Scratching out ideas

K

kurtteej

New member
How do you guys scratch out your ideas? I wanted some input about what other guitar players do. I've played both bass & guitar in bands (i have a strange playing style where i play each as if it were the other which tends to make me a little better bass player). Anyway.....

When I'm trying to scratch out an idea I generally do all the guitar and bass parts and then use midi drums thru a drum machine. If any of my ideas ever comes to fruition, that's when i go find someone to play the drums (and then i generally re-record the bass & guitars to better match the drumming).

Does this sound bass-ackwards to anyone or does anyone else do things like this?
 
Spot on
Alternatively youinvolve humans earlier but then that becomes collaboration.-
Cheers
rayC
 
I do something like that.
I think it works very well.
I write the music usually on guitar, set up and record the drums, then continuosly record bass and guitar tracks until I am happy.
Someone just told me to wait a day to mix it,too.
Have not tried it yet.
Remember, changing the method and formula for writing and recording makes for new sounds.
 
Yeah, that's similar to how I work. Compose on the guitar, then pick drum loops, record the guitar, then write the bass part. It's easier for me to do bass after drums because I want the bass to lock with the kick. Since I'm working with loops (pre-recorded acoustic drums), I have to pick the loops that fit best with the guitar and the song, and then use the bass to bridge the drums to the harmony.

Sometimes I can get a fresh perspective by picking out some drum loops that I like, and then writing a guitar part around them. It helps me find rhythms that I might not otherwise consider. I've come up with some cool stuff by doing things "backwards" - writing lyrics before music, drums before guitar, etc. This is probably the normal way for some people, but it's backwards for me, and so it helps open my mind to new ideas.
 
I'll write my stuff late at night when I can't play loud, then I'll do a scratchy recording. Wake up and to my dismay it didn't save.

Ahh all the lost licks :(
 
For me it really depends. I've noticed a definate difference in how my songs come out depending on how I come up with the meat of them (usually guitars as well). Before I had a computer of any kind, it was all on the couch with a guitar and no amp and I'd just sketch stuff out. I still try to do that at least some of the time because it forces you to fill in the blanks in your head thus using more of your imagination. The other way I'll do it is in Acid. When you're in software and have a reasonably good sounding drum module (BFD for me), you can kind of acheive almost everything in front of you mixing as your writing, so it can sound very realistic. One disadvantage to this for me is that I think it does limit your imagination a little because you can generally dial right up whatever you're looking for as far as changes, sections and drum beats. The advantage to this for me is kind of the same thing. Due to the fact that you can do endless experimental stuff on the spot with software in general, you can do all sorts of tweaking and if you hear something you like, the rest of the song will be affected by those types of things that only your software can do.

To me, it's like the difference between imagining a song in your head and then writing what you imagined as opposed to playing around with sounds, chords, drumbeats, whatever until a song starts to emerge on it's own.

My two cents.
 
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