What is the Best Way to record a song?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Buddha17
  • Start date Start date
B

Buddha17

New member
Hello Everyone

I have just started in the world of recording and I want to start recording my music. I have a Focusrite interface garage band, a condenser mic a pencil mic and a pair of mixing headphones. I want to upgrade into Logic but that is for another post. I have a song that has an acoustic guitar vocals, Bass and a lead guitar. I want to know how to best record this song? Should I record the vocals and the guitar together or record guitar then vocals and then add everything else? Your advice is greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Blake
 
All depends on the separation that you'll need come time for any and all post production work once you have everything recorded and ready.
For me it's as much separation that I can get. So record everything in order of what is most comfortable to you.
 
If you ever aspire to adding drums to your song, then starting out with a click track will make the process easier...

It also depends on whether you're playing all the instruments or not - if you are then it's easier for you to know where everything goes. If others are involved then you may need to attack things in a different order.

If it was just me and, I'd do:

1. Click 2. Acoustic guitar(s) 3. Vocal 4. Bass 5. Lead guitar


If it involved someone else I'd do

1. Click 2. Scratch track (rough version bashed out on acoustic with vocals) 3. Acoustic guitar(s) 4. and on - whatever works, depending upon who's around.

Make sure you're happy with each track before building on it with another one. If you decide, after recording everything, that you want to change the acoustic guitar, then perhaps your bass and vocals won't work quite as well...

Experiment, however... the way I do stuff is the way I do stuff. You need to work out what works for you.

Good luck...
 
Keep in mind with digital you have NOTHING to lose. It's like digital photography, see a nice sunset, take 8 million pictures, one will be great, the rest not so, erase them, the memory card is as good as new. Same here. No investment of 300 bones for 15 minutes of tape. Don't save tracks, use as many as you can. I think Sonar maxes out at something like 64 tracks.
 
It depends on what you're recording.

Some like starting with just drums to a click track. Then layer each other voice individually over that track.

Some like starting with a live take of an entire song with the full group to use as a base. Then capture each individual track using the live take as the click track. And various means to an end.

No need to skimp on tracks as you can save them out and mix them to condense them down to just a few tracks. Then revert back to the individual tracks when you master them. Depending on your computing power and work flow. There's really no wrong way as long as you end up with the result that you were after in the end.
 
'..Should I record the vocals and the guitar together or record guitar then vocals and then add everything else? Your advice is greatly appreciated."


The KEY here, is experimentation. Don't wait around for other people's opinions. Start out with Armistice's advice.

Never wait for someone else's opinion. Never, never, never. Time's a wastin'.:cool:

Hook it up and play it.
 
What's that old commercial? Just do it?

Doing is the way to answer your own questions. There's a lot of things that I didn't need until I started doing. Like windscreens, small mics, while touting a lower wind profile are still sensitive to wind noise. Like a headphone preamp for isolation and convenience when multi-tracking. Like shock mounts even though they're on a stand on hard and stable ground. Well the cable is still blowing in the wind and smacking that stand. Like a boom arm, or else you have to stand up and play sideways to keep your trombone from smacking the stand. And many other things that address the issues you'll encounter when you start recording. Issues that you wont know that you have until you have them.
 
Back
Top