Anyone here ever made a whole album alone?

[henryrobinett]

I almost did it in the mid 90s. I hired a singer and hired a sax player for a couple of songs. Other than that it was all me. It came out OK, but it was never released. The record company I was with folded shortly after completion. A blessing in disguise I suppose.

It was hard work, took way to long and I'll never do that again. Plus, as said earlier, there's nobody to bounce off, which is crucial to the way I like to make music. I think music, for me, tends to work better as a community effort.

[Johnny Favorite]

Wow, lots of great replies, thanks! You guys are giving me that little extra confidence i need to pull this off.

In fact, I thought about starting this thread after reading all the "stacking theory" posts. I mean, i kinda extrapolated the pre-amp stacking effect(still being discussed) and thought "what if there`s a single musician stacking effect?".

Maybe I`m reading too much, i`m probably not "the same musician" at each instrument.

Thanks all for replying, if you could post some tracks you done all by yourself, i`ll listen to them all later. Loving gearslutz!

[Backhousepro]

Just an addendum to my first post —

I think that musicians do themselves and their music a disservice by going the DIY route (even though my livelihood now depends on it). Aside from the loss of chops and musical growth resulting from switching focus to engineering (which is also a lifelong pursuit if excellence is your goal), our music loses the added dimension provided by people who really have a passion and talent for recording and mixing — people who's skills are the result of a lifetime developing their craft — as opposed to those of us who took the crash course looking for the quick route to a professional sound, hoping to produce a record while our music is still relevant.

Don't get me wrong, I love having the ability to realize my music without depending on others, but I now think of it as nothing more than demos or sketches, and long to hear what it would sound like if it were recorded by the likes of Bruce Swedien and produced by Quincy . . . imagine what one might learn from such an association . . .

Another personal beef I have with musicians, and sadly this includes myself, is that we're too quick to use the technology to put each other out of work in order to get a larger piece of an ever-decreasing pie. By asking for less and counting on the machines to fill in the blanks, we devalue our profession and eventually obsolete ourselves. Look at music libraries — lucrative for a very small number of people while eliminating large numbers of studio musicians and recording sessions. Instead of say a local advertiser paying a composer a &500-$1000 for an original composition and booking studio time and musicians, they buy a CD for $60 and hire a kid fresh out of recording school at minimum wage to cut and paste. And people who give it way for free in hopes of getting paid later . . . well, we know how that goes; why buy the cow etc.

All in all, I think that a DIY album is a good experience — one that will hopefully bring you full-circle and back to the notion that when it comes to creating music, the more the merrier. This subject reminds me of a quote from the translation of the I Ching that I think is relevant:

Knowledge should be a refreshing and vitalizing force. It becomes so only through stimulating intercourse with congenial friends with whom one holds discussion and practices application of the truths of life. In this way learning becomes many-sided and takes on a cheerful lightness, whereas there is always something ponderous and one-sided about the learning of the self-taught.

Here's a question:

Has anyone had a number-one hit that did it all themselves? And by themselves, I mean wrote, performed, arranged, recorded, produced, mixed, and mastered entirely by themselves — no help from anybody anywhere.


-B-

[blim]

Originally Posted by beebay007

The best thing about doing everything yourself is that you have complete control (you get to make all the decisions).
The worst thing about doing everything yourself is that you have complete control (and no one else can give input or broaden the project).

I'll second that.

I'm just finishing a project on which I wrote, arranged, played, sung, recorded, mixed, and mastered everything. Writing the music has always been the quick and easy part for me. Everything else takes forever. If you have any real limitations in any of these areas -- for me, it's playing drums -- that one weak area can unacceptably slow everything else down. (Next time, I hire a real drummer.)

I can't say I particularly enjoyed much of the process except the very beginning (the writing of the the songs) and the very end (listening to the final product).

[Old Goat]

I did the whole thing on my CD (except for drums on one song), and enjoyed almost all of it. I started stressing at the end, trying to make everything perfect. That, as was mentioned, is impossible. The hardest part was to say, "It's done".

