Introduction & Some Ultra-Noob Recording Questions

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DoolittleKid

DoolittleKid

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Hello everyone!

I just recently got into home recording as means to put my musical ideas into "hard copies" so that they aren't just milling around in my head, where they are likely to be forgotten.

I'm running on GarageBand on a stock iMac. I'm using a Blue Yeti USB microphone to record everything, and the quality seems to be good enough for my purposes. In fact, I am pleasantly surprised by the sound quality this mic is putting out, considering I picked it up for only $80 on Amazon. :) However, I am not too concerned about quality--just looking for that raw "demo" sound (think "Disorder" by Joy Division).

First and foremost, I do not know where to begin. I have tried a few times to put some songs together, and they have all been a flop. Do I lay down guitar tracks first? Drums? I have read that drums usually go first in the process because they lay out the "backbone" of the song. Is this usually the case in a professional studio setting? My concern is that doing drums first won't work out so well because I don't have a guitar track to build the drums around, i.e. I won't know what patterns to play that sound good with the guitar. I have been messing with MIDI drums, but I'm frustrated at how computerized they sound, and I find myself having to quantize them because it's hard to play drums on a MIDI keyboard!

Another question that I have been wondering for the longest time (and have been struggling to get a decent answer from the internet) is what do do to keep time? I'm guessing a metronome is what I need, but how do I hear it over a guitar amp, or a loud drum set? Do I need a set of headphones? Won't that blow out my eardrums? How do the pros do it? Do most bands usually use a click track?


Your advice and help is greatly appreciated, and I'm sure I will have some more novice questions and concerns in the near future.

DoolittleKid
 
The answer is "it depends".... and that is all about what you do, what you play and how you like to work....

Now, if you intend putting drums to a song, then most here would suggest you start at least, if not with a full drum track, with a click track that can be later replaced with drums... it's very hard to add drums later if you haven't tracked to a click as most other instrumental players rely more than they'd care to admit to drums to keep the beat on track... so if you're all over the shop rhythmically, don't expect a drummer to be able to follow you...

If you're doing MIDI drums, then you absolutely need a click, done from your drum program so you don't have "sync" issues later, to start with. And don't just program a metronome. Do a basic drum pattern in the "feel" of the song and track things to that.

Then, however you want to work. You can do "scatch" tracks for instruments and record over them later if you want to get the vocals down, for instance, and work everything around them... or you can do them last... or somewhere in between. However you want to work.

One more word about MIDI drums. It takes a drummer years to be good, like any other instrument - you're not going to emulate their work easily with MIDI drums, especially if you don't know how they're doing it in the first place. The results will be robotic. I'm sure we'd all use real drummers if we could, but we work with what we can - programming real sounding MIDI drums is a skill in itself that takes a bit of patience and mastering. That's for another post.

Welcome...
 
If you have a decent set of closed ear headphones, they'll isolate what you're hearing from your guitar amp's volume enough that you can listen to a click track without over-blasting your ears. Often in the studio the guitar amp/mic will be in another room while the player and engineer sit together in the control room- this just takes some longer cables or patch panels in studio walls, although this will be a problem for your usb mic.

We commonly record a guitar to a click to create the basic arrangement of the song, then begin laying in other stuff- drums and bass next, etc. No rules, but figuring out the workflow that lets you be creative will take some trial and error. It's a bit daunting as you begin, but asking good questions is certainly a good move as you take your first steps.
 
+1 on the above
get some headphones enable the metronome in garageband and adjust the instrument tracks so that the metronome can still be heard over the rest of the stuff and make stuff up until you find something you like. As they say here turn down the suck and turn up the good.
Read up on how other people write songs (get a good book) learn about music theory and song structures. Set your self an achievable goal to write a song in a given period ( i used to write 1 a week) to start. the more you learn the easier it will get.
Groove up (the drums, bass, guitars, keys, etc method) sworks for me a lot of the time.
And then again theirs ghost writing too ( Take the chords from a well known song and make your own song from them , disregarding the original melody and making your own fills, lyrics etc)
can be a good way to learn too
Good luck, Happy writing and welcome to the forum.
 
You mentioned that you had to quantize the MIDI drums. That's perfectly normal, because playing drums on a keyboard isn't all that easy. But, regardless of which program you're working in, you should have some control over the quantization. It's not simply "quantized or not." You should be able to select a "strength" or something to that effect, which will allow you to pull the notes only a certain distance to the nearest beat. It's probably defaulted to 100%, which means it will line up every note like a grid to the nearest selected rhythmic value. But, you should be able to change that number to, say, 75%. Then, it will only put each note 75% of the way to the nearest beat, which will leave a lot of the human timing characteristics intact.

As Armistice said, programming good MIDI drums takes practice, but with the amazing-sounding drum samples available today, it's not really all that hard to get a drum track that sounds totally realistic and will easily fool good drummers. I always prefer to use real drums when I can, but when I don't have them available, I've gone the MIDI route and no one knew the difference. In fact, many people complimented the "drum sound" that I got. I use EZDrummer from Toontrack, but lots of programs would work fine.
 
