How Do You Record?

  • Thread starter Thread starter bknot1
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yo better watch it yo or I get all whitney houston on your ass. Counselors are all crazy yo! I be da real deal straight from da streets yo!
 
Oh MY GOD!

I just saw my responce from like back when this thread first started, Jesus i was greener than snoops studio cieling.

Man that is some trippy sh*t right there. Boy have i upgraded since then.

I've found the beautiful reason (i teach others how to use fruity on the special occassion), my studio consist of monitors and an actual mic cabinet :), my computer doesn't crash anymore thanks to my external harddrive which stores all my musical wants and needs 9thank god for walmart prices) heck if ya'll find some of my old post you can literally hear the difference.

God the time just fly's for real ya'll

Keep making music though!
 
sweetnubs said:
why don't you guys learn how to play an instrument for christ's sakes. You are musicians right?
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You wont get the bass that you can feel from the next block using an instrument, or frequency sweeps and things of that nature. Is a vocalist a musician? Yes, just in a different way. They do use an instrument alot of the times, the keyboard. And some will blow your mind away if they were to play you a diddy.

It aint like we get on a computer and type "make me a dope ass beat that she can shake her ass to so i can be like whoa" in a command line. We work at this for hours. On tha flow, we be feeln it, but you from a different background, different upbring'n, and arent well versed in our type of art, our genre. Takes alot of skill to do tha damn thing.

And if ya wanna get nasty. I can sing country and rock type vocals, and still rip the track with a tight flow, and do an R&B slow groove. How bout you. Can you drop some verse with vocal on a tight ass beat and make me bob my head.
Anybody can write a rhyme but can you be good on the delivery vocally.

As of now im in Iraq and all i got is a laptop and a cheap dyanamic mic. I still do a little sum sum at the expense of quality. It aint like i got a studio over here. But im gettn the studio goin back home. Mainly set up for vocalists. I can get beatz from these tight beatz makers.

No hard feeln's. Just making a point here.
 
sweetnubs said:
yo g dawgz diz is how it hit it hoe's eeer ho's: first I zippadilly da phat bud dillydag den I fruityloop it yo. Like I all be high an' shizzle ponacker dillwhacker den I like freestyle it yo and blend in' some shit yo and bippadillybee cracker whacker i make it to da top yo an' I have all kinds of bling, sucking on da titties an' eatin' cake yo! I just get da' fruityloops dog dawg an' before I know'd it I got a pool yo in da shape of da golden arches yo! An' bitches everywhere yo! Dis one bitch yo was hott but when I took off her panties yo she had a dillydag! it was a homey yo! I suck it anyway!
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That is some tight funny shit. Laughin my ass off, please do more. :D
 
Well then...Its like this now

1). I sit down and do 2 things, i either already got a beat in my head that i been humming all day long or im in the mood to make a specific type of beat.
2). After i decide on which im in the mood for i start laying down a melody, i do that first always because unlike most producers i save my drums for last.
3). Once i get the melody i start on either the bassline or the filler sounds which really depends on the mood im in. But on average im puttin down the filler sounds 1st.
4). After the beat starts taking shape i start putting down those drum sounds. The reason i do it like this is because i find that i can hear the drum sounds alot better when im adding them to the mix of my other sounds because they're already playing in conjunction with each other so now i get a better image of what i might be hearing when im done.
5). After that because i am an artist i usually start writing to it. This usually includes a chorus or a brigde or both that i have in my head or even made the beat around originally. Now this is just an idea, the artist i work with or even me can/will change it at anytime so never believe i won't drop a good chorus for a great chorus in a heart beat!!
6). Put in drops to give the customer/clients a good feel/vibe of the beat and then from there hustle!! Sell the beat, sell yourself with the hook, sell them all as a package deal!! HUSTLE HUSTLE HUSTLE!!!!!
7). Produce the track to the best of your musical knowlegde, pray your manager can get you some points worth havin on the album and collect your check.

P.S.- Love what you do!!
 