Do it again? More than likely. And it'll be better because of what I've learned from the first one.thumbsup

[Stevil]

i always cave & end up bringin in other people to record. for me tooling around by myself is fun, but not nearly as productive as playing with other people. also i tend to hit dead ends while working on my own & get frustrated with my limitations on certain instruments, especially when some real talent is just a phone call away.

[allencollins]

If you wanna get the job done you gotta do it yourself!!! kidding


My issue was I could never find anyone to join my band for
more than a week. oh well........ Surprised?

I've recorded 5 albums by my lonesome.

[bcgood]

Yea I've been doing this via midi since the late 80's. I like it because I like the freedom. Being in a band is fun as well. I'm sort of a control freak though so I like having control over everything and total artistic freedom. The hardest part is staying motivated and centered though and actually getting things done. In a band other members can sometimes kick your ass into gear when you're slacking. Not so when you are the Indian and the Chief simultaneously.

I plan on writing, directing and doing all sound ass well as music for an upcoming independent film project. Top that!

[007]

This is great thread!

I did a 9 song cd between 2000 and 2002, played, arranged, mixed and mastered myself. I was still extremely green (greener than green in fact) because my main focus was to get the music across. They were instrumentals, kind of dark and trip-hop style, but during the process of writing, I realized I had to hone a few skills to learn how to make them sound better, a bit more 'pro', if you will. Listening back at these tunes I now hear the faults, things that could have been done better, but I simply didn't know. I ended up packaging what was really just a demo as an album and selling a bunch on CD Baby and iTunes Music Store, lots of downloads and one track even got licensed for a website, so all in all, it's good to zoom out and remember that the masses don't really give a crap about what compressor or preamp was used, if they connect with it, you've done ok.

I was reading messageboards like this one, reading magazines (Tape Op, Sound on Sound) in order to learn all the technical stuff while I was writing the tunes, but you realize over the course of 8 years how much better you've become at mixing, understanding eq, compression, dynamics, panning, reverbs and delays, knowing when and when NOT to use them, he he, I'm sure we can all relate....

However....

While I've gotten better at the mixing/engineering side of things, and getting better at producing other people's music, I've found myself with a blank stare in front of that arrange window when I want to write something by myself again. Spending so much time learning about the engineering on messageboards and what not, you start to lose the essence of what you set out to do in the first place. I'm now trying to correct that by just playing, opening Logic and looking away, just playing the piano or guitar and letting the music take me away. It's not always easy, but I think music is very much a meditative process, especially when you're trying to write it all yourself. We tend to try to add new layers and sounds too quickly, instead of just looping one good part, perhaps the main bed music or just a few measures, closing your eyes and just listening, soaking it in, and trying to hear what could be added, changes, sounds, etc, and I've found that by doing that, it comes and finds you, almost like calling the spirits with a ouija board. Little things like a sound emanating from outside my window might be in key with what's playing and creating a strange harmony, and bang, that could be it for the new layer.

Some of you/us are better at knowing or hearing the big picture right off the bat, having a good idea of what it is you want to record before you even touch anything, but for those others - like me - where it's not always the case, there's a lot of things to learn, and this also depends on the type of music.

I'm a mult-instrumentalist, which is great in some way but can also have an adverse effect when trying to accomplish the whole writing an entire album by myself thing. I never mastered any of the instruments I play, I just have a good ear and pick up anything that makes noise and can play, drums as well (programming too), yet sometimes there's that feeling of wishing you knew 1 or 2 instruments really well and could just focus on those, as the temptation to throw everything all at once is often there. Sometimes just one simple sound can inspire me to write an entire track around it, as that's my main vehicle when I start, "sound", before a melody, or chord arrangement, I've worked with samples for many years and it's still what gets me, just a sound that vibrates at just the right frequency and puts a smile to my face.

Anyways, I'm done babbling, I'm glad we're discussing this.
Keep sharing your methods, your styles, what are some of the pitfalls you often encounter when trying to record yourself (knowing you want to play all the parts in the final piece), etc.

