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first time in studio - tips please

#21
Fliptrique said:
1. Fresh strings! I like the bright roundwound tone and usually change strings every 4 songs or so.

2. When I can I do complete demos at home. The small recording devices like zoom h series are a great tool for that - just recording a song at a rehersal space can reveal a lot of stuff. Nobody hears everything going around them while playing and it`s quite common to miss some small discrapencies between instrumets. In my current band we record just the drums and add guitar and bass at home using simple line6 emulation.

3. Practice playing the exact songs you are going to recordd with a CLEAN technique. I once spent a week of playing them 10 hours a day right before the session. Painfully slow tempos, fingerings, dynamics - all of it.

It`s a good idea to check if you accidentally bend the notes out of tune durning passages that requie to move your hand a lot. Just stop at a random note, don`t move a thing and check with a tuner. It`s also important to be sure you mute all the unused strings - the method is pretty much the same. Happens to most of more often than you might think.

4. Bass is an instrument that needs a bit of finger noise, fret clack etc. to sound good. This might feel sloppy when isolated but makes the track much more alive even with drums alone. Some genres requie a lot, some very little but it`s usually there.

5. Have backup stuff like cables, strings etc. If you have a friend with gear MUCH better than yours - borrow it.

6. Few people can nail songs perfectly in a single take. I did it a few times but prefer to work on parts separately - I do the all the verses, then all the choruses etc. Makes things much faster and easier to change the tone/saturation level between the song parts.

7. Work as hard as you can BEFORE the session. But when it`s time to record try not to worry - just play and have fun. A good engineer will make you fell comfortable but nothing beats knowing that you did all you could to be prepared.

8. When I can I`m picky when it comes to the recording enginner - but when he is hired I let the man do his job. I trust his judgement and play whatever he asks me to play the way he suggests.
Click to expand...


Number 6 is problematic to me. A player SHOULD be able to nail a song perfectly in a single take. I know I can, and most pro players can. If this is a demo for a cover band, I would imagine they want the recording to represent what they sound like. Recording things the way you describe won't accomplish that. Practicing alone until you can play the part all the way through with no mistakes is what will save the most time, and what pro session musicians are expected to do. I know way more bass players here that can nail a track in a single take than players who can't. If the first take doesn't cut it, I make sure it isn't my fault that it wasn't "the one".
 
#22
Yeah I gotta disagree with #6 too.
Playing the whole thing all the way through with forgivable slips is much preferable to surgically entering perfected bits and pieces , generally.
The overall feeling of the piece , with the band interacting, listening and responding, trumps a need for absolute precision, and few have the budget or time for that level of editing.
Overdubs should be for fixing the glaring error in an otherwise awesome take.
Save time and money by knowing the material cold.

The exception is if studio tricks are part of what your music is all about, which it doesn't sound like for the OP.
 
#23
play your part and then record half of that-
one bass note goes a long ways and sonic vacuums are cool.
a new set of rounds will most certainly amplify any technique deficiencies so make sure you can play it real clean.
 
#24
+1 to the keeping it simple (don't play as many fills and keep to eighth note fills when you do)
Practice playing with the big headphones NOW as well as playing with a click track.

Dress Comfortable with good shoes

Practice how you will record (practice sitting if you are going to sit and stand if you are going to stand)
 
#26
I love it. Loaded with personality. :)

My ears are shot (too many years playing without earplugs), but I do think the mix could use some tweaking. Drums, particularly the kick, seem to be getting lost. And while the bass sounds great, I think it could be dropped a bit to allow everything else to come through a bit more. I think all the performances are great tough.

Thanks for sharing it.
 
#28
I listened again on various setups
- cheap headphones (Stagg), plugged into Macbook
- decent headphones (Grado), plugged into Macbook
- decent speakers (Kef and Arcam)
- cheap speakers (standard in new BMW)

The bass sounds too loud to me on the cheap headphones, but not so on the other configurations...
 
#33
I very strongly suggest that you take the most recognizable parts of each song (end of a verse into a chorus, for example) and make a single audio cut with samples from each song, no more than 30-40 seconds from each song. No club owner wants to hear the 90 second intro to Car Wash. And, TBH, you shouldn't be playing it live.

Regarding one studio tip that I find helpful: I've done quite a bit of tracking in DIY setups where everyone might not get their own monitor mix. What I often do is bring my own small mixer and an A/B box, split my bass's signal and run one into the mixer. Then I take the monitor mix, put that into another mix channel. That way I've always got maximum control over my own levels in a tough situation.
 

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