i swear i do this on every project

[maxwellmallen]

Yes. It's a serious drag! Sorry man

[Kelly Cameron]

Writing and tracking: 2 different things. Don't mix them up.

What i do is make sure I have enough good channels for my main sources and just stick with them. Minimize workflow distractions and don't worry about keeper tracks, just write. You can always redo them.

[Beat Poet]

Can you leave everything set up when you're not recording? Like Kelly Cameron said, you don't want to be setting up gear and getting all stressed when you should be in performance mode.

[pinkheadedbug]

No, I don't do that at all. Not any more. I used to do it a LOT until I figured out a process which completely sidesteps it, or to put it another way, deliberately builds it in.

As you know, problem you have (and that I had) is that you are trying to get it perfect from the get-go and that is screwing up your creative side. So you need to give yourself permission to screw up when you set out, or you'll drive yourself insane.

What I do is:

PART 1

1. Put down a guide guitar (and poss vocal) over a click
2. Rough in drums (programmed)
3. Put down a guide bass
4. Put down guide keys
5. Put down guide anthing-else-I'm-gonna-track, like backing vox
6. Tighten up the drums and put in fills etc
7. Get a rough mix going (MIX A)

By now I have a ragged version which nevertheless has the feel I want. I have made no real attempt to make any of the individual tracks sound good engineering wise, and the playing is sloppy but heartfelt.

IT IS ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL THAT MIX A HAS THE BASIC VIBE YOU WANT

Now for the fun bit.

PART 2
1. Save a snapshot/backup
2. Delete all the tracks and re-track them properly. Sometimes I might delete them all in one go and just re-track to the drums, or I might do it bit by bit. Sometimes I'll not bother doing the final vocal pass just yet but clean up the scratch track with Autotone/whatever. But by the end I have usually replaced everything I did in the first pass, unless there was something absolutely inspired that I can rescue. The tracking process is usually VERY fast because I know exactly what I'm playing and where and how it all fits together.
3. Get a rough mix going. Call this MIX B.

PART 3
Listen to MIX B and MIX A and see what you lost/screwed up.

Nine times out of ten you were so concerned about tracking properly that you got all lily-livered in your playing and mixing and took all the balls out of it. But by listening to A versus B, rather than dumping the whole session, you can figure out where you went wrong. You can even fly in tracks from A.

So, PART 4

Re-track individual parts and monkey with the mix until it sounds BETTER than MIX A. This can be incredibly helpful in figuring out what subtle things you are losing in the tracking process, and for giving your inner musician/producer permission to kick the inner engineer out of the control room.

[Driveby Studios]

Whoa shit man...that sucks. Some tips....

Dont delete your session at the end!!
ALWAYS make an mp3 of the final result.
Have ur gear always setup.
Learn your DAW shortcuts.
If u dont like something, change it. If that doesn't work, keep what u got and move on to the next riff. Sometimes i go off on a tangent, record it, then get back on track.

Also, mindset wise - u gotta get it in ur head that nothing you write is bad, you will ALWAYS like the stuff u write (whether other people like it is not upto u).


Umm the guy in the above post pretty much nailed alot of stuff!

I find im most successful when i do a 6 hr session...no distractions. If i get 2 mins of good music, or half a song, or just a good moment of music, i call it a win!!

It aint easy writing songs!!

[mrnemo]

I'm going to print this out and put it on my wall. Hah!

Originally Posted by pinkheadedbug

No, I don't do that at all. Not any more. I used to do it a LOT until I figured out a process which completely sidesteps it, or to put it another way, deliberately builds it in.

As you know, problem you have (and that I had) is that you are trying to get it perfect from the get-go and that is screwing up your creative side. So you need to give yourself permission to screw up when you set out, or you'll drive yourself insane.

What I do is:

PART 1

1. Put down a guide guitar (and poss vocal) over a click
2. Rough in drums (programmed)
3. Put down a guide bass
4. Put down guide keys
5. Put down guide anthing-else-I'm-gonna-track, like backing vox
6. Tighten up the drums and put in fills etc
7. Get a rough mix going (MIX A)

By now I have a ragged version which nevertheless has the feel I want. I have made no real attempt to make any of the individual tracks sound good engineering wise, and the playing is sloppy but heartfelt.

IT IS ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL THAT MIX A HAS THE BASIC VIBE YOU WANT

Now for the fun bit.

