Which comes first?

[1000mile]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

If you click on the "Originals" link in my sig (not the "couch" one), you can hear a bunch of my songs that were recorded this way. Some of them have stops and breaks and ritards -- that stuff's outside the scope of the topic -- and three or four were done with no click. But in the main, that's my method.

The other link (couch) is what happened when my wife yelled from another room, "Make me a CD of those to play in the car." Those are one mic, one pass. I did allow myself more than one try -- some of them are hard for me (and hard to remember for any length of time). The recorded sound is pretty raggedy, but some of the tunes have a vibe and a pocket I really like, in spite of the sound.

This was so interesting. I have to agree, the vibe of the couch standards put a big smile on my face. March 2020! What heady times those were.

The originals are great too (oh my god, the lyrics are a joy. Hunker down in your bunker…who thinks of this stuff? You and Cole Porter, maybe). The performance doesn’t feel quite as spontaneous on some of them, or maybe I only think that because you’ve already explained the technique. But I bet click track is a cruel mistress. So how DO you deal with ritardandos and pauses? I think I would need to follow a visual of some kind. I’m used to watching a conductor.

[EZYPIKINS]

How I like to do it is. Lay down guitar and vocal together, to a click.

Then using that track as a guide. Lay down a guitar track. Then lay another guitar track, either playing the same part. Or capoing up and using different inversions.

Pan those tracks hard right and left.

Record the vocal. Get your best take. Rest the vocal track in the center, or just off center,

This will give your guitar a nice Live like sound and vocal will be isolated in the center so nothing stepping on each other.

This can all be done fairly efficiently in garage band.

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by EZYPIKINS

How I like to do it is. Lay down guitar and vocal together, to a click.

Then using that track as a guide. Lay down a guitar track. Then lay another guitar track, either playing the same part. Or capoing up and using different inversions.

Pan those tracks hard right and left.

Record the vocal. Get your best take. Rest the vocal track in the center, or just off center,

This will give your guitar a nice Live like sound and vocal will be isolated in the center so nothing stepping on each other.

This can all be done fairly efficiently in garage band.

Yes, recording folks have referred to this first, rough track of voice and guitar as a "scratch track" because nobody will ever hear it. But using this approach allows a player to lay a song down with the right feel of a live performance. Then the guitar (or guitars) can be recorded separately for best sound and good separation. Then the voice can be added after all the rhythm stuff is done. This approach provides what I think is the best option for controlling each channel and keeps from mixing voice with guitar and vice versa.

I often like to record an acoustic (or electric) part twice and pan them hard left and right. This is an older technique that I don't hear much today in recordings but was extremely common when I was in my 20s (which was the late 1960s and early 1970s).

Yep -- good advice EZ.

- Glenn

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by 1000mile

... So how DO you deal with ritardandos and pauses? I think I would need to follow a visual of some kind. I’m used to watching a conductor.

i've been playing to a click since I was 25 or so, so that's easy. It's just a drummer who pays no attention to you. With the ritards, usually you can either sing a cappella in a way that tells the "band" when to play, or play one "guide" instrument in a way that tells you when to sing. Usually. These bits have to be recorded separately and edited in, most of the time. With long stops or spaces, you can stop the click for the duration of the hole, and then edit in a countoff-click to get you back in.