[henryrobinett]

Originally Posted by allencollins

My issue was I could never find anyone to join my band for
more than a week. oh well........ Surprised?

I've recorded 5 albums by my lonesome.

LOL! Oh no.

Allen -- you gotta work on that interpersonal thing. Good going on doing it all on your lonesome though!

[faramita]

I do experimental electro-acoustic music. Done about 15 releases completely myself, few collaborations with others. In my geographical area (rural Ireland) it is not easy to find like-minded musicians with adequate skills. I happen to play a number of instruments. It's a long process sometimes, on the other hand, less organizing and explaining, and I can work whenever I like, 24 or 48 hours if i feel like it. Not so easy with bands, at least in my experience. Sometimes it helps to leave a project, song or a track for a few days and come to it fresh to minimize endless nit picking of details which you might not even hear a week later. Also a like minded friend with more experience is invaluable in the beginning - someone to advise on your mixes, it's very hard to be objective in the beginning. Learn to erase tracks you are not happy with straight away, I used to have five or more takes of the same thing, but you have to listen to them all next day again!
It's fun to learn to play new instruments (I do not use samples as they generally sound sh*t to my ears) and surprisingly easy to sound quite good these days. Most music (apart from classical and some good jazz) is not terribly technically difficult. You do not need to be of a concert standard on everything because you can spend a few days to learn say a trumpet part and make it sound good, though you might not be able to play 2 hour gig. I assure you it will sound a lot better than any trumpet sample on a keyboard. I cannot understand idiots spending money on things like tambourine samples, where it is much easier and cheaper to get a tambourine and play it. After a few tracks you get quite good at it and it's much more fun than fiddling with samples.
Doing things yourself let's you experiment as much as you like. On some Buddy Holly recordings drummer used cardboard boxes for drums with a bunch of keys on a "snare" box - it sounded better than his kit.
Disadvantage is that I do not think it is possible to get as tight a band sound as say early Stones or Beatles for example, but they only got like that by playing lots and lots of gigs early in their careers. Which is pretty well impossible these days anyway. (To prevent arguments about this, Beatles played up to 11 hours a day in Hamburg and lived in one windowless room. Try to suggest this to any band as a career move!)
Good luck and have fun and confidence!

[decibike]

bumpski

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by Backhousepro

Just an addendum to my first post —

I think that musicians do themselves and their music a disservice by going the DIY route (even though my livelihood now depends on it). Aside from the loss of chops and musical growth resulting from switching focus to engineering (which is also a lifelong pursuit if excellence is your goal), our music loses the added dimension provided by people who really have a passion and talent for recording and mixing — people who's skills are the result of a lifetime developing their craft — as opposed to those of us who took the crash course looking for the quick route to a professional sound, hoping to produce a record while our music is still relevant.

Don't get me wrong, I love having the ability to realize my music without depending on others, but I now think of it as nothing more than demos or sketches, and long to hear what it would sound like if it were recorded by the likes of Bruce Swedien and produced by Quincy . . . imagine what one might learn from such an association . . .

Another personal beef I have with musicians, and sadly this includes myself, is that we're too quick to use the technology to put each other out of work in order to get a larger piece of an ever-decreasing pie. By asking for less and counting on the machines to fill in the blanks, we devalue our profession and eventually obsolete ourselves. Look at music libraries — lucrative for a very small number of people while eliminating large numbers of studio musicians and recording sessions. Instead of say a local advertiser paying a composer a &500-$1000 for an original composition and booking studio time and musicians, they buy a CD for $60 and hire a kid fresh out of recording school at minimum wage to cut and paste. And people who give it way for free in hopes of getting paid later . . . well, we know how that goes; why buy the cow etc.

All in all, I think that a DIY album is a good experience — one that will hopefully bring you full-circle and back to the notion that when it comes to creating music, the more the merrier. This subject reminds me of a quote from the translation of the I Ching that I think is relevant:

Knowledge should be a refreshing and vitalizing force. It becomes so only through stimulating intercourse with congenial friends with whom one holds discussion and practices application of the truths of life. In this way learning becomes many-sided and takes on a cheerful lightness, whereas there is always something ponderous and one-sided about the learning of the self-taught.

