Recording
Part 2
The next step was to add another acoustic guitar track to make the sound fuller. I laid down that track, playing it a little harder than the previous take, which didn’t turn out to be such a good idea. I played it well, but it’s not the right sound, so I might have to redo that track as well. I’m not positive though.
Sometimes, it takes me more time to decide whether or not to keep a take than it does to record and edit it, but that’s part of the process. Sometimes it’s obvious that I should throw a take away, but sometimes it sounds almost there, and it takes quite awhile, several repeats, to determine whether I like it or not. Or if it’s not perfectly performed, but almost perfectly, I figure that I might be able to splice the imperfect part from another take, or from later in the same take. It feels a bit like I’m cheating, because I rarely get a take that I’m 100% happy with all the way through, so almost always the final version is an amalgam of several different performances instead of one good performance all the way through. Cakewalk makes it so easy to do, though, it's scandalous.
Editing really makes me aware of how simple my songs, and songs in general, really are. With Danny, the chord progression is two chords back and forth over and over in the verses, and a whopping 6 chords in the chorus and bridge, but all in all, it’s very repetitive. Theoretically, I could find one progression in the verse, which lasts only one measure, and copy and paste it throughout the song, but that’s more difficult than playing it all the way through, and besides, I feel like it's cheating, and I want to at least challenge myself enough to play decently enough to get most of it right. On top of that, I think it would sound monotonous. When I play the song on the guitar, the chord progression might be repetitive, but at least I can play it differently throughout--louder, softer, different chops with my right hand….
Anyway, when I finished the acoustic takes, even though I wasn’t completely satisfied, I decided to move on to some electric guitar fills. When a song has several layers of instruments, like this one, you often won’t notice if a single track isn’t perfect because you’re paying attention to another track during the imperfection. On Waiting to Hear, that’s the case. Right after the bridge, there’s some messy guitar work, but there are three guitars and a bass and some light percussion, so you don’t really notice it. I notice it, but hopefully you wouldn’t unless you were looking for it.
I set up my amp, a Fender 85 watt solid-state combo with built in reverb and distortion, and I connected my dynamic mic, an Electro Voice N/Dyn mic, to the preamp after sticking it on a mic pole and laying the mic pole horizontally so that it pointed at the amp speaker. I luckily had the foresight in a previous session to write down all the preamp and compressor settings I use for recording different configurations, so I don’t have to spend a lot of time searching for the right settings. I hooked up my guitar, a black Mexican manufactured Fender Deluxe Powerhouse Strat that I ordered through the Internet. True guitar aficionados would tell me that , and the salesman at my local music store, that you can’t buy a car sight unseen because each guitar is different and has its own personality. However, I figured that my ear and fingers are not skilled enough to detect the subtleties, and besides, I would be limited by the stock of whatever store I’m in at the time, so what the hell. I’ve been very happy with the sound of the guitar so far. If you want to hear it, listen to Pot of Gold or Don’t Feed the Goat.
Anyway, I plugged the guitar into the amp and set up the mic and recorded several takes of different fills. That’s where I do most of my arranging, playing along with what I’ve already done and playing around. I cam up with several different little fills to add some layers to the song. I still haven’t had an opportunity to listen to them too much to figure out what I’m going to keep and what I’m going to throw away.
One of my major limitations is the fact that I don’t really have a band right now. Most of the songs on the site are entirely me performing, with a few exceptions. Laughing at the Blue Sky is Phil’s song. We programmed the percussion track together, and I play the lead guitar and sing backup harmonies. The main lick is his, though. Anyway, I don’t have a decent synthesizer or sampler either, and so I can’t express many of the sounds I hear in my head, and I don’t have anyone to bounce ideas off of . So I’m limited by my guitars and whatever I can do with them, and by my bass and computer. If I want to add a sustained high note, like a violin, in the background, I have to use a guitar with the sustain turned up high.
Worst of all, though, is the drum machine. First of all, I’m not a drummer, so whatever I program is based on my ear, which is less than that of an expert. Second of all, the sounds that I get are limited. I only have one sound for a ride cymbal, for an open hi-hat, for a shaker, etc. Drum rolls are pretty much out of the question, as are different tonalities, different subtleties, etc.
It occurred to me that I could make it sound a little more realistic if I separated the drums, so now when I record the drums, I program each drum on a separate MIDI track, and record each drum on a separate audio track. I apply different types of reverb to the different drums, and cut off the beginning of each ride hit, which takes away some of the harshness and machine-like quality.
To be continued...
Come back next week for part 3.
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