One Man Bands

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RandomHero

RandomHero

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Hey guys,

for my senior year bridge project, im going to record songs that i have been writing throughout the year and make a mixtape or EP of sorts. i have great recording gear and i have used it all before with excellent results, but that has always been in a band setting. this on the other hand is going to be a solo project. the songs i have written range from poppy and light music like passion pit or MGMT all the way to metal like baroness or mastodon. im going to record 7 songs.

The question is gentlemen, how do i record these songs by myself? iv always done scratch tracks with a whole band (wont be possible now) and then recorded the actual takes over it. do i just throw a metronome on and drum, then do bass, guitars vox ect? or is there a more efficient way to go about doing this.. im POSITIVE im not the only one who has tried this. share your experiences and stories with recording yourself playing all instruments and shit.
 
I just put up a click track and go. I'm a pitiful drummer so that's always my weak point. The rest is no problem.
 
Why can't you do a scratch track? I set up a click and record scratch guitar (my main instrument) and vocal tracks until I'm happy with an arrangement. I record drums to that arrangement, then bass, guitar(s), keys. I do vocals last.
 
Agreed. It all starts with a good drum track. Then I'll do my rhythm guitars and then bass. But unless I need something as a reference I try to do my bass tracks with drums only to lock the bass in. I think the drums and bass are the skeletal structure of any good song and they have to be tight. After that just flesh it out as thick as you want it.
 
I don't know why but most of the songs that I have done I've started with the rhythm guitar track.
But It all depends on what I wrote the song on.
If the song was written on the keys, guitar, bass that will usually be my first track to lay down.
 
word. i guess ill just throw the click on. i (obviously) know the songs well enough to know my cues for fills/changes ect but i tend to play better when i can play along to something. i guess i can just do rough takes of each instrument induvidially and then record the better takes over that.
 
@ moresound, that actually makes a lot of sense to me. i think i'll try try that too.

but then again, im not sure why but whenever i play along to a click track i tend to lose some feel. when i can hear drums or any other instrument i get in to it more.
 
Yeah, that's the way I do it all the time...scratch guitar and vocals, then drums and build the song up from there. I also keep the scratch guitar a lot of the time. I don't like click tracks, somehow I always get off and have to record twenty times, but if you're going to do MGMT stuff with loops etc, you'll need to use a click.
 
Double crossing time

I've been thinking about clicks and people saying that they lose feel playing to one. But in a way, that's illogical. If a drummer said to you before tracking, "I'm going to really waver in tempo and you'll just have to follow me !", wouldn't you want to pour fire on their head ? No, when we play with drummers and percussionists, we expect them however classy and inventive they are, to be solid in their timing. So the time reference element of all things drummy is a given. And we don't say that a rock solid drummer lacks feel.
For solo operators especially, a click/metronome/drum machine thingy makes abundant sense. It's only a time reference. Within that time reference, a drummer can change the feel endlessly just by the number of strokes they play and the interplay of toms, cymbals, kick, hats and snare. A solid drummer keeps regular time. A click keeps regular time. A clock keeps regular time. A prisoner keeps regular time.
 
Scratch guitar and vocals to a click...then real drums to that...then everything else to the drums.

Once I have a couple of keeper tracks that provide the structure of the song...I toss the scratch tracks, but I always keep the click all the way to the end (until I'm mixing)...that way I always have the click as my "absolute" timing reference, since even drummers can drift or be off enough on a beat here and there, and you need to make some adjustments (or play/track it over if you prefer). The click is indisputable.
 
I used to track to a click and I get the "lose feel" argument, because a click is just an on the beat thing...

What I now do is record a really basic drum pattern in Reaper that would work across the entire song (if poss), including any half / triplet bits on snare / kick and a bit of minor work on the hats - takes no time to set up and it helps me get more into the groove of what I'm trying to record, rather than just 1,2,3,4 on a metronome.

Try it..
 
I've been using a click for so long now....that it's almost 100% transparent to me. Once I'm past the 8 beat count-off, and the song starts, I pay no conscious attention to it, it's just there as a gentle reminder. I also tend to keep its volume down low in the headphones, and I pan it off to one side.
 
Most of the click sounds are just horrendous not real sounds.
 
moresound said:
Most of the click sounds are just horrendous not real sounds.
Click to expand...

Agreed.... I never use an inbuilt metronome... I actually would record a track using a stick/snare or something more "drummy" from a drum machine because I'd find the sound of the metronome annoying me when I was playing..... now I use decent drum samples..
 
moresound said:
Most of the click sounds are just horrendous not real sounds.
Click to expand...

I found a percussion wood block sound, and have been using that instead of the default *click* for a long time now. It's a got a nice clean snap and the tone of the wood block cuts through without the need for high volume. When I record the real drums, the wood block click blends right in with the whole kit, and I can leave it playing along all the time without it being annoying or distracting....it's just "there" if you want to focus on it for reference purposes at any time.
 
While the side issues are fascinating and will take the thread on it's own particular course, it's at this point crucial to remember that the OP is specifically concerned with a one person recording scenario. By the very nature of that beast, different methodology will be called for.
Is feel really lost, playing to a click ? I tracked an acoustic bass guitar to a ticking clock the other day. When I listened back to it, sans the clock, there's no way I could've told that I played to a regular tick tock. It had all my usual fruity foolishness.
One could go as far as to say, that any time one overdubs, because most of that time you'll be doing it to an already existing piece of music, you risk killing feel. But then, you'd be applying that to most, or certainly a humongous percentage of, music and that's simply not true. 'Feel' is a hard thing to gauge. I know what I mean by it and when it's there or lacking, but I couldn't possibly communicate that to another human being. It's not like heat or cold.......
 
One thing to consider is which instrument you are most comfortable playing. I've recorded a few one man band albums. I often try to record scratch tracks of guitar or synth and then record drums to that, but I have more success if I start with drums (my first and main instrument) and record everything after. The downside to a scratch track is that the timing has to be nearly perfect, or else your first real foundational track will be off and that will stick around through the whole tune. The best way I've found is to record a scratch track of something that 1 - will help you understand the song structure, and 2 - will be solid in its feel/time. If you start with a track that feels good, stays in time, and maps the song, then everything else should just fall into place.

On the other hand, an advantage to doing drums later is using them as a type of rhythmic averaging. Allow me to explain: as a drummer, I'm between laid back and right on the beat. As a bassist and keyboardist, I'm also pretty laid back. As a guitarist, I'm usually on top of or on the front end of the beat. If I record drums last, I can think about where in the beat to put the drums so that everything fits nicely and no track sounds like it's rushing/dragging. This averaging process is actually pretty challenging (for me), but it's something to think about.
 
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