I Am absolute GARBAGE when recording.

[makanudo]

I Am a rusher. Such a bad rusher that Terence Fletcher would slap me across the face until I passed out.

This is a half vent half plead for salvation thread. I woke up at like 5 AM determined to record a song I've been practicing and wishing to record and upload a video cover but after spending HOURS recording it, fixing the parts I noticed I was rushing at, rendering and listening back to it, it became obvious I just wasted my entire morning. I am way ahead of the drums in arguably the easiest parts of the song. Bummer.

I've tried watching video instruction and practicing with a metronome. But when there's an actual band playing.

I beg you noble folk of talkbass to help a brother out. Any tips, pointers, help is greatly appreciated and needed.

 

[Groove Doctor]

Sounds like a real life Teacher is needed.

What do other musicians say about your timing when playing live?

 

[ShadowGroover]

Recording is a mirror of truth that is usually required for most musicians to acquire better skills.

"If you don't care enough to listen to yourself, nobody else will care to listen to you either. ." Jamey Aebersold

I continually review recorded rehearsals, practices, and studio and live performances. When I first started to do so I was shocked at how much work was needed for my improvement. Back to the woodshed I went.

 

[albertus]

not a video not the metronome will fix that. I have helped some people with bad timing. If you are interested in some classes, contact me and we can talk.

 

[Minimalist]

If you know you are rushing but cannot correct it I wouldn't think your time feel is off. Are you in general a nervous/anxious person? If so I'd do some breathing and meditation exercises.

 

[Lobster11]

Here's my guess; tell me if it sounds right to you: I suspect that playing this song at tempo is right at the edge of your (current) ability and technique. When practicing you can just get through it without mistakes, but when you press the record button you tense up and your technique goes to hell. If this is the case, I think the solution is to practice the song at a slower tempo -- slow enough that you can play through it cleanly, without rushing, and with relative ease every time. Then increase the tempo by a few beats and do the same. Rinse and repeat until you can play the whole song cleanly, at tempo, with ease. Only then will you really be ready to record the song.

 

[-Stingray]

Here's my guess; tell me if it sounds right to you: I suspect that playing this song at tempo is right at the edge of your (current) ability and technique. When practicing you can just get through it without mistakes, but when you press the record button you tense up and your technique goes to hell. If this is the case, I think the solution is to practice the song at a slower tempo -- slow enough that you can play through it cleanly, without rushing, and with relative ease every time. Then increase the tempo by a few beats and do the same. Rinse and repeat until you can play the whole song cleanly, at tempo, with ease. Only then will you really be ready to record the song.

Came here to say this.

 

[Riff Ranger]

I Am a rusher. Such a bad rusher that Terence Fletcher would slap me across the face until I passed out.

This is a half vent half plead for salvation thread. I woke up at like 5 AM determined to record a song I've been practicing and wishing to record and upload a video cover but after spending HOURS recording it, fixing the parts I noticed I was rushing at, rendering and listening back to it, it became obvious I just wasted my entire morning. I am way ahead of the drums in arguably the easiest parts of the song. Bummer.

I've tried watching video instruction and practicing with a metronome. But when there's an actual band playing.

I beg you noble folk of talkbass to help a brother out. Any tips, pointers, help is greatly appreciated and needed.

Yeah, it’s not just you

While it may not be an economical option if paying for studio time or if someone’s paying you to knock out a part, I can’t count how many times I’ve tried to record something at home (usually something I’ve recently written, sometimes mere moments before), grudgingly settled on something remotely close to “good enough” after zillions of takes over a few hours, and then nailed it in a single take a day or two later. In these situations, it almost feels I need to be brutally humbled before I’m allowed to get it right. If stepping away for a day or two is an option for you, hopefully that will help.

As for routinely playing in time, I’ve got nothing I think I’ve at least developed enough of an ear to notice when I rush or drag, or to hear it in recordings of myself, so we both have that much going for us. Ignorance might be bliss, but it wouldn’t make our recordings any better

 

[FullumMusic]

Move your body.

Tempo and rhythm are body things

Counting in your head is good and important, but it's a bit abstracted and the mental space you leave between counting the beats can change slightly and it's hard to notice. Moving your body parts to the beat involves moving physical parts back and forth through space. If you're nodding your head & shoulders to the beat at a certain tempo, you can physically feel yourself changing the tempo. You either have to tense your muscles to move faster, or you have to shorten/disrupt the natural arc of your movement.

