Recording Workflow

Nitebob

I always hear my own compositions so vividly in my head, but when it comes to recording, it doesnt sond nearly the same.

I came to the conclusion that my workflow is screwy. Mostly because I dont have a set workflow.

I was wondering how you guys do your stuff. Keeping in mind, I have to play everything!

Rgds

NorioDS

This is a great question! Definitely keen to see the responses here as I struggle with recording.

AlanRatcliffe

Unless you are doing silly things like only adding drums later in the process, your workflow shouldn't be affecting the sound of your recording. Workflow is just the mechanical process of capturing the parts of the recording.

Nitebob wrote: I always hear my own compositions so vividly in my head, but when it comes to recording, it doesnt sound nearly the same.

To me, that points to other things like orchestration or mixing.

Maybe tell me a little more about your process (or lack therof).

Stoffeltoo

What do you lay down first with recording?
I must confess that I am just as curious.

AlanRatcliffe

Stoffeltoo wrote: What do you lay down first with recording?

Almost always rhythm section. Drums then bass. If it's a band, it can be with or without the rest of the band playing along (which will usually be recorded too as "scratch" tracks - rerecorded individually, but providing a guide for tracking).

Nitebob

I've always recorded rythm first. A simple kick-snare to get the rythm right. Then added acoustic, then bass, then elecric, then I colour the drums a bit with breaks and toms, add vocals, backing vocals. Adjust levels...

However should I want the song to start with acoustic fingerpicking and escalate, the fngerpicking done to the rythm of the kick snare sounds 'mechanical' (?) ...no emotion

AlanRatcliffe

Nitebob wrote: However should I want the song to start with acoustic fingerpicking and escalate, the fngerpicking done to the rythm of the kick snare sounds 'mechanical' (?) ...no emotion

Try tracking the guitar to just a soft kick on the downbeat. That's often all it takes to keep you in time, but will leave you plenty latitude with flex and breathe within the bar. Take it out again afterwards if it's not needed (or bring it in halfway through a bar, whatever...).

If all else fails, record the fingerpicking intro separately then drag it into position so it ends at the right place then continue tracking the acoustic with another take alongside the rhythm section.

Mo-Facta

Nitebob wrote: I always hear my own compositions so vividly in my head, but when it comes to recording, it doesnt sond nearly the same.

Don't worry dude, you're not the only person in the world to experience this. In fact, this it's the crux of producing a great recording. Knowing how to get from point A to point B can often take lifetime of practice and experience.

Nitebob wrote:I came to the conclusion that my workflow is screwy. Mostly because I dont have a set workflow.

As Alan said, workflow is the method behind the madness but I would say that it can indeed affect the resulting sound. For instance, if your mind is scattered and you end up working on too many things at once you can end up making hasty decisions and getting lost in the fray of it all. Once you've added a million plugins, done a million edits you're pretty much lost in the forest. Breaking down your workflow and compartmentalising each sound whilst keeping a crooked eye on the overall sound you're going for is key.

Nitebob wrote:I was wondering how you guys do your stuff. Keeping in mind, I have to play everything!

Well, assuming you're a home recordist advice has already been given in terms of your approach. Rhythm is always a good starting point because as Dave Grohl said, "until you got drums, you got nothin'. Once the drums are done you can start putting more shit on it." lol

I think the best thing to keep in mind here is that you need to have a vision in your head of what you would like it to sound like. Translating that vision to an actual composition and recording is the sticky bit and can often be hair raising if you don't have the experience to get certain sounds to work together in a cohesive mix. Let me give an example of what I would do in the case of, say, an indie rock band. I realise you are a home recordist that probably doesn't have access to what I'm about to describe but I just thought it would give you an idea of actually how far back the process of "getting a sound" can go before you ever press record.

There are several things that you can assume about indie music. The drums are often roomy and natural sounding. The guitars tend to be overdriven but not full out distorted. They also tend to be quite bright. The bass sound will tend to be honky and fills in the gaps of the otherwise bright, jangly guitars. The vocals generally like to have some sort of distortion character to sound "vintage". So, where do you start?