Here's a question:

Has anyone had a number-one hit that did it all themselves? And by themselves, I mean wrote, performed, arranged, recorded, produced, mixed, and mastered entirely by themselves — no help from anybody anywhere.


-B-

I thought you were making some great points (they're still great points)... I thought the quote from the I Ching was particularly persuasive.


And then... we get go your final measure of value and merit...

A number one hit?

You don't get it.


At least, not in the moment you wrote that. But, like I said, some great points along the way... a good journey, but you ended up at Walmart instead of Satori...


[this is just friendly teasing... there is no one, singular way, of course...]

[_Morph_]

In an album I recorded, I took part in the arrangements, some playing, recording and mixing. FWIW, I don't like to record myself, it's hard to keep the focus on the music when your brain is thinking about the recording process as well.

The album was well met but I hated my parts because they were just not quite "there" as they would be, should someone else have handled the recording step.

[Nishmaster]

I'm in the process of doing this same thing right now.

I'm a multi-instrumentalist, although a drummer first. I've been drumming for 17 years now and play out professionally (mostly jazz, but some rock), guitar and bass for 8, keys for 5 or 6. I can also play the flute (which I might argue is a pretty useless skill, but fun nonetheless). It is a completely two edged sword. On one hand, it has enabled me to write over 30 songs for this album, which is nice because now I'm able to pare down and select the tunes that really shine. However, at the end of the day, my true instrument is the drums, and I've not really mastered anything else. What would probably be one or two take parts for other people becomes a multi-take frustration fest a lot of the time.

I would offer the following advice. If you possibly can, let other people play the instruments that aren't your best. This was especially difficult for me, since during the demo recording and preproduction phase I recorded everything myself, so I was very attached to a lot of the parts and the way they were played. They serve the song. I wound up deciding that I would let two good friends of mine who are masters at their respective instruments record bass and keys, and it has really improved the project so far.

Also keep in mind the absurd amount of time required to do it all yourself. I've been tracking guitar parts for the better part of two months, and I'm still not close to done. Being objective about tone and sound is difficult because you have to run between the tracking room and the live room a bunch, and the hardest part is trying not to say, "well, that's close enough." Close enough doesn't count in the recording business.

Don't get me wrong, it can be done, but it's tough. I'm currently waxing and waning over whether or not to retrack the drums. The tones that I thought were good while tracking are just not spectacular now that it comes to mix time for some of the tunes, and since I had no objective voice with me in the studio when I tracked them, I didn't realize it early enough. In all honesty, I think the vast majority would be happy, even excited, about the sounds I got, but for me, it's just not quite there, which brings me to my last point.

You have to set a date goal for yourself. Even if you don't hit it, there needs to be a drive to keep things moving forward, or it will always sit in the "not quite good enough" phase. Sometimes, it just has to be finished.

[bogeyeater]

made a record under contract. did everything bar the drums and had an engineer do dubs and co-mix engineer it with me in the final stretch. it was mastered professionally and it sold a few thou.

it took seven years

cons:

• me vs me locked in a room with a bunch of machines for 3 of those years didn't do fabulous things for my mental health. i've had to come to terms with the fact that some of that damage is permanent.
• seven years is epic stupid. been seriously lost up my own ass a good few times. taken some major blind alleys.
• it's frustrating and limiting and above all else irritating. making music mainly annoys the s*hit out of me until i've cracked the code to a track. then i think i'm Lord Muck for about 24hrs before reality hits that no one will get to hear it and even if they do.... so what???
  

pros:

• i can work through ideas very quickly. 90% of my output sucks so i'm playing the numbers game, chucking stuff at the wall and binning it fast. it's hard to do that when someone else's ego is involved.
• you learn some cool tricks - like being able to dump something you've been working on for months then bang out something in 20mins.

the reason i did it and still do is the feeling i get when there's a track up on the board,everything's in place and you're reaching toward that mythical percentage point that tips it from good into great - it feels like neo picking bullets out the air when it's running in five dimensions and nothing else touches it. it's oxygen it's a drug.

then you put the track to bed, have a 48hr hard slump comedown off it and have to start from the bottom of the mountain all over again. it's just that the view from the summit is... well, let's just say i live each day in hope of seeing that sight from top of my particular hill again. and again. and again.

