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Recording . Is it only me that gets frustrated doing it?


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[quote name='RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE' timestamp='1399582057' post='2445690']
You sound very talented. Btw; I use podfarm for bass( lots of amps and effects). It came with my toneport interface.
I thought about the zoom . Still pondering. Unfortunately, I only play bass. Can make various synth noises.
If I try stuff like nine inch nails, it's more ' council tax.'oh well.. ;)
[/quote]

I try ;) to be honest my sax recording method hasn't got a patch on the guys who are really techno minded and have all the best gear they have some superb results! - I just use my clip on gigging mic!! but it's way better than I can get from the Zoom..... Podfarm means nothing to me at all ;) I'll google it :unsure: Nothing wrong at all with only playing bass! Me - I'm just a Jack of all trades master of ......well certainly not bass, maybe just Sax and Flute ..... :lol:

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I never record anything, I`m really old-school in this respect, if I have a bassline I want to incorporate into a song, or a song idea I present it at band practice and we work on it from there. I figure if I can`t remember the basslines/songs I come up with, no-one else is likely to so they get the bullet at that point.

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I keep trying but I get frustrated with my own writing limitations far too easily. Feeling like I will never be able to finish anything because I can't sing or play lead guitar or keyboard, saps my will.

However, to try to get into it I rather cheated. The thing that daunted me the most was programming drums. So I found a song I liked the drums for on Guitar Pro, that included the drums tabs. Then I wrote them into Hydrogen and wrote different stuff to go over the top of them. By experimenting I was able to gradually change the drums to be unrecognisable to the original. The one I started with was quite complicated, for me anyway, The Vision Bleak's Secrecies in Darkness.

http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/v/vision_bleak/secrecies_in_darkness_guitar_pro.htm

I don't seem to be able to get much further at the moment, but I will in the future, hopefully. I thought maybe this tip might help.

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sounds like the main problem is programming drums? I wouldn't worry too much about the actual samples, you can change them after, just get used to drawing in the patterns. On Cubase you get a big grid with a keyboard down the left. When you press a key, it activates a drum sample. You figure out which key is which drum, and draw in one measure of the beat. Then just copy paste that until it's long enough

I normally come up with a beat, repeat it for 5 minutes, record bass along to it, then when I have a bassline I like, I'll cut it up using the snap tool so that it's always in time with the beat, and move it so that it repeats just 4 or 8 times for a verse. Then I would hopefully come up with another part to go with it. This will have the same tempo so I'll record it to the same beat, but then go back after and change the beat for this section of the song etc etc

No idea if this is any help, I guess everyone does things differently

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I think it is important to remember that composition is like any form of musical learning. You start small and get better by practising. We all know we have to spend 10,000 hours learning to play. What is less well known is that you also need ANOTHER 10,000 hours to learn how to compose ;)

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That's the thing. IMHO , unless you are going down the producer route, it shouldn't be sola laborious . Believe it or not, I used to be brilliant doing cassette compilation s.back in the day. I wish there was a straightforward way of recording with peak meters rather than graphs. I know a couple of genius's recording wise. They are great electronic keyboard players. It seems a doddle for them.

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I love Garageband. ridiculously easy! (I don't have the latest version though, and to be honest I wish I could go back to the one before my current version). I found drum loops a bit of a pain though, I could never get the feel I wanted. I eventually bought an electronic drumkit and that is perfect. I play keyboards first, altering tempo as and when I feel, then I drum along to that, and add everything else afterwards.

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[quote name='RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE' timestamp='1399645872' post='2446267']
Be rtbass has got me thinking about the boss unit above . Does anybody think that these are what I might need?
[/quote]

Pm'd :)

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One way to practice composition is to create covers or 'remixes' of songs you enjoy.

Record your own versions of them and in doing so, you'll learn things about the arrangements, chord structures, lyrics, all sorts of things (consciously or subconsciously). You'll get to try out new ideas and find out what works (and what doesn't), but you'll have something familiar as a reference point to compare your own decisions against - i.e. the original recording of the song.

Again, it's no different to learning an instrument and playing along to an album, or whatever.

Practice and patience. As with everything ;)

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I hate recording, it never seems to go right so I empathise with the OP.

As far as composing is concerned I have two techniques. I have a Zoom H2 which I'll turn on and then nurdle on whichever instrument I'm playing at the time. For melodic work it'll be either a whistle or a squeezebox, for chords/riffs a guitar or my latest toy, a guitarlele. The H2 is important because I can pick up on things that seem to work and not have to worry about remembering them the next day. Any promising lines I can then clean up and start to work on.

Words I do on paper (the same way I write poetry) and at some point I'll look to match the halves up. Most of the time I end up with a pile of words and a pile of tunes that don't match but every so often it comes together.

Steve

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I have a friend who gets frustrated with recording. His problem is that now that we have the ability to do multiple takes and stitch them together, it feeds the perfectionists. He is a perfectionist. He'll play a great single take, listen back and hear every TINY (and I mean TINY!) flaw and then go back and rerecord it until it meets his high expectations.

Most of these "flaws" are things I consider to be part of the character of the take. He strives to sound like a perfectly produced dance drum beat whereas I'd prefer he kept those inconsistencies as they are what makes his takes sound more human and live.

I suppose, if you are also striving for perfection too you have to either let some of it go or be prepared for the time consuming editing!

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I've tried to get into recording but the bottom line for me is that I've got absolutely no interest in it whatsoever.
I write stuff & rough demo it on a Boss BR600; I've got GarageBand but I really don't like it very much.

I'd rather spend my money on going into a studio & recording stuff with somebody that knows what they're doing than spending it on home recording equipment.

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[quote name='skej21' timestamp='1399656603' post='2446438']
I have a friend who gets frustrated with recording. His problem is that now that we have the ability to do multiple takes and stitch them together, it feeds the perfectionists. He is a perfectionist. He'll play a great single take, listen back and hear every TINY (and I mean TINY!) flaw and then go back and rerecord it until it meets his high expectations.

Most of these "flaws" are things I consider to be part of the character of the take. He strives to sound like a perfectly produced dance drum beat whereas I'd prefer he kept those inconsistencies as they are what makes his takes sound more human and live.

I suppose, if you are also striving for perfection too you have to either let some of it go or be prepared for the time consuming editing!
[/quote]

My favourite article on the subject [url="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar05/articles/soundingoff.htm"]http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar05/articles/soundingoff.htm[/url]

Steve

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[quote name='oggiesnr' timestamp='1399661046' post='2446489']
My favourite article on the subject [url="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar05/articles/soundingoff.htm"]http://www.soundonso...soundingoff.htm[/url]
[/quote]

Should have used Reaper instead.

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