what to record?

cerebis

hi all,

I'm in a indie rock band. We currently have about 7 original songs that we rehease with more on the way. We are looking to get gigs in pubs and stuff.

So I guess we'll have to record some songs so they can hear what our style is etc.

How many songs is the standard for a CD like this ?

and also how much would it be to record a CD like this ?

thanks in advance,

Cerebis.

PMI

most places wont really bother opening a draw on the cd player.... one click of a mouse is easier to your website or myspace....

cerebis

Thanks for that....do you know how many songs would be enough to put up / do you know how much it would be record say 3 songs?

DamagedTrax

most labels are looking for the complete package these days so a demo of 5-7 of your best tracks would be pretty normal. recording costs vary depending on how prepared you are and how good musicians you are (ie. getting everything in 3/4 takes will cost a lot less than stumbling thru a single drum track for a day!) but for a high quality demo you could probably negotiate a one off price with the engineer/studio.

if it was me recording i'd probably say (for a 5 track demo) app 600 for recording (based on 3 days) and then another 500/600 on mixing. again this is dependant on ability, size of sessions etc.

you could go the cheaper route or more expensive but if you plan to send to labels the cheaper route wont get you noticed (unless you're the stone roses!!) and the more expensive route (pro-studio) is just overkill.

eddie.fandango

Trax, I think the OP is looking to get gigging, rather than looking for a record deal.

I agree with the comment above, record a few songs and put them on your MySpace. As for the recording process, I've heard tracks recorded by bands in a record studio, costing hundreds of euros ...and they sound like garbage. Getting a good sound in a studio takes time, which you won't have giving financial limitations.

As an alternative, how about recording yourselves? I use a Line 6 TonePort to plug straight into the PC, and you can get a very nice sound for next to nothing. If you even just recorded guitar parts yourselves, you could track the drums and vocals in a studio, and you would save a lot of cash.

At this stage, you're not looking for a broadcast quality sound, but using the method above, you could record a few songs that you can shop around to promoters and get some gigs. Best of luck.

DamagedTrax

eddie.fandango wrote: »

Trax, I think the OP is looking to get gigging, rather than looking for a record deal.

ooopps *note to self, must read post properly before mouthing off opinions

DamagedTrax

eddie.fandango wrote: »

I've heard tracks recorded by bands in a record studio, costing hundreds of euros ...and they sound like garbage. Getting a good sound in a studio takes time, which you won't have giving financial limitations.

have to disagree with you there. getting a good sound in a studio takes a good engineer. even on bigger budgets time is usually tight.

cerebis

eddie.fandango wrote: »

Trax, I think the OP is looking to get gigging, rather than looking for a record deal.

I agree with the comment above, record a few songs and put them on your MySpace. As for the recording process, I've heard tracks recorded by bands in a record studio, costing hundreds of euros ...and they sound like garbage. Getting a good sound in a studio takes time, which you won't have giving financial limitations.

As an alternative, how about recording yourselves? I use a Line 6 TonePort to plug straight into the PC, and you can get a very nice sound for next to nothing. If you even just recorded guitar parts yourselves, you could track the drums and vocals in a studio, and you would save a lot of cash.

At this stage, you're not looking for a broadcast quality sound, but using the method above, you could record a few songs that you can shop around to promoters and get some gigs. Best of luck.

thanks very much for that.... I have a line 6 toneport myself and I use it to record ideas so that i can share with the band... i use software called mixcraft 4. if i was to record the vox, rhythm guitar, lead guitar and bass - would i have to use different software so that the drums can be recorded in a studio?

also what order should they be recorded in - rhythm guitar, bass, lead guitar, vox, drums?

thanks for your comments so far!

eddie.fandango

DamagedTrax wrote: »

have to disagree with you there. getting a good sound in a studio takes a good engineer. even on bigger budgets time is usually tight.

You're right there. But once again, time = money & good engineer = money, so either way it's going to be a pricey avenue to go down. I've read a few of your posts, you seem to know what you're talking about. Do you have any comments on the DIY method?

cerebis wrote: »

thanks very much for that.... I have a line 6 toneport myself and I use it to record ideas so that i can share with the band... i use software called mixcraft 4. if i was to record the vox, rhythm guitar, lead guitar and bass - would i have to use different software so that the drums can be recorded in a studio?

also what order should they be recorded in - rhythm guitar, bass, lead guitar, vox, drums?

thanks for your comments so far!