[theblue1]

It's funny...

Because I have long standing ties into the local (3DW) music community, I've often had people volunteer to do instrumental parts (for free/for fun)... and it's always an alluring offer. I'm not the world's greatest guitarist by about ten million other guitarists, and I'm barely passable on keys, even when I'm pretty drilled in. From there it drops off rapidly.

But when push comes to shove, I almost never make the call. I can't tell you precisely why, or at least not all the reasons, but, particularly in recent years my friends offering to play violin, lap steel, keys, trumpet and a bunch of other instruments have gone unused. (And in many cases, it is use it or lose it; for instance, one of my 3DW pals was the lead trumpet with Ray Charles touring band for years and exploiting his fine talents was top on my list; but never got done. Now he's left the industry for steadier work and, last time I talked to him, he hadn't played his horn seriously in many months. Now I have a rooftop view and seagulls and every once in a great while, a pelican, flying by my window.)


And with regard to the hassles some folks find in recording oneself...

Honestly, I have the opposite -- I can be a mess working in someone else's studio, I freeze up trying to nail easy parts, I forget my lyrics, I bobble entirely familiar parts -- but in my own studio, well, no one sees that ugliness and it doesn't seem to compound and feed back on itself like it can when there are people waiting on me to finally get some easy part right.

As a consequence, it can be a lot quicker and far less frustrating for me in my own, funky little 'studio' (I used to have a dedicated project studio but when I sold my house and moved to a little flat by the beach, my rig ended up taking over a corner of the living room by a couple of big windows -- a real luxury, since my semi-sound proofed project studio had the feeling of being buried inside a house and was dependent on that devil, air conditioning, for about 2-3 months of the year.)


All that said -- I recently, for the first time in more than two decades, I think, put myself in someone else's hands and cut a track at a pal's studio. I let him produce it, and let him play everything but my guitar and vocal parts -- which was only mandolin, Nashville-tuned guitar, tambourine, and triangle -- but they made a wonderful difference; he also dropped in a bass drum from BFD which gave it a nice old timey feel.

While I tend to do my takes end-to-end, he 'made' me take a verse at a time on the vocals and I think that helped me get over my muffed-take frustration that used to mess me up in other people's studios. And he also was instrumental in milking just a little more out of me -- I can have a tendancy to take the first take I sort of like. (Perhaps an over-correction from the days when I tweaked out over some little thing or other.

Turns out he's a really easy going, sensitive, and intutive producer -- he works with a lot of young, relatively inexperienced singers and though I'm old and used up, it still worked out nicely.

[Backhousepro]

Originally Posted by theblue1

I thought you were making some great points (they're still great points)... I thought the quote from the I Ching was particularly persuasive.


And then... we get go your final measure of value and merit...

A number one hit?

You don't get it.


At least, not in the moment you wrote that. But, like I said, some great points along the way... a good journey, but you ended up at Walmart instead of Satori...


[this is just friendly teasing... there is no one, singular way, of course...]

Perhaps I should have elaborated rather than simply leaving the question hang — the point I was trying to make was that even in mainstream, lowest-common-denominator, commercial music, the songs that touch the masses (and some self-proclaimed highbrows) have all been collaborative efforts. (Not that there isn't some good commercial music out there as well.)

-B-

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by Backhousepro

Perhaps I should have elaborated rather than simply leaving the question hang — the point I was trying to make was that even in mainstream, lowest-common-denominator, commercial music, the songs that touch the masses (and some self-proclaimed highbrows) have all been collaborative efforts. (Not that there isn't some good commercial music out there as well.)

-B-

Sure. It often takes a big production line to make a modern, mass produced product.