It's like trying to push someone on a swing set who isn't at the right point in their swing-arc. If you try to rush their swing, you wind up pushing while they're still swinging up. If you rush your body movement, you'll be trying to swing your shoulders & head the other way before they've landed on the downbeat.

To practice, put the bass down and pull out the metronome, and just move your body to the click. Tap your foot and bop your head and shoulders to the click. No instrument. Just body movement. Try different tempos and see how you have to use different movements to get the time consistent. Do the same thing with actual songs but no bass. Just move your body to the tempo and really feel yourself hitting that beat with your body and not rushing during the exciting parts of the song etc.

Then graduate to doing the same thing with your bass. Just hit notes exactly on the beat as your body hits the beat. Then experiment with playing on and off the beat, and leaving rests between notes but still hitting exactly where the tempo is. Simple root-5-oct or triad games so you're not worried about notes, just timing.

Then when you're playing in a band or recording, KEEP MOVING YOUR BODY like the way you practiced. Feel the pulse of the music (even if it's a flowing ballad) in your body and play to that.

Once you got that pretty good, you can go back and do the practice exercises with more complicated bass lines depending on what you need. Like, if you notice you rush on octave jumps, or on big slides, or coming in on a big hit, you can focus the exercise on those specific things as needed.

Bonus exercise:
- If you have access to a DAW or a drum machine, make a 4 bar drum pattern.
- Come up with a simple bassline to play to the pattern.
- Then loop the pattern, but have the drums drop out every once in a while.
- You keep playing the bassline through the space, and when the drums come back in, it should be in time with the bassline. If it's off, you're rushing or slowing down.
- As you get better, have the drums drop out for longer periods of time. So maybe in the beginning it mutes for the last quarter note every 4 bars. Then the last half measure every 4 bars. Then the full 4th bar. Then alternate 2 bars on/2 bars off.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

I Am a rusher. Such a bad rusher that Terence Fletcher would slap me across the face until I passed out.

This is a half vent half plead for salvation thread. I woke up at like 5 AM determined to record a song I've been practicing and wishing to record and upload a video cover but after spending HOURS recording it, fixing the parts I noticed I was rushing at, rendering and listening back to it, it became obvious I just wasted my entire morning. I am way ahead of the drums in arguably the easiest parts of the song. Bummer.

I've tried watching video instruction and practicing with a metronome. But when there's an actual band playing.

I beg you noble folk of talkbass to help a brother out. Any tips, pointers, help is greatly appreciated and needed.

1 2 3 4

 

[Jefus]

I'll be the optimist here. What's the latency like on your interface/daw?

Set up a click or hi hat or something simple and clear. Now play dead notes on your bass to it and record it. If it sounded on time but you listen back and all your notes are ahead, there may be something going on in the electronic side. If it's a latency issue, one you finish the recording just drag the whole track to make it line up.

This got me one time. Victor Bailey of all people was looking over my shoulder. We didn't figure out the latency issue until after he left.

 

[Honkey tonk]

Self affirmations really do work ...
Take it easy and breathe, Convenience yourself how much fun you will have recording

 

[newfuture]

I'll be the optimist here. What's the latency like on your interface/daw?

Set up a click or hi hat or something simple and clear. Now play dead notes on your bass to it and record it. If it sounded on time but you listen back and all your notes are ahead, there may be something going on in the electronic side. If it's a latency issue, one you finish the recording just drag the whole track to make it line up.

One better - send an output from the soundcard back into one of its inputs and record that. Then align as suggested. This takes human error out of the process.

If you find a timing error, and your DAW has a latency adjustment setting, you can take care of it automagically with that.

 

[Crackle]

You need to tap your foot in double time at all times. Listening to a metronome or click track isn't good enough. You need to feel it in your body.

 

[ThinCrappyTone2]

I Am a rusher. Such a bad rusher that Terence Fletcher would slap me across the face until I passed out.

This is a half vent half plead for salvation thread. I woke up at like 5 AM determined to record a song I've been practicing and wishing to record and upload a video cover but after spending HOURS recording it, fixing the parts I noticed I was rushing at, rendering and listening back to it, it became obvious I just wasted my entire morning. I am way ahead of the drums in arguably the easiest parts of the song. Bummer.

I've tried watching video instruction and practicing with a metronome. But when there's an actual band playing.

I beg you noble folk of talkbass to help a brother out. Any tips, pointers, help is greatly appreciated and needed.

