Fumbly fingers and red light syndrome

[TBman]

I set up my recording equipment in the garage last night, all ready to get a good recording and my fingers had other ideas. I guess I'm just rushing it and the tune isn't really ready to be recorded.

Also I was getting the dreaded red light fear for some reason. I couldn't relax and just play like I usually do. I'm going to have to go back to recording something, anything, every night for a while just to get back that confidence I had from frequent recording.

The garage though is my new space to record. The night wasn't a total loss.

[MThomson]

I did this recently recording a song for my mum to listen to in lockdown. I've played and sang this particular song for about a year and it's as deep in my memory as it can go. So I turned on the recording, started off, and forgot the words halfway through the first verse! Took me 10 minutes to remember them.

[capefisherman]

First thing to do is download a simple mastering program like Amadeus Lite. That way at the very least you can do things like trim parts of the song if you mess up soon after starting and then start again without turning off your recorder, I have found the red light thing is much more likely to happen again if I stop the recording and then start it again.

Amadeus Lite also lets you do things like boost or diminish the overall volume and save the file in pretty much any format. Very easy to use and free,or at least it was a couple years ago when I downloaded it. Highly recommended!

Gene

[rmp]

yea man.. I hear ya. I think we all get redlightitus, as soon as the light goes on, something happens to our brains, and they just get in the way.

The solution? record EVERYTHING! no seriously I have found that the more time you spend doing it, the less likely that red light is gonna mess with ya.

[islandguitar]

Yep, can certainly relate!! LOL! It's an interesting mixture of high energy and being relaxed at the same time which seems to work best for me. The two are kind of opposites, but want to work in tandem for best/better results.

[FrankHudson]

Here's one thing that helps me. It assumes that you are your own recording engineer. There are other ways to do this if someone else operates the recording software or device.

Set your recording software to loop record. This usually means that you need to know how long, how many measures, your song is going to be.* Arm it to record and then do several takes--not just one, or one, stop, rewind, record again. I'll often do this until I think I've got an acceptable take, and then do at least one more before I end the process.

This helps you abstract yourself from the recording process and lets you relax because you are not aiming for "the one." And sometimes that "one more take" after you think you have "that's about as good as I'm going to get it" (or some other subsequent take) is the best one because you now know you've got your recording "job" done and can relax. Other times it's the first take, but it was good because you were more relaxed not thinking "OK, this is it, the one others are going to hear."


*If you don't know exactly, or don't want to play to a click or other guide track, you can try to estimate just a bit long. This process works if you have an few seconds at the end of the pass before you need to start again, in fact even when overdubbing on a previously recorded track I'll often leave a little extra at the end when looping my overdub. You can also get near this technique without looping or even DAW software by having someone else "engineer" the recording, operate things and cue you.

[Rick Jones]

I get this terribly nowadays. I've had a radial nerve injury and I'm relearning to play, but anytime I think I'm nailing it, all I have to do is turn my Q8 on and I'm instantly brought back to Earth!

[cedartop52]

Boy oh boy I can relate to the record light issue! I've recently retired and am setting up my little 'music room' so that I can do some recording to share on this forum. I've been fussing around with making sure I have the right guitar, trying to learn GarageBand, and working on some cover tunes...anything to avoid the dreaded red light! Ha I've performed singing and playing guitar publicly both solo and in groups since 1969...and an audience is less intimidating to me that that dang light! Clearly I need to dive in and desensitize myself to it. Best of luck to you, I really enjoy your recordings. Dan

[Bob Womack]

I'm a recording engineer/producer and play sessions and have dealt with red light fever as well. I wrote up a little article on how to deal with it and you can read it over HERE.

Bob

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

I'm a recording engineer/producer and play sessions and have dealt with red light fever as well. I wrote up a little article on how to deal with it and you can read it over HERE.

Bob

That was a good article, Bob, thanks.

I'm also trying to memorize what I record instead of sight reading. It'll take longer (I haven't tried to memorize something in years), but I'll be better off being more familiar with what I record.

[Chipotle]

Originally Posted by TBman

I'm also trying to memorize what I record instead of sight reading. It'll take longer (I haven't tried to memorize something in years), but I'll be better off being more familiar with what I record.

Good idea. One way to get past the red-light syndrome is to know your material cold. Backwards, forwards, play it in your sleep, play without really having to think. Then you can focus more on the performance. It won't make the problem go away completely, but will help reduce "run of the mill" mistakes.

If you ever pay to go into a studio, this is extremely important. Your engineer, producer and wallet will all thank you.

[Rudy4]

Notes for self-recording:

1. Chart out your material and have the lyrics in front of you.

2. Set up your equipment, get comfortable, hit record, and play. If you make a mistake JUST START OVER, don't stop recording and re-start.

3. Keep playing until you get a complete take you're happy with.

4. At that point you can either stop recording or keep recording if you think you can do a better take.

If you keep recording you should jot down the running time so you know that you liked the take immediately before your noted time. If you're using a DAW it's easy to use the "insert marker" function to mark your preferred take. Portable recorders also often have a marker function. You'll appreciate this later...

After you complete your recording you can trim the unwanted portion before and after your preferred take. It's easy to do with almost any recording device or editing in your DAW.

This process works really well once you get past the mindset of "wasting valuable memory". Memory space isn't normally any concern in the process any longer, so record as long as it takes to get your desired results and delete the part you don't want to keep.

What this eliminates is all the red light syndrome that results in thinking you need to perform perfectly start to finish. Dump those expectations and use the process and tools available to you to better suit how YOU perform.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Rudy4

Notes for self-recording:

1. Chart out your material and have the lyrics in front of you.

2. Set up your equipment, get comfortable, hit record, and play. If you make a mistake JUST START OVER, don't stop recording and re-start.

3. Keep playing until you get a complete take you're happy with.

4. At that point you can either stop recording or keep recording if you think you can do a better take.

If you keep recording you should jot down the running time so you know that you liked the take immediately before your noted time. If you're using a DAW it's easy to use the "insert marker" function to mark your preferred take. Portable recorders also often have a marker function. You'll appreciate this later...

After you complete your recording you can trim the unwanted portion before and after your preferred take. It's easy to do with almost any recording device or editing in your DAW.

This process works really well once you get past the mindset of "wasting valuable memory". Memory space isn't normally any concern in the process any longer, so record as long as it takes to get your desired results and delete the part you don't want to keep.

What this eliminates is all the red light syndrome that results in thinking you need to perform perfectly start to finish. Dump those expectations and use the process and tools available to you to better suit how YOU perform.

Thanks!

I have some great DAW tools, Izotope's RX 7 standard, Ozone 9 and the new Adobe Audition which allows for non-destructive modifications to the original recording. This is great because if you want to experiment with multiple different effects combinations you can just bypass them instead of "undoing" and "doing" again and again.