[Nishmaster]

...90% of my output sucks...

I'm convinced that 90% of everybody's output sucks. It's just that the people who do well write often enough to realize that. I'm truly convinced that the reason some of the artists who get big eventually start rehashing is because they've forgotten that fact and are trying to copy the formula that allowed them to write the tunes they love most instead.

Whenever I ask an artist who is struggling with writing "Are you ok with this song being bad," the answer is always "no." The artists who don't struggle are the ones who aren't afraid to write total garbage, because one day it might not be total garbage.

[bogeyeater]

Originally Posted by Nishmaster

I'm convinced that 90% of everybody's output sucks. It's just that the people who do well write often enough to realize that.

if you apply the 90% rule to every musical idea you come up with - everything you generate, you become skilled at cherry-picking and editing so by the time a track gets to the finish line it's been through this rigorous process which means it doesn't suck. it's the culmination of the best 10% you've got right from the ground up.

[Nishmaster]

Succinctly stated. Quite true indeed.

[Peacock]

Originally Posted by seaneldon

My current project has yet to make use of any compression or limiting, by the way. .

This is the best way. Just say no to compression.

I have found it too hard to try and do all parts of a project solo. I am working on a project with my brother now and we have a bass player, a drummer, and a real engineer with us and its way easier. just having a real engineer with you is a world of difference.

We are doing a 6 song demo with 3 songs by me and 3 by my brother. The project is moving way faster than it could be done alone. We are tracking on tuesdays and sunday evenings and will probably be done in 4-5 sessions. Approximately 12-15 hours. We completed tracking the basics of 2 songs the 1st night. Hard to do this alone.

[theblue1]

Definitely agreed on the 90% of everything rule of thumb. I've been saying this for many years, decades, maybe, and it hasn't stopped being true.

And I sincerely doubt it ever will.

[Mertmo]

I've done this a lot. Basically, this is why I wanted to learn recording. So I could sit by myself and make a record!

I've finished 3 records of original material this way, as well as 2 cover albums just for fun.
One of my favorite things to do, really. It's been too long since I did one.

I tend to keep the engineering as simple as possible on these records. For instance:
"hmm, this guitar needs a room mic type sound..." Put up condenser mic 6 feet away from the amp. Pull up fader. Unless it really sucks, start recording.
Lots of predictable close micing with mics that I absolutely know will give me "X" result on "Y" source. One of my most valuable tricks when recording electric guitar is using an EQ pedal on my pedalboard. Usually I have the pedalboard with me in the control room or wherever I am that's "away" from the amp. Then when I pull up the channel to listen, I can really tweak the character of the guitar sound without having to take off the guitar, go into the room and tweak the amp/mic setup over and over. Not that I'm against moving the mic obviously, or changing the amp, but I can accomplish a lot of the tonal tweaks that I want just by shaping the EQ a little bit. Plus it's in real time as opposed to going in and moving something or changing the amp. By the time I get back from that I've lost perspective on what I was changing. Anyway, one of my little tricks there...

I play all my own drums, which is how I learned to play them. Best way to do this is to have some type of mobile setup which allows me to sit behind the drums and access the mic preamps and recording device without leaving the drum chair. If I can pull that off, usually I am very happy with my drum recordings...

I agree, the best and worst part is complete control. But damn, I do love to make albums all by myself. And I am usually very happy with the result, I never feel like I have had to live with big compromises.
I feel another record on the horizon. I love this thread!

[bigbadwolf]

I've done it many times, and I can't stress enough how important it is to have a good team around you to offer additional trustworthy sets of ears. I highly advise against doing everything yourself. I find that mixing something that I've produced, engineered, written, performed, etc. has major downsides. And Don't master your own stuff. That's your last chance to have someone step in an improve on what you've done. Plus if you're doing everything yourself, you probably don't have the gear to really master something properly.
best,
BT

[David R.]

I have done this, still do.

Mine is a smaller studio, not a commercial space but a seperate room in my house. I always try to make my clients feel comfortable, offer tea or coffee, make sure it is clean, good lighting, no distractions...