Well, I'd get a kit that is suited to indie rock. Coated heads will do. An old Rogers, Slingerland or Ludwig kit will do the job. A Fender P-bass will most likely be the go-to starting point for bass. An Ampeg SVT classic with a 4 or 8x10 is ideal but they're not really available here so a good alternative will have to suffice. For guitars? Fender - Teles are most common but anything with a single coil like a Rickenbacker or even a Strat will do. I'm generalising here but you don't want a humbucking guitar that's too thick to fight with the bass. The standard indie amp for years has been the Vox AC30. It's perfect for indie rock and combined with a Tele it can be searingly bright. There are, of course, many alternatives. For vocals, choosing a vintage microphone would be ideal, like an RCA44 or 77 but those aren't really around so many times we just use what we have and then use plugins or analogue distortion to supply some character.

And then there's miking everything up...

And then there's tracking...(hope the performances are up to scratch!)

Then there's mixing...

So you see, there's lots involved actualizing what's in your head. It is a virtual minefield of trial and error wherein you have to compartmentalise every step whilst keeping a holistic view of the outcome.

I use Cubase and the folder tracks are lifesaver in organising your project. You can close everything else while working on instrument or groups of instruments until you're ready to move on. Getting a good drum sound, to me, is the basis of a good track so I usually start on that first along with the bass. Once those are where I want them to be, everything else falls in line in relation to them.

This question you've asked is a tricky one, for sure. There are a million ways to skin a cat but if you skin them long enough eventually you'll fall into a routine that works for you. Your routine will also evolve as you discover new ways to do things so just be patient.

Hope that helps.

Cheers ?

Bob-Dubery

Mo Facta, your posts are always worth reading. Even for somebody like me who has no recording set up and minimal interest in having such. Thanks and thanked.

NorioDS

For me, I have no idea how I want the drums to sound. It's a tough starting point as, if the drums are good, it can inspire me to write a better lead line but I just don't have what it takes to lay down a good drum track.

refuogee

Thanks Mo Facta, that was amazingly insightful!!

For my band's recording we did guide tracks to click which consisted of guitars and bass. Our drummer then recorded drums to these guides and we are now in the process of laying down bass, rhythms, leads and vocals to these takes. Our bassist actually couldn't make it to all the sessions where we did the guides (just into our engineer's PC) which actually did affect things a little.

I don't know if it is relevant but having a good guide track/ pre-production is key I feel. Try have the song recorded how you want it before even starting recording it properly. If this means a live take and then tweaking and re-recording so be it. So many things influence the outcome. We don't hear our vocalist too well at practice, the second I hear him what he is singing recorded, I hear backing vocals and different lead lines so you need the full picture and be happy with it before laying down things to click and whatever.. Or at least that's how I feel and obviously time and access isn't a luxury we ourselves have and I am sure most others don't..

Psean

Yeah, thanks Greg. Some interesting stuff.

PJH

Absolutely spot on, Mo.

There is one other thing that I would stress. That is - work out your parts that you will play in the pre production stage. In other words, have the parts prepared before you start the actual recording instead of trying to work out what fits with what when the pressure of tracking is high.

In that way you'll have a really good idea what your track is actually gonna sound like before you put down the final version.

Maybe you'll want to make changes to certain parts but the time to do it is before you start final tracking. Thats why a lot of players like to do rough demos before even thinking of doing the finished product.

Cheers,

Peter.

Mo-Facta

No worries, guys. I'm glad you got something out of my post.

And totally agreed PJH. Pre-production can help immensely in getting the arrangement together and inspire preliminary sounds. It's just another step to help the project evolve.

I think the best approach to have is to keep it simple, at least at first. In the case of using electronic drums, you often find that a lot of sample libraries and patches are "pre-cooked". This sort of locks you into working with that sound and attempting to change it into some other sound is practically impossible. I think the key there is to pick a kit that suits the material, make sure the levels are not slammed and start with relatively dry sound and add ambiance and effects later. Electronic music can be another ball game but if you're writing "real" songs with guitars, bass, etc, the sound of the kit is very important and needs to sound organic as the rest. Then again, music has no rules, either!

