The Basic Process

[Spillenger]

This may be the most newbie of all possible newbie questions.

This is not a question about equipment or software or setting levels or EQ or anything very sophisticated. It’s about the basic recording process for a one-man-band setup.

I play acoustic music. I play guitar, banjo, bass, and mandolin. I sing. I sing harmony. I record with decent mikes into a good sound card into a decent DAW (Sonar 4). I often play music with others, but sometimes I just want to record a song on my own.

Say I want to record a bluegrass song. With vocals. This is how I would probably do it:

1. Make up a chord and lyrics sheet. Large type for elderly eyeballs.
2. Make up an arrangement sheet that tells me the structure is, say: INTRO, V1, CH, BREAK, V2, CH, BREAK, V3, CH, CH, OUTRO.
3. Set up my mike(s), mixer and Sonar to record a nice, clean, flat vanilla rhythm guitar track against the Sonar metronome/click track.
4. Turn off click track and play the new tracks against the already recorded tracks.
5. Plug in my cheapo electric bass and lay down the bass line.
6. Record the rest of the instruments: banjo, lead guitar and mandolin – playing each straight through (mandolin doing INTRO and OUTRO, banjo taking BREAK 1, and guitar taking BREAK 2) – as opposed to recording first the backup part for each instrument on one track and the break on another.
7. Sing lead vocal.
8. Sing harmony vocals.
9. Listen to overall effect and re-record tracks (as alternate takes) that don’t meet with my approval.
10. Resist the impulse to just re-record a measure where I messed up and paste it into the track – play the whole part again.
11. Mix, EQ and effects (e.g., a little reverb here and there).
12. Output mix to stereo audio file to put on CD or send as mp3 email attachment.

This is all I really want to do for now. Nothing fancier than this. Is this how you would do it?

Though I think I have a very solid sense of rhythm, and in fact am known among my musician friends for this, I often find that when I’m recording, I fall out of rhythm from time to time. Maybe this is because I’m doing so many things – especially being my own engineer – instead of just playing. Anyone else have this experience while recording?

Thanks.

Paul S.

 

[ssscientist]

I have one recommendation for you that will make the whole process go more smoothly.

It's called a Frontier Tranzport and it lets you remotely control your recording software without needing to put your guitar or bass down every time. It specifically mentions Sonar as one of the software applications it interfaces with.

And one more recommendation for when it's time to convert your final mix to MP3 format. It a free stereo editing application called Audacity and it let's you pick the rate that you want to save the MP3 at --- 96k, 128k, etc up to 320k. It will let you amplify your mix until the peaks are at digital zero, which is all I do when I'm prepping an MP3 for my web site.

Other than that it sounds to me like you've got it all figured out!

Good luck!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

12. Output mix to stereo audio file to put on CD or send as mp3 email attachment.

I'd also add that you may be missing a step in the middle of #12, depending upon how literal or general you meant it to be. But taking it at face value...

There will most likely be some work you'll have to do between the mixdown and the final printing to CD or MP3, and that is the mastering stage.

Postitively one of the top three most freqently asked questions on this board is worded something along the lines of, "Why doesn't my mix sound as loud/good/professional as the commercial CDs and MP3s I listen to?" While there's a whole swag bag of reasons that could be behind it, more often than not it's because a rookie recorder expects their raw mixdown to be the final product. Au contraire, Pierre .

When one has their basic stereo mixdown there's usually a whole nother stage of work needed at that point, commonly referred to as mastering, pre-mastering or self-mastering, depending on who you're talking to and just how involved you want to get with it. But basically, at it's minimum, it involves making final sound shaping tweaks and volume optimizing to the stereo mix itself to give it the final fit-and-finish polishing that raw mixes usually need.

When you get to that point, more information can be gotten here and elsewhere with some basic searches. But in the meantime, other than that it sounds like you have the plan pretty well imagined.

G.

 

[RAMI]

Also, maybe nit-picking, but I would practice and get to know the tune well enough that you don't need STEPS 1 and 2. Following a song on paper might take away the emotion that you might be able to put across if you know the tune inside out and can just perform it.

 

[Dani Pace]

It sounds like you have a pretty good plan which should work fairly well for your purpose. One thing I do a little differently is to start by recording a scratch track, typicaly rythm guitar, click, and a rough vocal. After I get this track down i listen to it and make my "crib notes" on a large dry erase board. Working out the details of the arraingement at this point is easy when working at home, and allows you the freedom to alter plans (like which instrument to use for which break) without loosing the natural feel of your song. When paying for time in someone else's studio, work out all these details in advance. My main tip here is to use a dry erase board for your notes, easy to see and easy to change and reuseable. The one I use is 2'X3' and mounted on the studio door where i (and anyone else) can easily see it.