It is important to treat yourself like a client. Do all the things you would do for someone paying you $xx an hour for yourself.

[Saudade]

Originally Posted by bogeyeater

made a record under contract. did everything bar the drums and had an engineer do dubs and co-mix engineer it with me in the final stretch. it was mastered professionally and it sold a few thou.

it took seven years

cons:

• me vs me locked in a room with a bunch of machines for 3 of those years didn't do fabulous things for my mental health. i've had to come to terms with the fact that some of that damage is permanent.
• seven years is epic stupid. been seriously lost up my own ass a good few times. taken some major blind alleys.
• it's frustrating and limiting and above all else irritating. making music mainly annoys the s*hit out of me until i've cracked the code to a track. then i think i'm Lord Muck for about 24hrs before reality hits that no one will get to hear it and even if they do.... so what???
  

pros:

• i can work through ideas very quickly. 90% of my output sucks so i'm playing the numbers game, chucking stuff at the wall and binning it fast. it's hard to do that when someone else's ego is involved.
• you learn some cool tricks - like being able to dump something you've been working on for months then bang out something in 20mins.

You know this thread makes me feel like crying....I thought I was the most EPIC STUPID of all musicians to have spent 2.5 yrs (and counting) of my life working on 4 songs. Doing everything except the vocals (female), drums and mastering (won't be mastered, no budget).

bogeyeater: I can sooooo relate to your Pros and Cons. I hate the mental isolation and inhumane workload of working alone, but I don't think there's any other way. At least for now I can't find people who can work at the intensity I do and can see my ideas which buzz around like flies only I am fast enough to capture.

But like you say, when you crack a code to the song, the "high" is immense. And for all the sacrfices I've made I honestly feel it is worth it because at least one of the songs really turned out very close to what I had wanted it to be - concept to fruition.

I think that ultimately is what artists want, to convert what they have in the mind into a real tangible product that others can see, and that involves staying pure and true to the concept all the way. But like Ed Harris's writer character in the movie "The Hours" said, most of the time however hard we try it always come up short to what we had dreamed up.

[007]

I just wanted to mention, once more, how refreshing this thread is.
We can talk about gear for ages and get into pissing contests about which mic has a slight boost at 4khz and why preamp A is better than preamp B, but THIS....this is the stuff that truly matters, because whether it's about recording on your own or just in general, everyone who has replied brought some very interesting points which we can all relate to, all of us. The frustrations of boiling a musical idea to it's death and eventual one-way ticket to the trash, as with the intense high we get from completing an idea we are truly happy with. We've all been there and done that.

Sometimes it seems we focus more on gear and technicalities when we encounter the low points of creation, an artificial distraction from the creative process, as if we really think about it, if every project we undertake gets completed and sounds good to our ears, we'd be spending much less times on these forum reading about gear we "don't really need but sort of want yet can't afford but just curious to read about what people have to say about it". I'm guilty of this as much as the next guy, I love the GS and TapeOp forums, learned a bunch from them thanks to all of you, but really, imagine if the internet went down for 3-6 months, like completely, worldwide, just think about it for a shiny minute, do you realize how much work we'd get done?

Every gear related thread is secondary to this one.

[bogeyeater]

Originally Posted by Saudade

I think that ultimately is what artists want, to convert what they have in the mind into a real tangible product that others can see, and that involves staying pure and true to the concept all the way. But like Ed Harris's writer character in the movie "The Hours" said, most of the time however hard we try it always come up short to what we had dreamed up.

it's transference - every human being has the capacity to feel beauty at it's purest, energy at it's rawest.

how do we take those experiences and sensations banging round our heads and get them captured, bottled to stereo left and right? how do we externalise it? make it real? make it so someone else can hear it too? it's the eternal conundrum.

one thing's for sure though - the listener can't tell how long you took on something. doesn't matter - all that relative time flies out the window when you hit the mat with something proper. once you've done it, poured everything into something to completion, someone can open that bottle many many years hence and feel it again.