Recording with yourself...

[Robbie Bossert]

Just wondering how you guys basically go about it... Where to start? Do you set up a click track and just start layering on top og that? Instrumentation will be: Steel, Bass, Drums, guitar, maybe screw around with some midi strings or something later just for fun.....

Any and all input is greatly appreciated,,,

Robbie

[Tony Prior]

My take , always start with an "arranged" drum track. BIAB or other sources can give you this easily. Lay it out on paper so you know exactly where all the various parts are.


Play your BASS over the "arranged" drum track, add your guitars .


You can play a "scratch" Steel track at any time but save your performance track till' the very end.

Note: When playing Bass or guitars be very aware how BUSY the playing is, every note matters . You don't want to add your Steel part only to learn you have conflicting notes in the rhythm section. Less is more, and this gives you the opportunity to really stretch when playing your Steel .

every note matters. Good luck, have fun !

[Rick Schacter]

This is one of those topics where there aren't any wrong answers.
Whatever works for you is the correct way to do it.

For me, it depends on the song.
Sometimes if I'm attempting to write a song, I might start with a drum groove.
There have been times that I started with a synth patch that I liked.
Other times I might just sit down with an acoustic guitar or a piano.

When I'm ready to record something, I definitely use a click track.

[Robbie Bossert]

Thanks guys... I appreciate the input..

Robbie

[Michael Hibner]

Here is the way I record alone:
I set the metronome in my DAW to the tempo I want with an audible click. I set up a condenser mic and record myself playing acoustic guitar and singing along with the click. This track is a throwaway scratch track...but it is needed to let me know where the song is at when I record the drums. After I record the guitar/vocal scratch track I record the drums. Then I mute the scratch track and listen carefully to the drum track against the click to make sure there are no timing issues. Then I record the bass guitar track. a next the guitar, next the vocal, and lastly any other instrumentation i want to add.

[Jack Stoner]

I'm with Tony on a drum track to start.

I've recorded about 30 songs with ex Nashville songwriter and producer Jimmy Peppers. He would come in with guitar, I'd set up my SR-16 or SR-18 drum machines. Get the tempo and type of drums. We would then record the drum track along with his "scratch" Vocals and his guitar rhythm track. I would build from that, usually with bass as the next step. Finally instruments, steel, lead guitar, etc. After that is all finished Peppers would come back and do the "keeper" vocal track(s).

I recently (about a week ago) created two "backing" tracks for a singer. I created the backing tracks from the original song that I downloaded and imported into my DAW program (Sonar). I then created a drum track to go along with the original song using the pads on an SR-16 as I couldn't get the exact tempo of the recorded song, second the bass track, 3rd a rhythm guitar track and finally steel and lead guitar tracks. Mixed the instrumental tracks down (not the original song/vocals), added a little Ozone 5 mastering. Did the same thing for the second song and burned them to a CD for the singer.

[Charlie Hansen]

1. Put together a rudimentary drum track to use as click.
2. Record scratch vocal and rhythm guitar.
3. If rhythm track is good enough add another rhythm guitar.
4. Pan rhythms hard left and right (rhythms should be open and capoed)
5. Add bass
6. Do a clean vocal (maybe final, maybe not)
7. Overdub whatever leads you're using.
8. Re model the drum track to what you want. I use EZ drummer II unless I have live drums, then the process is completely different but I very seldom use live drums.
9. When using live drums I record drums, rhythm, bass and scratch vox live off the floor and proceed from there. Try to isolate the scratch vox as much as possible.
10. I'm not an expert so take from this what you will.

[Robbie Bossert]

Thanks for of your input guys... I appreciate it...

Robbie

[Tony Prior]

While I do not disagree with whats written above with regard to panning, just be careful, we don't want two of anything taking up the same "PAN " location.

If we are using a stereo drum track which may be 100% L and 100% R, we probably don't want rhythm guitars hard left and hard right, we want something less than 100%, maybe 75% . Placement of every instrument within the big picture matters.

A typical session which I run;

Programmed stereo drums, 100L and 100R
two rhythm guitars 75L, 75 R
(played in different fret board positions, played to accent each other)
Bass 0
Lead vocals L5 or R5 not 0
Steel L20
Lead guitars R20

Harmony vocals , somewhere out in the L40, R40 area , maybe wider.

Now I don't know if all of this is what the Pro engineers do but I do know that there is no PAN space conflict.

Obviously it's our ears and the final sound that matters.

[Greg Cutshaw]

I always start with a drum track for reference with a few custom accents and jumps. Later on after all the rhythm and lead parts are done, you can go back and add to or change the drum track or decide it's not needed and drop it entirely. So usually I do the drums on my PC in Reaper, port them to a Zoom R24 where I add capo'd up rhythm guitars and bass guitar and perhaps some rhythm piano. That's the base track and it sets the tempo and base chord structure for the song.

In the recording the the steel guitar E9th parts are panned left 38%, C6 and lead parts right 38%, Drums are stereo, rhythm and bass are centered. I played the 3 part fiddles, steel parts and lead guitar. Band In A Box RealTracks were used for the lead fiddle and piano parts. Initially I played the rhythm guitars but ditched them for the smooth shuffle rhythm guitars provided by BIAB RealTracks. In this recording I was trying to demo a new steel guitar so I purposely boosted the steel levels up a bit.