If you recorded it in a studio to a DAW ( e.g. Pro Tools ), you could of course take those sound files and use them in your own software. Perhaps a good option for you would be to record all of your tracks, and then give them to some one with some knowledge of mixing and mastering. I'm sure even some of the good people on this forum would be willing to do it for next to nothing, or even free.

As for what order to record in: personally, I like to record "scratch tracks" for each instrument; this is one rough take start to finish, and will give you a frame to work from. Then you can go back, and replace parts of the scratch track with the "proper" recording, like carving a statue out of a rough piece of marble This process is called "comping".

As for the drums, have you consider maybe using a sampler? I'm sure the audiophiles will tear my face off here, but using a program like FL Studio with real drum samples, and a little bit of magic dust, can get great results and sound almost like the real thing.

Once again, I'm thinking of this in terms of affordability, as any money you have should go towards getting great live equipment, rather than on a studio. Even if you don't get the best sounding demo in the world, it's a great learning process and you will have a lot of fun. Just learn to play to a click!!

p.s. Look up a DAW called "Reaper", it's got a fully-functional free version and works very well.

DamagedTrax

eddie.fandango wrote: »

You're right there. But once again, time = money & good engineer = money, so either way it's going to be a pricey avenue to go down. I've read a few of your posts, you seem to know what you're talking about. Do you have any comments on the DIY method?

im a huge advocate of the DIY method but there is a limit to what you can do. you do need a good understanding of the process to get a decent recording but it definitly can be done and a good mix engineer can definitly make something of it. it will never be pro-quality but if you go down the inexpensive DIY route path, then pro-quality probably wasnt your aim anyway.

cerebis

Thanks lads....i'll see about reaper!.

what order should i record the tracks in ?

eddie.fandango

eddie.fandango wrote: »

As for what order to record in: personally, I like to record "scratch tracks" for each instrument; this is one rough take start to finish, and will give you a frame to work from. Then you can go back, and replace parts of the scratch track with the "proper" recording, like carving a statue out of a rough piece of marble This process is called "comping".

If possible, record the drums and bass first; having a solid rhythm section should be the main priority starting off. Then record the guitars; if you have guitar solos you can leave them until later, as the vocal melodies might give you some inspiration. Then lay down the vocals. That should work pretty well.

cerebis

we actually got back to this about 2 weeks ago and recorded a few songs in our rehearsal place with the Toneport ux-8 and Reaper..

we mic'd up the drums with 5 mics and sent them into the line inputs on the ux-8

we then set up as a normal rehearsal and plugged in our amps etc... we took a line out from the two guitar amps and the bass amp and plugged them in to the ux-8 also..

did the vocals after words on another couple of tracks... there's alot of mistakes etc.. we hope to Iron out (if we can)...


let us know what you think ? wonder if they would be in a good enough state to give to someone to mix?

http://soundcloud.com/the-boondalk-saints/tracks

cerebis

any opinon's ? Greatly appreciated!

Good or bad

Dravokivich

The drums are recorded alright, but they seem to be played a bit sloppy in places...

Recording of the guitars is very thin and all I'm really hearing from the bass is high end.

Overall, it's alright for a demo, because you are showing off the style of music with a rough idea of the sound you are going for.

No offence intended... Just to make sure ye are reaching out properly, but... What exactly is your target audience? If i was in a pub having a few drinks and out with some mates, if a band was playing, I'd want them to be raising up the athmosphere. Encouraging the buzz so to say.

Your music doesn't really fit in with that... well... to me anyway...

also...just 1 point about the "demo..." Make sure you have a song that starts off fast as the first track on it. All the one's ye have recorded start off really slowly. Most PR people only listen to the start of a track if it doesn't interest them, they don't want to be waiting for the song.

cerebis

Dravokivich wrote: »

The drums are recorded alright, but they seem to be played a bit sloppy in places...

Recording of the guitars is very thin and all I'm really hearing from the bass is high end.

Overall, it's alright for a demo, because you are showing off the style of music with a rough idea of the sound you are going for.

No offence intended... Just to make sure ye are reaching out properly, but... What exactly is your target audience? If i was in a pub having a few drinks and out with some mates, if a band was playing, I'd want them to be raising up the athmosphere. Encouraging the buzz so to say.

Your music doesn't really fit in with that... well... to me anyway...

also...just 1 point about the "demo..." Make sure you have a song that starts off fast as the first track on it. All the one's ye have recorded start off really slowly. Most PR people only listen to the start of a track if it doesn't interest them, they don't want to be waiting for the song.