I must admit, I record live drums most of the time with possibly some sample blending, so I don't have much experience using virtual instruments such as EZ Drummer, etc, to create a believable and realistic working sound. In my opinion it's really difficult, particularly if you're making "organic" music that isn't obviously electronic, to get a believable sound in that approach unless you humanise it to a degree that sells it. Velocities are important as well as timing. The best sounding drum samples programmed robotically will not be convincing. Real drummers aren't perfectly on the grid and that's what makes it sound real.

Going back to workflow, it is a very important thing if you're both the engineer and the artist, i.e. recording yourself. When you're emotionally entrenched in a song and you have to make otherwise technical and analytical decisions of an engineer, the mind can get muddled and lost. Forest for the trees syndrome, I call it. Like I said before, it's about the holistic view of the song and sometimes that takes being prepared. Preparation comes through woodshedding ideas. My approach in song writing and recording has always been to have the song at least arranged with a basic idea of what sound I want to go for. It's often inspired by the guitar riff. My SG on the neck pickup sounds so creamy on crunch that my mind instantly goes, "ya know, some big, roomy Bonham drums would sound great with this riff". Different riffs inspire certain influences in terms of production sound and my mind guides the outcome.

The last piece of advice I would like to give is DON'T WORK IN SOLO. Don't try to make something sound good on it's own. If everything sounds "big", nothing sounds "big". Proper tonal interplay between instruments is based on being aware of how their harmonic ranges, particularly the fundamental range, overlaps. It sounds complicated but your ears are more than equipped to help you hear it. Also, pay particular attention to lower midrange buildup, the balance between the high and low bands, and for resonances in the upper midrange. Those are the ear piercing frequencies (2 to 5kHz) and will hurt if there's too much of it.

There's so much more but I'll leave it at that for now.

Cheers ?

Nitebob

I think that is another major factor you touched on Mo. I record bass, but if nt done through the right amp or emulator, it'll sound empty. Just dawned on me now. I record bass, drums and strings with my keyboard :-[

AlanRatcliffe

Nitebob wrote: I record bass, but if nt done through the right amp or emulator, it'll sound empty. Just dawned on me now. I record bass, drums and strings with my keyboard :-[

Nothing wrong with DIing a bass - it has it's own (useful) sound and you can always reamp with an amp sim (or copy the bass track and leave one clean and reamp the other). Also, adding in an amp sim to a keyboard generated bass can take it to the next level of realism too.

Do you record the MIDI and then play back or do you record the audio from each instrument? When I was working with external synth modules, I'd always record the MIDI, edit it as needed and then record the audio from each track individually, which allowed me to process the audio from each separately. I've moved completely to softsynths now, which makes the process far easier (no having to recapture the audio if you want to make MIDI edits later in the process), but I still treat the outputs separately.

Drums are very much the key to realism in a recording. As I've said before, learning to drum did more for my music than anything else I've ever done. Even though I never rose beyond average playing skills on drums, I learned lots of stuff about how things fit together, how drums are played and how they should sound.

In my opinion it's really difficult, particularly if you're making "organic" music that isn't obviously electronic, to get a believable sound in that approach unless you humanise it to a degree that sells it. <...snip...> Real drummers aren't perfectly on the grid and that's what makes it sound real.

One of the (many) things I like about using EZDrummer is the humanize function (and the fact that their drum patterns are played in by real drummers), which makes things easy, but I still get to use some of the MIDI-related tricks learned trying to get the old, stiff, mechanical drum machines to sound real, often resorting to MIDI event editing. I also love that I can output each "mic" separately to process them as you would the mics from a real recorded kit. So I can do things like keep the kick fairly dry while having the overheads or room quite ambient.

