bridge/chorus the song sort of rocks out with the tempo going up to maybe 105 bpm.
Click to expand...

Instead of trying to do the song at 85, as you said in a later post, perhaps a compromise between the verse and bridge/chorus sections might work. Perhaps 90-93 bmp? That way, there's not a huge difference between how you're currently doing either part since you're only speeding up the verse slightly and slowing down the bridge/chorus slightly (I wouldn't give any real consideration to the speed at the end of the song insofar as determining the correct speed).

Someone suggested that you do the song with the speed issues in place but I think it would be really wrong for the singer/songwriter genre. I tried to think of any examples of someone doing it, but I can't come up with any. Honestly, I think if you record it that way, you'll want to shoot yourself in the face again later on.

You also might try using the drum track to kind of trick the ear into thinking the bridge verse is faster. Perhaps going double time on the high hats during the bridge and chorus or bringing in a new percussion voice, also in double time.
 
You're making this way too complex.

Just play the damned song. And record it.

If you can't play it ... then you shouldn't be recording it.

Anything you can play ... CAN be recorded. Trust me on this one.

:D
 
Daisy said:
You're making this way too complex.

Just play the damned song. And record it.

If you can't play it ... then you shouldn't be recording it.

Anything you can play ... CAN be recorded. Trust me on this one.

:D
Click to expand...

I think he wanted it to sound good. ;)
 
If anyone cares about a folow up:

I took the route to "play" the song live with the band and record the drums and rhythem guitar at the same time (guitar through DI). The end result was close but some of the druming is not spot on. I think this aproach is the best one so we are calling the band back into the stidio, going to smack the drummer in the head and get him to make a perfect take.

the recording was good at least, sound wise and the song had the feel it's just the stupid simple mistakes.


thanks guys!
 
I was going to say that you just track the drums in a rehearsal, then go ahead and lay out a click track based almost exactly on that and then record the entire thing as you normally would.
 
I'm big on sticking close to the time, so that tempers my suggestion. Like some others mentioned, I'd record the drums separately. Pop a click track into your DAW and see how close the drummer was on the mark. Some copy/paste and editing can move hits around that were far off the mark.

I understand some bands like to play together when recording, but in my opinion this requires two critical items:

1) A killer studio where you can isolate sounds and instruments. Most people on home recording forums don't have this.

2) Music that requires the bandmates to feed off of each other in a live setting. If your band plays live a lot, this may pertain to you. If not, then track everything separately.
 
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