Thanks for that mate... maybe i have the guitars too low in the mix.. havent a clue what I'm at when i'm mixing it...just trying to get the instrument levels right i suppose!

I suppose we haven't really got a target audience in mind... We wrote a few tunes and hope that people like them...

I agree about the songs being slow at the start.... maybe we could put clips of the songs up and have them fading into the fast bits....

MilanPan!c

cerebis wrote: »

any opinon's ? Greatly appreciated!

Good or bad

It's def ok for a demo. I would REALLY suggest though, trying to spice it up with even a bit of production, like background vocals at the very least.

Even if it's just the singer again.

I would also say that the lack of production makes a lot of the songs sound quite similar. Not necessarily a bad thing, but a true thing in this case.

Technically, I believe the bass drum mic was peaking on at least a couple of songs and that should be fixed, even if that means re-doing the drums in the those places where it does distort.

My favourite song is the strokes-y Get So old.

I would agree that the playing is pretty sloppy in a lot of places, but I don't mind that, as long as you know it and are cool with it.

The most important thing to me is fixing those kick drum spikes... they really ruin the song when they happen.

Fix those, add a tiny bit more production and it's a decent enough demo.

Hope that helps!

cerebis

MilanPan!c wrote: »

It's def ok for a demo. I would REALLY suggest though, trying to spice it up with even a bit of production, like background vocals at the very least.

Even if it's just the singer again.

I would also say that the lack of production makes a lot of the songs sound quite similar. Not necessarily a bad thing, but a true thing in this case.

Technically, I believe the bass drum mic was peaking on at least a couple of songs and that should be fixed, even if that means re-doing the drums in the those places where it does distort.

My favourite song is the strokes-y Get So old.

I would agree that the playing is pretty sloppy in a lot of places, but I don't mind that, as long as you know it and are cool with it.

The most important thing to me is fixing those kick drum spikes... they really ruin the song when they happen.

Fix those, add a tiny bit more production and it's a decent enough demo.

Hope that helps!

cheers milan, that helps alot... yeah i think you are spot on regarding the production....we recorded everything except the vocals live. We did the lead guitar again in some places... think we do need to spice it up.. background vocals are something we will def look at... would love to get it mixed a little but we are broke as broke can be right now..

i think you are right about the spikes.... it's weird..when i listen to it on the rendered mp3 from reaper, the spike is not really pronounced but when i upload it to soundcloud i can hear it....

we did 3 takes of the songs live and picked the best one to put the vocals onto.... i wonder could i use the some of the drums from another take on the songs... prob picked the wrong one by mistake..

again... thanks for the feedback!

madtheory

Ye should listen to these recordings and see where ye can tighten up your performance. Drums and rhythm guitar are tight, the rest of ye need to get into that groove more.

It's quite a decent recording. The balance is fairly good. However, the rhythm guitar has intonation issues, although the playing is nicely energetic. Lead guitar has intonation problems too. Drumming is quite tasty actually, sound could be livelier, you'd get that by positioning room and overhead mics carefully.

You've clipped the input loads of times in all instruments, particularly drums. There's nasty clipping on all of the fills, and on the vocal. With a 24 converter you can set the record level very low, -18dBFS is the standard, which on a lot of meters is only 30%.

cerebis

Thanks Mad Theory... yeah it's a good gauge of where we are performance wise.. we all need to tighten up and I think we can !

we found we had to higher up the mic levels on the Toneport ux-8 or it was too low...We will have to keep an eye on these levels in future and maybe practise getting them right before starting to record.

i think the first one we recorded was "get so old"..we thought it sounded too low so we highered up the instruments a bit.

must check and fix the intonation the guitars asap!

thanks again!

cerebis

MilanPan!c wrote: »

Technically, I believe the bass drum mic was peaking on at least a couple of songs and that should be fixed, even if that means re-doing the drums in the those places where it does distort.

The most important thing to me is fixing those kick drum spikes... they really ruin the song when they happen.

Fix those, add a tiny bit more production and it's a decent enough demo.

Hope that helps!

cheers again on this...got a plugin and fixed (a little) the mic spikes (i think) on the 'Tonight' song... hopefully it will work for the others affected

added an amp from pod farm 2 for the solo also and added something to the vocals... need to add a bit more.... hopefully it's a better sound than the last listen..