PART 2
1. Save a snapshot/backup
2. Delete all the tracks and re-track them properly. Sometimes I might delete them all in one go and just re-track to the drums, or I might do it bit by bit. Sometimes I'll not bother doing the final vocal pass just yet but clean up the scratch track with Autotone/whatever. But by the end I have usually replaced everything I did in the first pass, unless there was something absolutely inspired that I can rescue. The tracking process is usually VERY fast because I know exactly what I'm playing and where and how it all fits together.
3. Get a rough mix going. Call this MIX B.

PART 3
Listen to MIX B and MIX A and see what you lost/screwed up.

Nine times out of ten you were so concerned about tracking properly that you got all lily-livered in your playing and mixing and took all the balls out of it. But by listening to A versus B, rather than dumping the whole session, you can figure out where you went wrong. You can even fly in tracks from A.

So, PART 4

Re-track individual parts and monkey with the mix until it sounds BETTER than MIX A. This can be incredibly helpful in figuring out what subtle things you are losing in the tracking process, and for giving your inner musician/producer permission to kick the inner engineer out of the control room.

[Ronnieg]

Some great advice from Pinkhadedbug.
Similar but what i do now. (as i suffered the same trait as yourself).
I have a really simple template set up in Cubase that has a few vocs and guitar tracks readyand Drums (EZD).
I lay down the idea, Cut and paste bits to speed it up. Get a good vibe going and a structure for the song. i may drop a pad in or piano as ideas come but it's all done quickly...ish ad no real thought on quality. (lets face it Midi is easily tidied up).

Then when I'm ready to track it.... could be some days, months later i mix it to MP3 and drop that into a better tracking and production template stored in Cubase.

Like it was said above... Keep the two elements separate.
AND make sure you get the vibe going.

If you lay a particular good audio or midi part you can always pull it into the new production.


Nothing gets deleted unless it's totally wrong.

[theblue1]

Some good advice above.

I'm pretty sure most all of us have had similar feelings. I know I have. Sometimes I'll start something, work at it, getting all up close and personal with it and then, stand back and say, Whoa! What tin-eared, ten-thumbed loser did this?

But... while that feeling of self-revulsion doesn't normally happen for no reason, I still find some value in saving tracks, at least in the short term, because even the failures can tell you something about what you're doing right, what you're doing wrong -- and they provide a baseline by which to measure your progress.

I'm reminded of when I started writing songs. I didn't grow up playing music, only starting when I was in college. So, of course, ditto the songwriting. But I was coming from a background of being a college poet, writing what I considered hip, vaguely academic poetry. So I had zero skills with rhyme and meter -- and my first songs were utter, complete drek. Just the worse kind of moon/june doggerel. Hell, they would have had to improve to get to moon/june.

It was actually embarrassing to look at my first efforts -- but as I worked more I was able to see what worked (not much at first, that's for sure ) and what didn't and having those early efforts (OK, some of them, some of them really did get ripped up right off the top) -- if nothing else, gave me a sense of how far I'd come.


PS... another songwriter's tip -- don't let your internal editor muck around with your internal artist. When inspiration is in the house, don't let yourself fall into the trap of stopping to refine or polish what you're spilling out -- just get the inspiration all down on paper, ones and zeroes, tape, whatever. Then, after the creative fires have died to embers, then you can put on the green, see through visor and slip into editor mode.

[mrnemo]

I will mention one thing. It happened to me today. I thought back to a song I made and felt I could really do something with and it was erased from existence... I traditionally save every single session I do, but this must have been an exception. Lesson learned. Hard disk space is so cheap now, I just have an eSATA hot swap bay that holds two drives... When I run out, I just buy a new drive for $60 and that will last a year or two. Then I write the year on the drive and move on with my life. Important sessions get backed up to a My Book 2GB. Point being, there is no reason to erase the stuff you think is bad, just save the different iterations and if you hate it, no harm. At least it will still be there if you have some epiphany later on.

[daveconn]

Used to happen to me all the time..OR I'd get half way through and give up, meaning I have a tonne of half finished tracks on my HD. I learned to recognize when I was at that point, leave it for an hour and then come back to it, sometimes recording music is a battle for me, but usually the best tracks I write happen the easiest and quickest. Weird.

[rdstreets]

pinkheadedbug's advise is right on the money.. I'd only add that sometimes the character of the performance and sound is more important than absolute perfection. We all have witnessed that take that was so brilliant if it wasn't for "X". Sometimes it can be fixed, other times it requires a retake. And still other times we live with the imperfection because of the character it imparts.

The real secret is to recognize when you're beating your head against the wall, to know when to stop and get some distance so that you can circle back later with fresh ears and perspective. This is why there really is no incentive to delete anything. You never know how you're going to respond to the work later. I still listen to god awful tracks I recorded on my Teac A3440 back in high school and still find a few bits to this day I could pull from.

