recording your songs

OK Phill I guess I can get the ball rolling,songs or ideas for lyrics do not always come when you want them so what I do is to video tape my jams even if its just trying out some changes because sometimes if I dont a really good idea is lost and if its on video I can reproduce the feeling and chord patterns along with any accents that make the song unique. Once I have decided to record this I make a decision as to if I want it acoustic with vocal like my songs "the truth, invisible star,soap on a rope.meshack etc.) or use effects and rhythm machines bass electric guitar and keyboards it depends on how much I feel the songs need and once Im set I usually start with the acoustic guitar for the rhythm I can do this because I have perfect meter(not bragging just fact) I usually lay another acoustic track and play the chords in a different position on the neck to give it variety and a full sound,next comes the bass,electric rhythm guitar and percussion followed by vocals and the last track is a lead solo and intro any strings or keyboard or slide work is inserted here and then I mix each track separately by turning the faders or volume control on all the other tracks to zero and work with just that one track adjusting the eq's adding reverb or delay kinda like salting to taste after all the tracks have been mixed I adjust the pan and bounce them if I need extra tracks to record but if the 8 tracks sound good them I open Audacity and load the song from my BR-8 and any final adjustments for volume or eq's is done with this program also to clean up unwanted noise and to trim it both at the beginning and the end and all this is done with a headset do not rely on your speakers after the final tweeks I convert it to mp3 and upload to wherever I wish

Phill this could really turn out to be a real helpful topic for all members who are interested in recording and making it sound good thanks for dreaming this one up

Pix the easiest way to transfer your recordings is to download the free program Audacity get a y chord with two rca jacks on one end and a 1/8"stereo jack on the other download my tutorials they will show you how to hookup your recorder to your PC and once you have the audacity program they will show you how to get your music into your PC and make mp3's to upload to where ever you want the link is at the bottom of this post I recommend downloading all 4 wmv formated videos and any questions give a holler

Hi all
He’s the recording lowdown on “Tree of a Thousand Stars"  an instrumental I recently put on the song writing forum..
The song has 6 tracks.
Track 1 A stock looped pad at 90BPM which sets the rhythm in this case fairly slow.
Track 2 A keyboard synth melody line played over the pad.
Track 3 A virtual instrument in this case full strings done entirely in the computer using a midi editor
Track 4 this again was a keyboard synth melody line which ran part of the time with the first.
Track 5 this is just a stock looped beat at 90BPM
Track 6 Another virtual instrument an oboe sound this time done the same way as the 3rd track.

Tracks were mixed in the computer in a software apps called Magix Music Maker where FX was applied levels adjusted and everything basically tweaked to suit.
Then I save to the hard drive as an MP3 at 256kbps

The Keyboard is connected to the computer via an interface which is an old four track Tascam.
I use this same interface to record guitar and vocals directly to the computer if needed.
It’s sounds a lot more complicated written down then it really is…..:)
ark

Russ The Tascam is the old cassette type so it connects to the computer using a Y connector as shown in your picture.
All the virtual instruments come with the Magix software and are fairly realistic ..
It will be interesting to see how different people record they songs.
Hope members will take the time to let us in on their methods
ark

hi ark, russ, pix

i'm in the process of recording a song at the moment a song called "all about you" this is what i've done so far:-

i started off recording directly into my computer program via midi lead from my korg K61P keyboard.

i firstly write a drum beat onto 5 bars, then copy and paste to make sure i have at least 5 minutes recording time. drum beat is; bass drum, snare and high hat, on track 10.

track 1.  [all tracks are made with a key board] bass guitar
track 2.  electric piano
track 3.  rock organ.

i then went back into the drum track to add rolls, spaces symbols etc to suit the song.

once that's done, i went to the mixer section to mix down

then down load to my korg D8 onto track 7/8 through my alesis multimix 8USB mixer, via a yamaha MU50 and MU5.

that's as far as i've got so far, next will be the lead vocal, on track 6, then acoustic guitar, on track 1, i think i'll put a slide with distortion on track 2, then a lead guitar on track 3.
after that it's harmonies/backing voices, mix down then transfer to my tascam MD350 mini disc player, [which i store new songs for transfer to CD] down load to MP3 and finally onto the computer and up-load to myspace. not a bit confusing ... is it?

phill

Wasn't sure if I should start a new topic for this or just ask it here! but since it deals with recording your own songs, I thought this the appropriate place for it. When recording, should you turn down your bass and treble settings on on your monitors and on your guitar,and use equalization later when you go to mix! Or does it matter?

Thanks Russell, Yes I'll be useing Audacity.

Welcome to Chordie I visited your website and listened to a few songs and found them quite nice and well recorded its interesting that you lay the drum tracks first I would think just a basic click track to keep meter and after the guitar then add the drums and bass but it seems to work well for you so that's all that matters very nice recordings and dont be a stranger here and thanks for your input

Welcome to chordie Coffeefairy47. Glad to have you here.