Garageband is not your typical daw if i remember right it's a while since i used it. However you could always drop in one of its on board drum loops which should help you get started.
 
Thanks for the suggestions.

I can put together some decent MIDI drum loops on my own, and I used that "quantization amount" slider to change the % of quantization to make it more humanly, it's just concerning that the precisely timed drum patterns make everything else sound really "locked in the grid," like it all was made on a computer. Maybe I'm exaggerating, maybe it would sound as robotic if I go over it with real drums later. I don't know.

It also sounds like it would be a good idea to pick up some isolation headphones now. Any recommendations? I saw a few different pairs on Amazon in the $50 range, do you think any of those will do the trick?

And then again theirs ghost writing too ( Take the chords from a well known song and make your own song from them , disregarding the original melody and making your own fills, lyrics etc)
can be a good way to learn too
Click to expand...

I really like this idea. Going to try it out soon. This summer when I will have more free time, I plan on hitting the songwriting hard!

Groove up (the drums, bass, guitars, keys, etc method) sworks for me a lot of the time.
Click to expand...

What did you mean by this?

Also, do most of you guys go into recording a song with knowing the exact parts and structures of your songs, or do you mess around and experiment during the recording process until you find something that works?

Sorry for all the questions at once...it's really overwhelming to dive into this. :o
 
DoolittleKid said:
Thanks for the suggestions.

I can put together some decent MIDI drum loops on my own, and I used that "quantization amount" slider to change the % of quantization to make it more humanly, it's just concerning that the precisely timed drum patterns make everything else sound really "locked in the grid," like it all was made on a computer. Maybe I'm exaggerating, maybe it would sound as robotic if I go over it with real drums later. I don't know.

It also sounds like it would be a good idea to pick up some isolation headphones now. Any recommendations? I saw a few different pairs on Amazon in the $50 range, do you think any of those will do the trick?



I really like this idea. Going to try it out soon. This summer when I will have more free time, I plan on hitting the songwriting hard!



What did you mean by this?

Also, do most of you guys go into recording a song with knowing the exact parts and structures of your songs, or do you mess around and experiment during the recording process until you find something that works?

Sorry for all the questions at once...it's really overwhelming to dive into this. :o
Click to expand...

I think you'll find that there is no set answer to the last question. Some people may have everything in mind already (and even notate the parts out), while others simply fool around with sounds until something sparks and idea, and then they chase that until some cohesive forms. There's no right or wrong way.

I usually have at least the form of the song down before I start recording it.
 
as Beagle says if i have an idea in my head of what i want it to sound like from the get go and i work "from the groove up" so i will make a drum loop in midi (yes they can sound mechanical and often do but there are ways of making them sound more human) the drum loop will pretty much determine where the bass goes, leave some space for other intruments . Add guitar ,etc.
and yer there are no rules. It depends how the mood takes me
 
id say you defo need headphones. especially if your going to use a metronome (you dont want a beep beep beep in the background of a mic'ed up recording)

with a metronome in your headphones, it could give more possiblities of where to start. if you think of a good guitar riff quickly record it, using the metronome while the idea is in your head. then you can start adding bass, or drums, or keyboards to that - trying to think of what the drums will sound like over it.

once everything is roughly recorded, you will end up going back and tidying the original riff up etc.

have you explored any drum grooves. these are prewritten drum beats, with fills in midi which you can drag into your project. these can inspire you as to what to record over them.
 
I use the cheapest closed back Sennheisers for tracking (they cost about £13 over here from Amazon) and they work just fine for that purpose. In fact, they're pretty decent overall for the price. Them being closed back means that you get less sound leak both ways.
 
Im sure those cans will do fine. Hell i've even used ear buds before.
Metronome is defo the way to go. not only does it help you keep time for a start which make doing the drums after easier but you will learn to work with a metronome something some people later wish they had done.
I had a guy (singer songwriter) come to my studio to lay down some demos. so we recorded a scratch track to establish the tempo. easily done with most modern daws.
He couldnt keep time with the metronome and his timing was all over the place. I knew i was in trouble when he said " i change the song everytime i play it."
It made it almost impossible to layer other instruments on the top in a cohesive manner and make it sound like his vision of the finished product. Needless to say i had to give him a generous discount on the pricing because it didnt work out. Despite the fact i made great recordings for him.
It just didnt work out the way he wanted it because he didnt have a clear enough way of explaining to me what it was he envisioned or any idea how to play or at least sing the other parts.
I learnt my lesson that day.
Stick to working with a metronome or beat its doesnt mean you have to stick to it through out for example a slowed down ending but it sure helps if you can work with one.
Another idea for you is to keep a book of lyrics you write.
include pages for song ideas, pages for song titles.
stick news paper articles/picture in it. write those two lines down in the middle of the night when you awoke from your dream.
write and rewrite until you get that hit.
btw when you do dont forget those that helped you get there
cheers
Rich
 
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