Mo Facta wrote: There's so much more

There's always so much more... ?

doc-phil

Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
Nitebob wrote: I record bass, but if nt done through the right amp or emulator, it'll sound empty. Just dawned on me now. I record bass, drums and strings with my keyboard :-[
Nothing wrong with DIing a bass - it has it's own (useful) sound and you can always reamp with an amp sim (or copy the bass track and leave one clean and reamp the other). Also, adding in an amp sim to a keyboard generated bass can take it to the next level of realism too.

Do you record the MIDI and then play back or do you record the audio from each instrument? When I was working with external synth modules, I'd always record the MIDI, edit it as needed and then record the audio from each track individually, which allowed me to process the audio from each separately. I've moved completely to softsynths now, which makes the process far easier (no having to recapture the audio if you want to make MIDI edits later in the process), but I still treat the outputs separately.

Drums are very much the key to realism in a recording. As I've said before, learning to drum did more for my music than anything else I've ever done. Even though I never rose beyond average playing skills on drums, I learned lots of stuff about how things fit together, how drums are played and how they should sound.

I see no issue in recording anything using MIDI and sampled instruments. Sampling has got to the point now where with some time and editing the midi, 99% of people (and probably 70% of engineers) couldn't tell the difference between a live instrument and a sampled one. For bass, just look at Trilian Bass Module, for strings and orchestra look at Miroslav Philharmonik, and for guitars (probably one of the most difficult instruments to sample) check out Shreddage 2 or Orange Tree Strawberry.

Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
In my opinion it's really difficult, particularly if you're making "organic" music that isn't obviously electronic, to get a believable sound in that approach unless you humanise it to a degree that sells it. <...snip...> Real drummers aren't perfectly on the grid and that's what makes it sound real.
One of the (many) things I like about using EZDrummer is the humanize function (and the fact that their drum patterns are played in by real drummers), which makes things easy, but I still get to use some of the MIDI-related tricks learned trying to get the old, stiff, mechanical drum machines to sound real, often resorting to MIDI event editing. I also love that I can output each "mic" separately to process them as you would the mics from a real recorded kit. So I can do things like keep the kick fairly dry while having the overheads or room quite ambient.

Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
Mo Facta wrote: There's so much more
There's always so much more... ?

Even if your drum sampler does not have its own humanise function, your DAW is gauranteed to have one. The key is to have a multisampled sampler (for drums just think of any of the big ones, EZ, Superior, Addictive, SSD) where the human element comes from adjusting the midi velocities of the hits (i.e. a velocity of 1 produces not only a 'soft sound' with reduced volume, but also captures what such a hit would sound like on a real drum head. A velocity of 127 is hammering the heck out of the thing). The same applies to any other sampled instrument.

I don't believe there is any excuse for electronic music to sound 'non-organic'. Maybe this is what is in fashion currently with electronic dance music where everything is rigidly quantized, but music that has been sampled using real world instruments can sound just as organic as the real thing, including missed notes, slightly out of tune bends, timing issues and missed drum hits.

Mo-Facta

I agree, but my point is that it's not easy to accomplish. Of course all the humanisation elements are there but to pull it off convincingly takes time and practice.

Cheers ?

Nitebob

I use ableton :-[ so for drums I quantize (correct any faults on tempo) and then add some breaks and stuff. Been thinking about using shakers and stuff to get a more acoustic feel.

Also read Alan's article on recording an acoustic. Will have to start using mics instead of built in pickups. Thanks for all the usefull info.

AlanRatcliffe

Nitebob wrote: I use ableton :-[ so for drums I quantize (correct any faults on tempo) and then add some breaks and stuff.

That can be a problem. Quantising tends to make everything very rigid, unless you can specify a quantise "strength" (which moves things closer to perfect, but avoids making them too perfect).

Been thinking about using shakers and stuff to get a more acoustic feel.

A good idea. Adding in something acoustically like a shaker can take a lot of the rigidity out of the rhythm section. I sometimes used to replace a programmed hi-hat with a real one for the same reason.

Also read Alan's article on recording an acoustic. Will have to start using mics instead of built in pickups. Thanks for all the usefull info.