Actually recording stuff instead of stalling... MORE AUDIO!

stickyfiddle

In the name of getting on with it I've now done a whole bunch of stuff, to the point that opening Logic and throwing some mics up is starting to feel normal and easy. One of these will probably end up as my Poopot M cover, but I may yet do more after my holibobs. 

And in the spirit of accountability and sharing stuff rather than just sitting on it not-quite-finished, here is the first thing I've "finished". I could definitely do a million vocal takes and go nuts on mixing and I've honestly done none of that here because that's not what this recording was for. God knows I haven't even thought about mastering...

Anyhoo.. comments invited and very much welcome! 

Lodious

Nice one, your voice sounds really good! Must be a great feeling to get something finished. 

stickyfiddle

Lodious said:

Nice one, your voice sounds really good! Must be a great feeling to get something finished. 

Cheers! I’m reasonably happy, but certainly content that I’m calling it complete and moving on.

As for my voice, I don’t love it, but I assume mostly because I’m used to hearing it through my head-bones. I also haven’t worked out the best way to produce it to sounds how I’d like it to. 

What is good is I got a phenomenal stereo acoustic sound today on the next track, and it only took me about 5 mins with 2 mics. More to come on that when that track is a bit further along

blobb

Those drums sound good. I sort of wanted it to go all mental toward the end.

stickyfiddle

blobb said:

Those drums sound good. I sort of wanted it to go all mental toward the end.

Haha thanks

The timing isn't all 100% perfect but the energy is about right and after a couple of takes I genuinely only had to fix a relative handful of notes - a couple mishits and a tiny bit of alignment of kick & snare where I got messy. I'm absolutely determined not to quantise as that kills energy however you do it. 

Soundwise it's Logic's default SoCal kit with a little bit of EQ & tuning tweaks. That's then sent to master compression and reverb for the whole kit but nothing else. 

Next on my to-try list is separating out the drums into separate tracks, not least just to learn how all that actually works. 

Small steps but I'm getting there and v happy with progress. 

thecolourbox

Sounding good and you can feel the enthusiasm in the music that comes from actually getting stuff done and not having to faff about with the boring set up stuff once you've got a decent workflow going. 

I decided to try and get some more realistic sounding drums on my Cover Challenge L entry. I don't play drums so I had to type it in on the midi roll thing hence very quantised, in order to do that I had to look up what drum tab was all about and then added it all on one track based on a youtube video tutorial on how to play the drums for the song I was doing. After a while I decided, like you, that having each part of the drums on a different track would be a better bet, as it was really hard for me to amend the velocities etc when there were so many notes on the same beats etc, it was certainly easier to edit each one specifically with tuning and EQ and volume etc, for example having a high velocity to smack the cymbal but have the volume low without having to lower everything else. Also I could technically have used a different drum kit on the plugin I was using on each track if I wanted, if i liked the kicks and snares on kit a but preferred the cymbals of kit 2. 

I then put them all through an fx channel I think, which had the post effects, reverb and comp i think. I don't know how convincing they are, probably about as convincing as me barking and telling everybody i'm now a dog, but it was an interesting thing to mess with.

Previously I've either not used percussion sounds at all, or just used a deliberately unrealistic electronic drum type sound

Jfingers

I enjoyed that song, kind of reminded me of Stereophonics. I also wanted it to go a bit mental at the end.

Good work!

stickyfiddle

Jfingers said:

I enjoyed that song, kind of reminded me of Stereophonics. I also wanted it to go a bit mental at the end.

Good work!

It’s Sam Fender, for anyone wondering! 

PolarityMan

thecolourbox said:

Sounding good and you can feel the enthusiasm in the music that comes from actually getting stuff done and not having to faff about with the boring set up stuff once you've got a decent workflow going. 

I decided to try and get some more realistic sounding drums on my Cover Challenge L entry. I don't play drums so I had to type it in on the midi roll thing hence very quantised, in order to do that I had to look up what drum tab was all about and then added it all on one track based on a youtube video tutorial on how to play the drums for the song I was doing. After a while I decided, like you, that having each part of the drums on a different track would be a better bet, as it was really hard for me to amend the velocities etc when there were so many notes on the same beats etc, it was certainly easier to edit each one specifically with tuning and EQ and volume etc, for example having a high velocity to smack the cymbal but have the volume low without having to lower everything else. Also I could technically have used a different drum kit on the plugin I was using on each track if I wanted, if i liked the kicks and snares on kit a but preferred the cymbals of kit 2. 

I then put them all through an fx channel I think, which had the post effects, reverb and comp i think. I don't know how convincing they are, probably about as convincing as me barking and telling everybody i'm now a dog, but it was an interesting thing to mess with.

