How do you remember your riffs when song writing?

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delirium trigge

New member
I'm going through multiple things right now. I thought I had it set but ran into problems. I'm just wondering what everyone is doing. I think I've decided on a Zoom h6 with the line out into the Go Pro, that gives me a wide view where I can see what all I am doing on the guitar, as well as extremely high quality audio on the X/Y mis for acoustic. When it's electric I can place them close to the guitar cab, or just mic up the cab and plug it into the zoom. Then that goes into the go pro.

On the go, I've been using the iPad.

What are you guys doing and how are you organizing it? Are you organizing it by genre?
 
I just play them until I don't forget them. Once I record them I don't normally play them again...
 
How odd? Never ever thought of video too. Personally, I'd just record the audio - managing multiple audio and video files for a notepad function seems a bit OTT.

Maybe it's just me, but I've never really thought of songwriting as being a succession of riffs. I guess my music is more about feels and progressions rather than twiddly bits.
 
Just record 'em man....I've got projects that are a few years old, & can open 'em anytime I wanna....

Surely you can figure out what you played by just listening/playing along???
 
minerman said:
Just record 'em man....I've got projects that are a few years old, & can open 'em anytime I wanna....

Surely you can figure out what you played by just listening/playing along???
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I don't like doing it by recording. What ends up happening is years later when I got back to listen I have to relearn the song by ear. And it's like F that lol.
 
I can figure it out by just listening, but sometimes theres just a little extra pinch or something extra that I end up getting wrong, especially if it's been a long time. I've noticed with trying video recently, that I never get it wrong. It can be just a slight slight thing that I'll miss if I do audio only. It'll still sound the same pretty much, but it just misses that slight thing that I liked.

The reason I like the GoPro is the wide angle so I can see the whole guitar well. Like I said the Zoom h6 is plugged into the Go Pro, so the audio is high quality. On the go I'm gonna just do it on the iPad though. But I have to sit back quite a ways to get the whole guitar into video. I have a Rode XY that hooks onto the iPad when I'm away from home. That way I don't have to bring the Zoom h6 everywhere.

I still don't know how to categorize my riffs though.
 
I'm pretty sure I just forget most of them

There have been a couple of times where I woke up from a dream and recorded the music I was dreaming about. Then I find the recording some time later and it sounds like ass.
 
antichef said:
I'm pretty sure I just forget most of them.
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I try to forget them. :laughings:

Most of my riffs are improvised at the time of recording the lead guitar tracks.
I may run through the song a bunch of times over the course of writing/recording, but I rarely write or remember the entire riffs for the whole song, and then just repeat them note for note.
There have been some songs where I came up with a very specific melody line that wasn't just a "riff"...and those I would just learn until I knew them...but when I'm doing more "jam" style playing....it's usually "as it falls"...and if I hear a few really specific riffs during the improvised playing that work well and fir thew song well, I may then go back and redo the track and include them while also mixing in a bunch of improvised stuff.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that the OP is doing.....Metal music...where the riff playing is more of a precise aspect of the song and needs to be micro-perfect relative to the bass and drums...so that's why the need for really writing/recording/video taping everything so that it can be learned exactly.....yes? :)
 
I note them into Guitar Pro.
I'll usually write every single part in Guitar Pro and then export it with a click so I have something to play along to without having to add different meters and tempos by hand in my DAW.


This is also really neat since I've found a few riffs or songs that I wrote half a decade ago and I have the entire layout for the piece right in front of me.
 
miroslav said:
I try to forget them. :laughings:

Most of my riffs are improvised at the time of recording the lead guitar tracks.
I may run through the song a bunch of times over the course of writing/recording, but I rarely write or remember the entire riffs for the whole song, and then just repeat them note for note.
There have been some songs where I came up with a very specific melody line that wasn't just a "riff"...and those I would just learn until I knew them...but when I'm doing more "jam" style playing....it's usually "as it falls"...and if I hear a few really specific riffs during the improvised playing that work well and fir thew song well, I may then go back and redo the track and include them while also mixing in a bunch of improvised stuff.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that the OP is doing.....Metal music...where the riff playing is more of a precise aspect of the song and needs to be micro-perfect relative to the bass and drums...so that's why the need for really writing/recording/video taping everything so that it can be learned exactly.....yes? :)
Click to expand...

That would be correct. I have gotten away from straight metal and went into more of a prog rock type thing. Although the metal is still there. I write really long songs, riffs change a lot etc. Sometimes the time signatures aren't as easy as one would think to remember.

I just got Auria DAW on my iPad, my Zoom h6 hooks in there. Pretty nice for when I don't have my computer.
 
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