Newbie Recording Question (One Mic | Vocals + Guitar | )

[RyanRosario]

Since I only have one mic, I can only make one track on my DAW combined with both my vocals and guitar playing. If I wanted to do some mixing/editing with my take that I get, would that be wise and fine to do? Let's say if I were to just focus as if the track was just vocals when really there is both my voice and instrumental playing in the background. I've made threads where most of you would highly advise two mics and I'm working on that, but for now I can only do it this way. Should I edit to one track? or should I just leave it raw with little fx like reverb to none at all?

 

[ecc83]

Now, as a non-singing, non-playing, non-musician, valve jockey, this is easy for me to say...BUT!

Learn to record the parts individually. For sure, with an ideal set up, two mics optimally positioned your performance playing and singing is likely to be better but the technical issues with doing this with just one mic I would say outweigh the "artistic" advantage.*

So, you need to record the guitar part then play that back to record the vocals. This will test both your technical skills, getting the sounds back to monitor (on headphones!) and setting up a clean mic feed, free of guitar and your musical ability as well. No matter how many mics,tracks you eventually acquire, you will still need to do this sometimes.

This skill has been part of an artist's bag of tricks for decades. Many were required to "drop in" new parts over fluffs on tape. If it was easy everybody could do it. Maybe even me!

*Music recording is ALWAYS a compromise between artistic "vibe" and technical necessity. Practically every "live" recording you have ever heard has been re-dubbed to buggery!

Dave.