Previously I've either not used percussion sounds at all, or just used a deliberately unrealistic electronic drum type sound

Each part on a different midi track sounds like a total ballache to me. I think what you want is one midi track but have the kit sounds separated onto multiple audio tracks so they can be processed seperately.

For your velocity editing thing in reaper at least you can select the notes on the piano roll and then move the selection using the "graph" view at the bottom if you want to adjust single notes on the same grid line as others.

I think throwing away the utility of seeing the whole part on one midi track to get round the velocity thing would be kinda shooting yourself in the foot and I also think that it would tend to steer you away from anything where multiple kit pieces interacted with each other like say a groove where you are para-diddling between hi-hat and snare etc. Or fraction fills (althgouh you guys prob dont care about those). Anything linear really. 

IMC1980

stickyfiddle said:

In the name of getting on with it I've now done a whole bunch of stuff, to the point that opening Logic and throwing some mics up is starting to feel normal and easy. One of these will probably end up as my Poopot M cover, but I may yet do more after my holibobs. 

And in the spirit of accountability and sharing stuff rather than just sitting on it not-quite-finished, here is the first thing I've "finished". I could definitely do a million vocal takes and go nuts on mixing and I've honestly done none of that here because that's not what this recording was for. God knows I haven't even thought about mastering...

Anyhoo.. comments invited and very much welcome! 

I like it! Nice jangly indie track, mix wise - with the caveat of me listening on consumer wireless earbuds and not my main headphones - feels like the drums could come up a little bit, but that type of mix does work for the genre. I'd also add a splash more reverb or delay to the vocals but that is more personal taste, it works just fine as is. 

stickyfiddle

Cheers dudes. Now ok holiday so unable to overthink things, which is excellent. 

I’m certainly v keen to get back to recording kore as soon as I’m home. I just need to settled 100% on an M song for the Q1 challenge. I recorded one very loosely just before I left so will be interesting to see how I feel when I return to it after a couple
of weeks 

Kurtis

Sounds good.

I think it could be a bit more polished, but I don't think the tune wants to be overly polished. Maybe just a touch more compression or something to pull it all together?

It's all there though. 

TTony

That’s your first attempt?

It took me 117 attempts to get anywhere near that good.  

Unfortunately, I’m currently stuck on attempt #28, so a way to go yet …

stickyfiddle

TTony said:

That’s your first attempt?

It took me 117 attempts to get anywhere near that good.  

Unfortunately, I’m currently stuck on attempt #28, so a way to go yet …

Well... first attempt playing and recording everything myself. But I’ve been playing almost 25 years (music generally 30+) and spent a big chunk of time around studios and recording through most of my 20s, so I know the basics of what to do in theory, just not the practicalities of how to make that happen. 

Add suspected ADHD and a chunky portion of primal-rejection-fear to that and I’ve spent the better part of the last decade gathering equipment and knowledge but being more than a tiny bit terrified to actually do anything with it… 

stickyfiddle

Kurtis said:

Sounds good.

I think it could be a bit more polished, but I don't think the tune wants to be overly polished. Maybe just a touch more compression or something to pull it all together?

It's all there though. 

Thanks. I agree the mixing side isn’t quite there, but didn’t want to sit on it twiddling knobs for a year just because it wasn’t perfect. Still lots to learn but I feel I’m in a good place and - more importantly - moving in a good direction 

stickyfiddle

Another one done. This time for Poopot's Letter M Challenge

It's Ryan Adams' My Winding Wheel, which I've loved for a very long time, and was the first thing I ever learned in Open G iirc. 

I spent a lot more time on this (i.e. up to 5 takes on a couple of elements!). 

- Stereo acoustic with Rode NT1 and Beyer M88TG pointed at my Bourgeois dread and panned quite wide.
- Vocals have choky bit of EQ and a tiny bit of distortion in parallel just to give some beef, plus a little bit of snapback on the lead but not the harmonies
- Drums are Roland TD17 MIDI-ed into Logic's Roots kit - admittedly it's only a snare so not that critical here!
- Bass is my trusty P straight into Logic's SVT sim
- Electric is my recently-acquired 355 into Helix Native emulating a Klon into Deluxe Reverb with an AC30 cab. Again a hint of slapback on the solo

I also did a little bit of automation and spent a little bit more time on the overall mix, then ran it into a master comp, reverb and Logic's default Mastering option, which seemed to help it sound quite cohesive. I fully admit I don't fully understand this last bit but it's better with it than without. At least it does right now - I'll see how I feel in the morning... 

https://soundcloud.com/stickyfiddle/my-winding-wheel-20240328

TTony

Impressed!

stickyfiddle

Ta!! 

I do enjoy this stuff when I actually get time. Still a shitload I know exists but no idea how to achieve, but I'm determined to improve and learn something with every recording