Hear the song!


Backing track

[Robbie Bossert]

Sounds great Greg... I'd be very happy if I could come close to those results... I've looked into BIAB before but I'm bot really sure which one to get. Any suggestions for home recording rookies like me?

Robbie

[Charlie Hansen]

I agree with what Tony says except I do the opposite. Guitars hard L & R and drums about 50 - 75 R & L. The rest is pretty much the same. I do pan the vocal dead center except if there is one other harmony part them it's about 10 either way and if there's two harmony vocals Pan them about 15 R & L and the lead vocal dead center.
But who knows who's right.

[Tony Prior]

But who knows who's right.

There is no right or wrong !

It's what it sounds like at the end that determines if we...

PASS

or

FAIL

[Greg Cutshaw]

The recording hobby is a lot like woodworking. You start with a radial saw then discover you need a planer, table saw, router, joiner, special bits etc.

I started with a Yamaha all in one recorder and a drum machine for a few years. Totally usable but tedious to program drum patterns and not very powerful mastering. Then I went to EZDrummer for drums, Reaper for mastering and a Zoom R24 for grabbing the tracks. Always played my own bass parts recording it direct to console.

It's hard for me to recommend anything other than what I'm using now because it works well for me! I added BIAB only because of the awesome (but not cheap) RealTracks solo capability.

Not knowing how much money, time and effort you want to put into this and what exactly you expect to get out of it makes it hard to recommend. Minimum investment and half decent results for practicing at home would pry be the BIAB basic package. Beyond that the cost and equipment requirements go up pretty fast. Many have opted for Reaper with a USB recording interface and perhaps BIAB for the tracks.

Spend some time reading forums and deciding on what your goal is. It's unlikely that one program or tool will do all that you require as you progress and maybe want to get more realistic sounds and tracks.

[Tony Prior]

What Greg said. Typically the world of home recording for many started decades ago with primitive gear , thats where we each honed any skills we may have acquired. For me, I learned how to multi track back in my bedroom at 13 or 14 years old with a Sony 7" Reel to Reel Sound on Sound recorder. The process is still the same, the gear is not .

Probably a dozen different desktop Workstation recorders, Cassette and Digital, and 4 different DAW's later, landed me where I am.

The thing about it is they all used the exact same process to lay down some music.

Greg is totally correct in that we use what we use and it's near impossible to say whats best or what anyone else should do. My Pro Tools 12 system along with interfaces and preamps is exactly what I want, what I do is 100% geared to my system and peripherals. Someone else may see it differently. Just look across all the forums where people say Pro Tools is horrible, doesn't work and is full of bugs.

Whats important is to develop a process with whats in front of you and that can be with something as simple as a Tascam 4 tracker. The final result of music doesn't happen unless we know how to get it on tape or media, which means, know your gear and have a process.

There really is no such thing as "Buy this system and you can record your own CD at home" Thats a myth. The education of "recording music" starts well before buying a DAW or a workstation.


We can have the zippiest Lawn Mower on the planet, with all the latest and greatest features , but it still needs what even the most simple of mowers requires, Gasoline ! ( Well unless it's Electric of course).

Oh and with regard to tools, we can never have enough , even if we never take them out of the box !

[Earl Blake]

Look up your local apple store. They do a Garageband tutorial. It's kind of fun to watch them put a song together in the hour. It's not tight, but it gives you ideas.

[Dom Franco]

As someone said above, there is no "right or Wrong" way to do it.

But here's my 2 cents after 40+ years of home multi-track recording.

Use a simple drum machine part as a click and make sure the tempo and arrangement is the way you want it.

Then use a midi keyboard to lay down a temporary pad or piano part 1st before any guitars. This is done so all the other instruments will be tuned to it

Then guitars, bass other parts etc. That's my big tip to create a perfectly in tune track.

[Bob Hoffnar]

I'm working on a project now where I write parts into Sibelius then export the parts as wav files. I load the parts into Pro Tools and later replace the samples/midi stuff with real musicians. Its pretty amazing. I can have improvising musicians play along to the tracks and then adjust/rewrite the written parts as needed for the readers. Its not seamless but it is a very cool process.

You could do the same sort of thing with any writing/sequencing program using midi files.

[Les Cargill]

So get a guitar or keyboard part - the "backbone" part - down, to a click. This is just to get the idea down. I keep the first take where I make it all the way through. Often, I'll cut and paste that. The point is to get it done fast and don't think about it.

Then I make a scratch drum track to use as a fancy click - usually I cut and paste or directly notate MIDI. It'll be a straight beat with minimal cues and stops.

AT this point, I make a chord chart if needed.

Then sometimes I'll recut the "backbone" part. Sometimes that works out as a double for the original. Sometimes I have to remove the original from the project ( but don't delete it ).

Then I play "keydrums" with fills. I quantize that if it'll take quantization.

Then I put the rest of the parts on that. I usually put bass on last.

About half the time it's "rot, got the tempo wrong" and we start over at the top. Since I have all the drums and keys saved as MIDI, that's pretty easy to redo.

Why redo stuff? Because you're still learning the song, and you're moving from a role as a writer to a performer once you get a sketched arrangement down. But sometimes, the first take is the keeper.