Tools - Reason 3.0, M-Audio Keystation 49e Midi Controller, Goldwave, Recycle, sometimes FL Studio 6

Sampled Beats

-I listen to a song til, I hear a certain melody of pattern I want to sample
-Load in into Goldwave cut that section, then load it in Recyle and chop it up
-I play back the pieces until I figure a basic pattern
-Go back and add kicks, snares, hats
-Then add more instruments as needed (ex. piano loops)

Or when I start from scratch

-Load a few sounds I feel help promote the mood Im in
-Usually some type of strings or maybe a piano or organ
-Play around with that, lay down a few chords if possible
-Bring in another instrument to sort of fill in the gaps
-Then I'll come in and add my drums and stuff
-Then go back and add more instruments as needed
-Maybe more percussion
-Then go back and add breaks
 
GSpotSoldier said:
You wont get the bass that you can feel from the next block using an instrument, or frequency sweeps and things of that nature.
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i disagree all you need is a 5 strings bass and you're home. i know because i have a friend who started playing 5 strings after he couldn't reproduce the low base on his four strings when he was working on a hip hop tracks inthe studio
 
After the beat is layed down in tracks, I go back and fix anything wrong with it, add processing to whatever I feel necessary, BUT I don't finish that part of it until after I lay down vocals, and then fix those up, and go back and shape the rest of the beat around the vocals. I spend 70% mixing down & 30% tracking time. From mixing down vocals, I usually overdub a few times, 2 on key phrases & words etc.. sometimes pan them, boost/cut any frequencies that need it, compress it first though, and I also then time the delay to the beat, and add that, and usually pan the delay right or left, depending on song, add some reverb into it, tweak the beat & instruments to the better accompany the vocals, press the magic Fairy Dust on the SSL console, sync to CD/DAT and record to media.

From there, I then either go down 2 roads.

1 road puts that track up for listeners to be able to sample an upcoming album

the other I don't put it up for listeners, and add it to the album.

After an album is done, I go back and master all tracks, normalize etc, and then maybe compress everything so that they sound more uniform with each other.

After that it usually sits there for a month or 2, while I plan the next moves, which is usually extensive advertisments about the upcoming release. Then whenever the time comes, I send it in for manufacturing, from there, I usually send out a set amount of CD's depending on the store front etc, and keep around 300-500 with us, so that IF when needed & if it sells out, I can ship more copies out while I manufacture some more. I also predict when a CD will sell or not, depending on how well I market & how saturated & what kind of listeners are in that particular area. I'll also set up some local shows, sell & give out "signed" copies there and the rest is history in the making ;)

Believe me, there are a million & a half steps inbetween all this that I don't have the time to type up lol
 
i start with the beat....NOT!!

i dont go near a drum ...its all in my head as i work out the track on a bass or guitar...then its down with some trial and error tracks of ideas and compositions.

only then would i start to take the evolved beat thats in my head and replicate.

otherwise you are creating a song thats beat driven which i find too predicatble and constricting.

interesting thread.
 
What up yall. Been a minute...

But, here's what the steps for us is...


1. Normally we start out with a beat in Reason. Maybe an artist wants a certain style and we will create the beat to the style they want. As of now, we have been starting out with a meoldy before the beat since we are adding a lot of R&B feel.

2. The artist will write to it and conform to the beat.

3. We record a scratch vocal. Maybe just one track. This gives the artist an idea on how the vocals will work out.

4. We normally rewire Reason and Pro Tools and record the finally vocals.

5. Everything is mixed in Pro Tools at the end.


Do most of you have a lab at the house? Cause I find it useful that if you have an idea like 3am in the morning ta just walk in and lay down your idea before it goes...
 
the lab at the house is key for a beatmaker due to it being 3 a.m. and everything we think of is golden and don't let no-one bring you down cuz on any given day the right person could be listening
 
Definitely...plus one rent payment, one lease, one set of utilities and one insurance policy.

It does make me kinda lazy though. When I used to have to drive 20 minutes to get to the studio...my sessions were a lot more productive.
 
stray411 said:
Definitely...plus one rent payment, one lease, one set of utilities and one insurance policy.