Over the last 30 years or so, I have recorded a LOT of people. One thing I have found is that when a musician is out of time with the music, whether ahead, behind, or all over the place, turning the music up louder and turning the musician themself down in the monitor mix can sometimes help. This is because often they are out of time not because they're uncoordinated, but because they are fixating on themself and forgetting to "listen" to the context they're playing in. Adjusting the mix so they can "just hear themselves enough" can help them focus on the music and play in time better. It can also go horribly awry so there's that. But something to try; less you, more them in the mix. Try to listen to the context and focus less on your own perfection.

Also if you can, try playing without phones. Play along with the monitors if possible. Sometimes it's easier to fit in the pocket hearing it all out in the room.

In any case, good luck!!

 

[KeepItMoving]

Some very solid advice from folks above — know your part well, strive for relaxation, get your body involved and moving, etc.

Another thing that I've found helpful mentally is to just accept that, for those of us who aren't playing on a Nashville Cats/Wrecking Crew/Funk Brothers level, getting a good take can require a bunch of attempts, and we should give ourselves permission to work that way. It can get super frustrating to keep starting over again, but one of the huge advantages of this era of recording is that it's not also super-expensive or super-embarrassing to have to do it in front of engineers, producers, etc.

Also, those "bad" takes can be very informative if you take a minute to listen closely to what's working and what isn't. Over time you should be able to find more and more un-rushed parts, even a few bars, that you can use as an internal reference point. With patience you'll figure out the state of mind you're in during those better sections, and be able to achieve it more easily.

Keep at it, and best of luck!

 

[MuseChaser]

I Am a rusher. Such a bad rusher that Terence Fletcher would slap me across the face until I passed out.

So....you DO know the difference!

This is a half vent half plead for salvation thread. I woke up at like 5 AM determined to record a song I've been practicing and wishing to record and upload a video cover but after spending HOURS recording it, fixing the parts I noticed I was rushing at, rendering and listening back to it, it became obvious I just wasted my entire morning. I am way ahead of the drums in arguably the easiest parts of the song. Bummer.

I've tried watching video instruction and practicing with a metronome. But when there's an actual band playing.

I beg you noble folk of talkbass to help a brother out. Any tips, pointers, help is greatly appreciated and needed.

I think one of the most oft-made mistakes is how folks use metronomes, drum machines, and backing tracks when practicing and developing a good sense of time. With a loud click on every beat, or even worse a drum track with sounds triggered even more frequently (subdivisions within the beat), pretty much anyine past the rank beginner stage can keep time by constantly referencing the constant metronome/drum track. If you want to improve your time, try the following....

1. Keep the metronome (or drum track if you insist) so soft that you can barely hear it. Listen intently. Check if it's still "in the right place" when you rest on a given beat.

2. Drum tracks are fun for developing new grooves and feels and jamming along to, but won't really help you develop your own innate sense of time...they do all the "work."

3. Learn to hear the metronome on every other beat (2 and 4 for jazz and some other styles), i.e., if you're practing a tempo marked quarter note = 88, set the metronome to 44. Once you can do that, hear it JUST on "4" or any other beat you wish (if quarter note = 208, set metronome to 52).

4. After you can do step 3, and if you have a programmable metronome or app, set it to drop out for a measure, then two measures, then four measures every couple bars and see if you're still with it when it comes back in. Once you can do THAT, the you're well on your way to TRULY being responsible for your own sense of time.

 

[mambo4]

because they are fixating on themself and forgetting to "listen" to the context they're playing in.

Yup. Can you play the part without having to focus on what you are playing,
but instead listening to the rest of the music?

If you need to expend frontal lobe / left brain / analytic mental energy
to execute the part, you ain't ready to record imho

when you play the part instinctively as an emotional response to what you hear
and are not distracted by what finger goes where and when, then you're ready

 

[bass12]

This is a more common issue than you might think, and I can suffer from it myself. The first thing is to be aware of your tendency, which you now are - so you're in a better place than you were prior to your revelation. The next thing I would do (as mentioned above) is to start keeping time with your body. Tap your foot, sway your bass neck back and forth (as long as that doesn't interfere with the technical aspect of playing your bass), bop your head - whatever you find works for you. Record yourself while incorporating these various body movements and see how it affects your playing. The other thing is to try and relax. Tell yourself that the time is there and that you don't have to impose it. Again, record yourself in this state and see how your playing has or hasn't changed. The point in a previous post about relative volumes (you vs other instruments) is a good one. I've found that turning up other instruments can help me keep from "running ahead".

 

[salmon256]

If you know you are rushing but cannot correct it I wouldn't think your time feel is off. Are you in general a nervous/anxious person? If so I'd do some breathing and meditation exercises.

I had the exact issues. Pre practice breathing helps a lot. My teacher and I would do that.