We also tend to be in too much of a rush to finish projects.

Talent and ability can take a tune from bad to good. Time and patience takes it from good to great.

[chuckduffy]

Very close to mine. Great advice! Mine goes like this:

1. Version one is just vocals and piano or acoustic, sometimes with a drum vst. Stick it on the ipod and listen to it on the commute. Maybe share it with some friends with good ears. I spend about half an hour doing this.

2. If it has any wheels I move on to version two - very close to your workflow. Fast and loose. same drill - listen to it on the commute and share it with a few friends for ideas. I spend about three hours doing this.

"IT IS ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL THAT MIX A HAS THE BASIC VIBE YOU WANT" - +1!

3. If version two is worth a shit I'll record a proper version. I spend way too much time on this. Compare one and two. Then compare two and three. If I don't immediately start to feel something I put the whole thing on the back burner and move on to another song. I never delete anything.

Originally Posted by pinkheadedbug

No, I don't do that at all. Not any more. I used to do it a LOT until I figured out a process which completely sidesteps it, or to put it another way, deliberately builds it in.

As you know, problem you have (and that I had) is that you are trying to get it perfect from the get-go and that is screwing up your creative side. So you need to give yourself permission to screw up when you set out, or you'll drive yourself insane.

What I do is:

PART 1

1. Put down a guide guitar (and poss vocal) over a click
2. Rough in drums (programmed)
3. Put down a guide bass
4. Put down guide keys
5. Put down guide anthing-else-I'm-gonna-track, like backing vox
6. Tighten up the drums and put in fills etc
7. Get a rough mix going (MIX A)

By now I have a ragged version which nevertheless has the feel I want. I have made no real attempt to make any of the individual tracks sound good engineering wise, and the playing is sloppy but heartfelt.

IT IS ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL THAT MIX A HAS THE BASIC VIBE YOU WANT

Now for the fun bit.

PART 2
1. Save a snapshot/backup
2. Delete all the tracks and re-track them properly. Sometimes I might delete them all in one go and just re-track to the drums, or I might do it bit by bit. Sometimes I'll not bother doing the final vocal pass just yet but clean up the scratch track with Autotone/whatever. But by the end I have usually replaced everything I did in the first pass, unless there was something absolutely inspired that I can rescue. The tracking process is usually VERY fast because I know exactly what I'm playing and where and how it all fits together.
3. Get a rough mix going. Call this MIX B.

PART 3
Listen to MIX B and MIX A and see what you lost/screwed up.

Nine times out of ten you were so concerned about tracking properly that you got all lily-livered in your playing and mixing and took all the balls out of it. But by listening to A versus B, rather than dumping the whole session, you can figure out where you went wrong. You can even fly in tracks from A.

So, PART 4

Re-track individual parts and monkey with the mix until it sounds BETTER than MIX A. This can be incredibly helpful in figuring out what subtle things you are losing in the tracking process, and for giving your inner musician/producer permission to kick the inner engineer out of the control room.

[Unclenny]

Originally Posted by Kelly Cameron

Writing and tracking: 2 different things. Don't mix them up.

Not in my world.

Since I am always writing as I am recording I have taken as many decisions as possible out of the tracking process. I have one very good tracking chain that is always set up. Yesterday I picked up the acoustic guit and liked what I was playing. I reached over and hit two switches.

While that gear warmed up a bit I went and turned off the furnace, hung a couple of blankets and armed a track. While that riff was still warm I was already tracking it. Played it through three times, each time differently, and kept the third take.

Today I am behind that very same mic with four vocal tracks set up....writing and tracking scratch vocals.

The moral of this story?

Grind on the song, not the gear. Have a system that is second nature so you can strike while the iron is hot.

Originally Posted by berkleystudios

......perfect is actually what i dont want.

That makes perfect sense.

[Jose]

Don't underrate rough takes!!!

[substancematters]

Really great thread. Im gonna second the make sure you bounce at least an mp3 of everything you record. What I actually do is I have a folder in each session folder I do called "snapshots" I bounce a snapshot every couple hours or after some major changes in the session. Sometimes when going back through the snapshots I find out where I lost the vibe if it all goes wrong and then I pull up that backup session and start from there

Sent from my DROID2 using Gearslutz.com

[Salty James]

1 Demo on the iphone -video.
2 A few tempo demos in Cubase to nail the perfect time/feel.
3 Within that same project I start the song.