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Split your signal into two channels and get both!
I'm getting the error:
Yep, it works now, and wow, that's a lot more complex (and way more thrash) than anything I've written recently. It's got good thrash bones in there!
Thanks for the tips, and the unintended compliment! I did stitch it together in the end. As I finished up the guitar part (having already given up once and then successfully recording the bass first...) I realized I missed a bar in the bass part after the big lull at the end. I had of course, also messed up that part of the guitar as well, so I knew I had to re-record it, but up until that part it was definitely my best take. So I did exactly what you said and stitched the takes together - both for guitar and bass! I'm glad you didn't notice, as for me it was a glaringly obvious thing. That lull I mentioned has a bit of a "pulse" before the last big part - it was totally silent for a bit and not ringing out like intended. So I cut some of the silence for both tracks, and copied/pasted the end of the ringing out for both to avoid complete silence. I think it worked well enough. I also did use a click track - I just deleted it before I exported the audio! No way I could keep that good of a tempo without one, for sure.Yep, it works now, and wow, that's a lot more complex (and way more thrash) than anything I've written recently. It's got good thrash bones in there!
I understand the feeling that you can't play the guitar parts you write in your head. I still screw up things I write (at one point I went to totally the wrong chord on the recording above and just left it), and I used to be the lead guitarist in one of my bands. Just remember, there's no shame in stitching together multiple takes as long as you're not planning on playing it live yourself. You just gotta not be too lazy to fix it, like I was.
My only advice towards getting it tighter and playing the riffs in your head would be to use a click track, or even better, a drum machine. I was always kinda rhythmically stunted myself, and I'm a terrible drummer. Heck, I still basically internally count everything but 3/4 in 4/4 time and just feel it out. Programming things on a drum machine made what was going on measure by measure clearer to me, and I kinda sorta figured out how my drummer uses cues, ghost hits and cymbals to tell everyone the change is coming. I used Hydrogen for ages. I'd just load up The Black Pearl kit and go. It's totally free, and available on Windows, Mac and Linux. If I didn't get interested in using a hardware drum machine for other reasons, I'd probably still be using it all the time.
Hydrogen is free and pretty decent workflow but I'd encourage you consider switching to Reaper > Audacity and consider something like Toontrack EZDrummer over Hydrogen. Reaper has very simple MIDI-mapping capabilities to program drums and the nice thing about EZDrummer is you can buy MIDI packs of real drummers playing the kits and use that for inspiration. There's a lot of Sales for EZDrummer & the MIDI packs so I usually buy a few MIDI packs whenever they go on sale, its fun to have lines from drummers you like to play along with.
It was more of a distribution thing, plus there was an attitude of many local US mom’n’pop music stores of “we already have Fender, etc, why do we need to carry these?”. But the thing is, as I mentioned, they had EL34 power tubes, and a design closer to Marshall, but could be had for less money. The designer, Pete Traynor, would throw them off the roof of his building, as a promo publicity stunt of course, but they’d keep working. The weak point(back in the 70’s)were the speaker enclosures, not very deep, and the Marsland brand drivers used were pretty substandard.
Both may be better than what I'm currently using, but at the same time, most of what I'm currently using is ancient technology as far as audio technology goes. I'd have to upgrade a LOT of stuff. My DI/Cabsim is ~30 years old! It would cost far more than just buying Reaper for me to really upgrade much, I would think. And I don't often have the time like I do right now to actually record stuff, so that monetary investment has even fewer returns. But if I ever DO get big into recording stuff, I have heard good things about Reaper. And regarding the drums - I know absolutely nothing about MIDI. Even hearing "MIDI-mapping", which sounds like it must be fairly basic, is a completely foreign concept. For now, I'm gonna stick with my current setup.
Hehehe, I never noticed.
I use Ardour as my DAW (Licenses available for as little as $1 a month. It's free on Linux with a nag screen when you export, not sure about other platforms), so I can't really comment on Audacity. It seems that Audacity has limited MIDI support natively, if any. I normally use JackD (Linux program) to connect MIDI ins/outs between Ardrour and Hydrogen. Sadly, I would be of no use figuring out how to do that on other platforms, but it seems it'd be possible since Ardour does support MIDI.
You have to haul your bandmates as well? I was always astonished at my old Kia Rio5 Hatchback. I was able to fit both a bass and guitar halfstack and the two fully packed pedalboards in that thing, as well as my buddy. We got half of the band in a tiny car. Miss that car sometimes.
I don’t HAVE to haul the bandmates but everyone and everything piling in one vehicle for out of town gigs sure would be convenient.
If I felt like I needed to base my daily transportation around hauling around my gear, I think I'd also feel like I made it! Right now, I could probably fit two guitar and bass rigs in my current car, as well as another passenger, but that's it. We'd probably have to have a second similarly sized vehicle for the drums. Anyway, if it was me (and it isn't!), I'd hope my band mates would help by supporting the band in other ways if I'm buying a specific car with the band as a main reason. Of course, I've never had to worry about such problems! Good luck with the new van, and enjoy the ride - both literally and figuratively! I wish I had those concerns!
A minivan can be very useful in a variety of ways. If I didn't have a pickup to haul stuff, I'd have a hard ponder on a minivan. I'm all about convenience at my age.
I 100% agree on its utility. I just don't need either at the moment, thankfully! My parents have had a minivan since they first came out in the 80's (I think?) and my dad loved (and still loves) the fact that it was designed to hold an entire sheet of plywood in the trunk. It certainly comes in handy! Especially since I was one of four children and we needed all that space on road trips.
Thanks! It's one of those where the riff just came to me organically and kept spilling out of me. Seemed like it was written in a few minutes - I just had to practice some of my guitar chord-ing. One of the parts isn't as clear on guitar as I'd like on the recording, but really shines "live". Wish that type of inspiration and songwriting happened more often!
