What is the MOST important thing to record a decent demo?

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duncansistinas

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Hi everyone.
What do you thing, are the sound card ( i have a Guillermot ISIS ), or the microphones, or the mastering effects...?
Please help.
 
Your overall signal chain to the recorders armed track s/b clean, clear and concise! Including the musical talent needed to produce a great track!
 
The most important things are your ears and experience regrdless of what kind of gear you have.
 
The talent, or lack thereof, of the artist(s) you are recording.
 
I would definitely choose technical know-how and good musicianship/songwriting/performance over good gear.

We had a friend who does a lot of recording that gets horrible drum sounds from his studio that was bragging about upgrading his soundcard.

And we were joking, "Great! Now your drums can sound like crap in 32 bit!!!"
 
I would agree with everthing so far. But what is important is what is the point of your demo? Is it to showcase songs, your performance or engineering ability?

All 3 of those would have different requirements.
 
TexRoadkill said:
I would agree with everthing so far. But what is important is what is the point of your demo? Is it to showcase songs, your performance or engineering ability?

All 3 of those would have different requirements.
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I agree and disagree. These things are like your homework when you were in highschool. Good handwritting counts. What I mean is no matter what your intent (short of pitching something together just to show the boys in the band where they should start playing and when they should hold their water) the song and the performance and the engineering should be as good as it can possibly be.
 
Recently I wrote a song with a friend of mine. She wrote the lyrics and the melody and asked me to make a song out of it.

Well, so I did. I'm new to recording but I didn't let that stop me. Ok. I'm a bassplayer so that was the easy part. I got a very simple but effective drumloop and some trumpet, sax and trombone from Reason. Picked up my Squire Telecaster and although I can hardly play guitar I managed to put down some chords and a few catchy licks that came up in my head . Then she did the vocals and as a finishing touch I did some backing vocals.

I've heard worse recordings but this one still sounds quite like crap. Nevertheless we've had dozens of people listen to it and they practically all liked it. very much. People said things like "the drums aren't much but you know.. I can't get this song out of my head".

I knew that the drums sucked in the first place. And I frankly couldn't care less. What I do care about is that my friend's band likes the song so much that they're going to try it out at their next gig.

We managed to get the song that we had in our heads across. That was our goal, we succeeded and we're very happy with that. To us, that makes it a great demo.

(The only fancy piece of equipment used was a Joemeek VC6Q)
 
I would say the most important thing would be a knowlege of your limitations, and how to work around them. So yea, it's definitely all about the knowlege you get from practice and experience.

I'm not so sure that I subscribe to the theory that you have to have awesome songs and great musicians. I can make a really good recording of a crappy song performed by musicians of equally crappy caliber.

You'd probably listen to it and say, "Damn. That's a really good recording of a crappy band and an equally crappy song."

The drummer is an exception to my rule, although I can't put my finger on just why. Neal Peart could probably play his drums in my basement with no engineer, and it would sound like it was recorded by Mutt Lange at Abbey Road. On the other hand, I could play with Mutt at Abbey Road, and it would sound like it was recorded in my basement by a newbie. :)

Getting back to the crappy musicians thing . . . If you know what you're doing, you can turn a crappy musician in to a good one. Hell, just have him/her record like 100 takes of their part . . . and then use some creative editing to piece together whatever shining moments there might be scattered amongst all the various takes.

If worse comes to worse, you could even find that one magical passage and loop it. Then find another one and loop that. Of course then, you'd pretty much have to loop everything and make it all a loop-based project, but better that than have a more organic one that showcases the crappiness of all the musicians.

I don't have an enormous array of exemplary gear, nor do I have a recording space that people would fight over to record in. But I have a knack for editing . . . and I can take the most average-sounding musicians from off the street and make them sound FAR better than they have any right to sound!
 
charger said:
The songs.
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BINGO!!!

And might I add the creativity to overcome the negative aspects such as environment, gear, etc. It's important to not make a "demo." Do your best with whatever you have. A recording is a recording...a moment in time. You may redo it later....but it is what it is. Steve Albini Said something like that once and it really made me think....art is art....oil painting or pencil sketch.

Just lay down a litle piece of your soul and it will come through regardless of the other bullshit.

heylow
indie snob
 
Thanks a lot but...

Thanks a lot guys but i need something concrete.
The fact is that we recorded a demo in one day, with poor mics and without taking care of sound.
And now, we are talking about recording again with good mics and puting a lot of attention on the sound rooms, etc... and with no limit of time.
The problem is that some people of the group says that the demo will be a crap (still), because the most important is the sound card.
I´m not agree so i want of your wisdom.
Thanks guys
 
Some ideas . . .

I would like to share of my wisdom, but it's really tough to give you anything concrete without knowing what else you're using and what condition it's in.

It could very well be your instruments, amps, or even the effects pedals, but again . . . (??)

* Stepping up to better mics, preamps, and better-sounding rooms will immediately help.

* Giving yourselves more time will help, as long as you use that time wisely.

* A better sound cart than the Gilligan probably will, too.

* I would also recommend buying, borrowing or renting the best instruments and amps you can get your hands on to record with. Tune your drums and guitars obsessively between takes. Change your strings a week before you start recording (and experiment with different types).

But even all of that is no guarantee that your demo won't still be a crap. It WILL definitely be less a crap than it was.
 
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Having panic-recorded a demo in our rehearsal-room with an aquaintances' AW4416, I think I know where my priorities should lie next time. We rushed through everything, we did the setup of the gear in about an hour, just guessing how it should be made, with no time for testing how it actually would turn out... also, the mics we used wasn't the ideal for the task handed upon it (SM58's for overheads), but I guess it could work fine with some placement experimentation - which we didn't have time for.

So, next time I do this, I will stress that we spend some TIME in setting up the microphones properly... AND using the right microphones for the job... AND adjusting our performance so it will sound good recorded. And tuning the goddamn snare drum. This time, the result kind of sucked... turned out to be VERY hard to mix - at least for me it was. :)
 
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