It does make me kinda lazy though. When I used to have to drive 20 minutes to get to the studio...my sessions were a lot more productive.
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Ya, one rent and all that is a plus. I'm the kind of person who get's up in the morning and hits the lab. Won't even change, then I'll look at the clock and it's 3pm! I get focused and forget everything else... :o
 
zazz said:
i dont go near a drum ...its all in my head as i work out the track on a bass or guitar...then its down with some trial and error tracks of ideas and compositions.

only then would i start to take the evolved beat thats in my head and replicate.

otherwise you are creating a song thats beat driven which i find too predicatble and constricting.

interesting thread.
Click to expand...

further to my previous post i thought this guy from the latest sos is hitting a huge nail squarely on the head.

"Nowadays, so much music is made up as it goes along. It usually starts with a loop or a synth patch,
followed by hours spent on humanising the quantised hi-hats and flat-lining the compression. But
where's the art? Where's the idea? Where's the vision? Computers have brought us recording luxury
that even the most imaginative of us couldn't have dreamed of 20 years ago. As many tracks as you
want, hundreds of processors dedicated to each track, the ability to cut and paste any sound that's ever
been created and to elasticate loops with a single click. But is the price we've paid the loss of creativity,
of performance, of danger? As someone who's busy doing loads of things in order to avoid getting a job,
I am sent between a dozen and hundreds of albums every month. I listen to them all (admittedly, if
there's 15 tracks and the first three are dreadful, I might whizz through the rest, but I do listen). I'd say
that at least 75 percent fall into the ill-thought-out, half-cocked category. As for the other quarter, they're
mostly just terrible.
SOS December 2006 

The industry is exploding with potential contributors and the avenues of opportunity have never been so
many. Sadly, on whatever level artistic contribution is judged, it is without doubt the most unadventurous
period in recorded history. Too many people with half an idea are spending too long on the packaging
and not enough time caressing the gift of music. So next time, before you leap blindly into the
sequencer, take some time to work out what you're going to be recording, bar out the structure on
paper, write down the levels of instrumentation, think about how the song will end up (chances are it
won't, but having a direction to start with is a great way of ending up somewhere, as opposed to going
nowhere). Also, get people to contribute (as well as putting yourself up for contributing to other people's
music). And don't get stuck for hours on small details. Bashing it down and tarting it up later is far more
rewarding than spending time with a microscope looking at the dry/wet mix of the snare reverb. Right,
I'm off to my bedroom to quantise the tambourine I sampled myself playing earlier (he says, tumbling
from his moral high ground).
Send your nomination for record cock-up of the century to: big.george@soundonsound.com
Published in SOS December 2006"
 
lol they steps I take to record with equipment is to first find a suitable place to track at in the studio, hook up my mic line to the floor channel, setup my mic stand, wrap the mic cable around the mic stand a million times, connect the mic to the mic stand blah blah blah, hook up the headphones, headphone box, to the cues in the wall... Run to the DM2000, SSL, or NEVE console, turn on phantom power, wait a minute, patch the mic to a channel, turn on pre-amps, get my record/send up to level, raise my main mix fader all the way, make sure the console is set on record mode and not remix mode, send the aux feed to the headphones, either buss or direct the mic channel, go to pro tools, setup 12-15 mono tracks, 2 stereo tracks, 1 master fader track, make sure the channel on pro tool's I/O is set properly, arm the track, and test the mic. Then I import the beat, play back and let the booth hear it, make sure signal is going all the way through, record.... Then I'll usually run inline patch to the La2a or Fatman comp, and patch it back, then I'll fix the comp to liking. If the vocals are 2 muddy, I'll pre-eq. If it's ok, I'll side chain patch the vocals to a delay processor (forgot the name of it), time the delay (60 / by the BPM X 1000) dial it in, route the wet mix either to it's seperate track, or raise the effect in the vocal track (usually I'll route it to a seperate track so that I can pan just the delay/reverb. I'll then run the beat through similar steps, noting whatever I need to do with the beat...., then I'll run everything to a compressor and finished... (of course there's like a lot more processing and tuning that I do)
 
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