Which comes first?

[1000mile]

This may be a dumb question-- and is probably the wrong question-- but I'm going to ask it anyway. It's the only way I'll learn.
I suck at playing guitar and I suck at singing. And yet, I want to make a recording of myself playing and singing a song I'm working on. Not to share with anybody else, just for my own benefit. It doesn't need to sound professional.
Am I better off...
-recording the guitar track first, and then adding voice on top of it? (while listening to the guitar track through a monitor)
or
-recording the voice first, then adding guitar on top of it? (while listening to the voice through a monitor)
or
-sucking it up and trying to do both at once (separately mic'd/cabled), realizing that the timing and intonation will be much improved, but the quality of performance of each part is going to drop precipitously because I'm not that good at either part yet. Also, it would have to be much slower than the song ought to go, for me to even hold it together.

Before anyone points out the obvious, yes, I realize that the answer is to go practice more, each part separately, then together, slowly, and with a metronome. Yes, I'm working on that. But in the meantime, what's the best path to get a reasonable record of where I am today?

thanks in advance for your sage advice.

[Silly Moustache]

Hi, I suspect that most of us have been through this stage, and the responses would be different as technology changed.

I remember "tape" recorders, then cassette machines, but things are better now.

Your wish to hear and listen to yourself to analyse and improve is perfectly reasonable.

Some will talk of DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations but they need a degree of understanding of the machine (archaic but available) or software programmes.

For absolute simplicity and for technical ease, I would suggest the third option - play and sing together.

You could probably do this on your smart phone using "voice recorder or Voice memo apps.

For better quality consider Zoom H2 or H4 machines or Tascam equivalents. They do a pretty good job and I've used an H2 for making demo CDs. (they mostly use SD cards).

That's my suggestion anyway, hope that helps.

[thefsb]

#3 for sure. Together. Unless your goal is to be a recording artist that only ever plays guitar and sings separately, never at the same time, there's no point in separating them for now.

Since you said it's just for yourself, I say make a virtue of that. Use the selfie cam on your phone and it's built in mic. Prop it up somehow or use a stand and record your song. You'll know as you record if you want to scratch a take and start over so go ahead and do that as needed while aiming for a recording that fairly represents where you're currently at with your skills. Later, not immediately afterwards, maybe next day, watch and listen carefully. At this point you must be in complete control of yourself. No cringing allowed! Be scientifically detached. Make notes of things you liked and what you want to work on improving. After some practice, record it again. Repeat.

When you get to the point that you want a recording to show off to others then you can, if you want, do something more fancy with the recording or pay someone to record you.

[jseth]

Unless you are satisfied with how you play and sing and aren't planning on continuing, I see absolutely NO NEED to record yourself at this stage of the proceedings... you already know where you stand, in relation to how you want the song/performance to be.

Keep playing it and singing it until you are reasonably comfortable with your performance, and THEN record a take of it, see what you think. I guarantee that when you're comfortable singing and playing a song, you are going to hear a lOT of different aspects that you'll want to clean up to have the song be closer to what you want.

Until such time as you feel fairly adept at playing and singing the song, I don't see how much of anything positive would come from recording yourself... seems that would be a great way to just give it all up! Just from your words, I can tell you that you're not good, not yet... but you will be, so long as you keep going with playing and singing, keep having fun with it all...

Any time that you would spend on recording yourself and listening, evaluating and considering would be time MUCH BETTER SPENT by actually playing and singing. It's not a race or anything, so have fun with it and do your best to not let yourself get distracted by any of the myriad things that will try to take you away from the nuts and bolts of it...

[1000mile]

Thanks everyone for the input! Much appreciated.
Yes, I will not let the results deter me from keeping at it. At this point in my life I’ve learned that you have to tolerate yourself being bad at something to have any hope of learning something new. I forgot that for a long time, won’t make that mistake again

[Charlie Bernstein]

Try it all three ways. What's good for someone else might not be good for you.

Just to keep the tracks separate, I do guitar first, then voice. Guitar first is good because it keeps a steady beat better than voice does.

But doing them together would sound more like you really sound. So you might just practice a song until you're comfortable with it, then record both at the same time.

Let us know what you end up doing!

[thefsb]

Originally Posted by 1000mile

Thanks everyone for the input! Much appreciated.
Yes, I will not let the results deter me from keeping at it. At this point in my life I’ve learned that you have to tolerate yourself being bad at something to have any hope of learning something new. I forgot that for a long time, won’t make that mistake again

What preconditions are necessary to learning anything? Ignorance. Wrong beliefs. Inadequate skill. What else?

[ghostnote]

It’s a lot easier to sing to music that’s already recorded. That’s what you do when you’re wailing along like Robert Plant to the car radio, right? Especially if you’re not super experienced at doing both together. It’s also how recording artists make their albums. I’d record the music first, if only to give myself less to think about. It will also help with your timing: the vocals are allowed some artistic license as to where they sit on the beat, but there has to be something to frame all of that. There has to BE a beat to sing on, or around. When you get more confidence, you can start singing and playing simultaneously. It’s easier than we’re making it sound.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by 1000mile

Before anyone points out the obvious, yes, I realize that the answer is to go practice more, each part separately, then together, slowly, and with a metronome. Yes, I'm working on that.
But in the meantime, what's the best path to get a reasonable record of where I am today?

OK, there's two quite different purposes here!

One is the process of putting together the best possible recording of your song - which, you're quite right, involves metronomes, guide tracks and so on, layering it up. (Even if only for vocal and guitar, sketchy guide tracks for each make a good foundation, which you record over and delete later.)

The other is this honest representation of how you sound right now on your own - i.e., as if performing live somewhere - a "reasonable record of where I am today". Obviously for that, you just record both directly, even into a single mic.

The distinction, if you like, is between the two musical artforms: live performance, and audio recording.
The former obviously reuires competence and confidence. And recording yourself in single takes - no overdubs, no editing - obviously shows you what level you are currently at; so you can clearly hear where you need to improve.
The latter is designed to be repeatable many times, which is why perfection is the goal, and why people spend hours editing and overdubbing, even with very simple songs. (You might even autotune your vocals... )

[KevWind]

First understand there is no one size fits all answer, for best method - made all the more obvious by the fact that the suggestions given run the full gamut of the three different methods you mention. In other words "everyone is different" is both obvious and relevant

As has also been pointed out, there are some advantages and disadvantages to all three and as to which one is likely to work best for your particular learning curve and strengths, no one can really say, other than what works for them, again "every one is different"

That said as has been noted if you just want to see where you are at (understanding that " a reasonable record" is vague and totally subjective)

Like Silly mentioned (if you have one) just use your smart phone and voice memo or video record , and try all three,,, but I agree singing an playing together at the same time, is arguably the best indication of "where you are at" currently.

And also agree (although seems you do not want to hear it) if you cannot smoothly play and sing it and without constantly looking at your fingering, then personally I see no purpose in wasting time trying to record with other than just a smart phone . Because I see no functional benefit to your learning (other than possibly just a reference of where you are currently at) which means a smart phone recording will take the least amount of time and be adiquate for archival reference .

[1000mile]

Thanks everybody! Lots of good food for thought.

Probably it would have been helpful for me to mention--the song I'm working on is one I'm trying to arrange a guitar part for (another of the many things I am learning to do, and don't do well, yet). I'm trying to find the delicate balance of something that is interesting, stylistically appropriate, playable (by me, lol) and supports the vocals rather than competing with them. Being able to hear both parts together is an important piece of feedback in deciding what I need to tweak.

I used to try to do this in MuseScore using the auto-playback (robot) feature but found this completely unhelpful, at least for me and the way I wanted to work. That was part of what motivated me to start learning guitar. I feel like now, although I don't yet play well, I'm at least heading in the right direction.

For now, I've started with the Voice Memo app. I will probably keep experimenting.

[Glennwillow]

My own experience with recording over almost 60 years is that many folks record the guitar first and then listen to that through headphones and sing with the already-recorded guitar. Voice and guitar are often on separate recording channels. Not everyone does this; some people have trouble playing the guitar at a consistent tempo without the melody line supplied by the voice.

In my early days of learning to play and sing together, the first recordings I made were of me singing and playing guitar, together. I would think from a beginner's standpoint, singing and playing together would be the way to go.

- Glenn

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

My own experience with recording over almost 60 years is that many folks record the guitar first and then listen to that through headphones and sing with the already-recorded guitar. Voice and guitar are often on separate recording channels. Not everyone does this; some people have trouble playing the guitar at a consistent tempo without the melody line supplied by the voice.

In my early days of learning to play and sing together, the first recordings I made were of me singing and playing guitar, together. I would think from a beginner's standpoint, singing and playing together would be the way to go.

- Glenn

As Glen says....

Guitar first.... But I will add that you should listen to a click track on your headphones while you lay down the guitar. Then add the vocal track while listening to the guitar track on headphones.

If you can't play guitar to a click track (metronome) yet, then that will point to a gap in your present skill set. And I would work on getting playing to a metronome sussed first.

Elzic's Farewell in my signature below was recorded guitar first against a click track on headphones and then mountain dulcimer on top. The timing of the two parts is crucial - hence the click track. I had to tap the top of my guitar on the lead in, because the dulcimer opens despite being recorded second. Then I deleted the taps.

A click track will force you to get the guitar timing right, and so make it much easier to sing across.

[1000mile]

Originally Posted by Robin, Wales

As Glen says....

Elzic's Farewell in my signature below was recorded guitar first against a click track on headphones and then mountain dulcimer on top.

I like this! Tight!! Nice recording & lively playing.

[Brent Hahn]

My general MO is to...

1. Figure out a tempo and print a click or percussion loop;
2. Do a "road map" track where I play and sing into one mic, and only semi-care about mistakes;
3. Do a fairly accurate rhythm guitar part -- maybe the keeper, maybe not;
4. Mute the roadmap and get straight to the keeper lead vocal -- this might be in one go, or several takes comped down to one, or the whole first day might yield nothing worth keeping. I never know.
5. Then everything else.

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.