how do i play through and not f**k it up?

[yairhol]

Your problem is pretty common.
I'm sure that even some professional musicians have that nervousness.
Read here: http://www.benedictroffmarsh.com/prollrec.html

Many musicians and singers clam up and go all gummy as soon as they know that the big flashing red light goes on. They can run around like idiots in front of 20,000 people and be comfortable but as soon as they know that the engineer has gone into record they cease to be truly emotive. An old trick was that the engineer would be sneaky and record practice runs without the artists knowing (even going so far as to break the knob off the recorder so the red glow couldn't be seen) in the hope of capturing the real soul of a performance.

Read more about this plugin. It may work for you.

Good luck.

[loose snare]

More advice FWIW

Trying to 'avoid making mistakes' when recording means you will be focusing on all the ways you can make mistakes while you are playing. Try instead to just enjoy playing (accurately and well of course)

Don't 'look up' to that perfect take as if it is way up there almost out of reach and every take is like and you are jumping up to try and reach it. Instead think of the recording takes process as more like fly fishing with perfect takes being like fishes in a lake and you are on the bank and every time you hit record it is like casting a line.

Be aware of the 'zone' ... when you are in it and when you are not. If I want to record a bass / guitar or drum track I know most takes will be unacceptable. You have to warm up for a start, same goes for the instrument too. I find as a general rule the first few takes are often inspired yet with mistakes in them. Then the quality goes down and then gradually it rises again and suddenly you are less aware of your surroundings and not even aware of the process of stop/ save/ rewind/ record / play ... your guitar / drums / voice is now staying in tune nicely and feels natural yet you're not tired yet ..... then gradually the takes get a little flat again as you get tired or play more 'formulaically' as your concentration wanes ..... so it's those middle takes that are the keepers BUT if you get despondent/ frustrated before you get to that zone you will never get there. Again it's like fishing keep casting and (Bruce Lee voice>>) "do not search for the perfect take.... instead be ready and aware enough to accept the perfect take that is searching for you ...."

Also (if recording on your own) psychologically sometimes it can be good to keep all takes rather than delete / record / delete every tme just so you have a sense of building on the last and not just 'failing' every time ....

Also apart from the occasional polite 'sorry, nearly got it that time' to the engineer or fellow band mate try to avoid being too apologetic or self depreciating or angry. A common trap for some musicians not used to recording (not saying this is you) is to feel compelled to explain why they are not recording a keeper every time as if they should be .... so they end up saying they don't feel well, have a headache, are hungry, can't hear the click track, bad mix in the headphones etc ... and then they start actually believing it too ..but really they are just uncomfortable with their own pereption that they are 'a shit musician wasting everyone's time' ...but the reality is that is normal. (they might actually be a shit musician though in which case this doesn't apply!)

Also try to visualize things like ... how you want it to feel when you listen to your finished track/ demo/ album etc. You should be capturing a mood as much as (if not more than) a 'flawless take'.

If you are working with an engineer then that can be good or bad depending on how you get along or how good they/ you are at creating a good studio vibe to record in. In a big studio good takes often come out of a real party/ gig/ focused / god-I-love-this-job type of vibe. So if you are working alone don't be afraid to make that same kind of vibe for yourself even if that means someone looking in on you might think you are mental and on drugs.

Also - bonus tip! - when you're in the zone maybe try one really 'exact' take and then one really 'expressive' take and so on .... like a taking series of camera shots at different exposures of whatever - it might be useful to have either to choose one or comp between them.

[Dean Aka Nekro]

Some really sound advice going on here (i think some could even help me!) and put in much better terms than my snooker rest issue

Dig the Bruce type advice @ loose snare

About leaving mistakes on the record > just listen to nigh on everything Neil Young lays down (with and without Crazy Horse), especially the amazing 'Tonight's The Night' album. Hell it would sound shit any other way. Mr Young knows how to let it roll and which mistakes rock

*He is one of my all time un-Nekro like pleasures in life*

Dean

[publicradio]

This was a very helpful thread for me. I still reference it from time to time.

I thought I would bump it to try to use as a home recording 'cheat sheet'. The loop recording is a great idea, and now that I'm using Reaper, I will have to see if this DAW has loop recording capabilities.

Another trick I thought of for MIDI is to play keys with the tempo either very slow or very fast, and then set it back to the correct tempo. I wonder if anyone has any luck with this method.

The way I've been recording is to have the framework of my song at the front of the project, and then somewhere down the timeline I have a bunch of different takes and scraps, so that I have 12 minutes of timeline for 3 minutes of song. Then when I'm ready to introduce something into the song, I move it up to the front of the timeline. Reaper seems to have a pretty robust take system, though, so there may be a better way to do this.

Another thing I've been doing, with drum programming, is to play my rhythms, isolate the best section of the take, and loop it with an irregular number of beats (like 5, or 7). I'll record the kick and snare like this, then I'll record the hats in another take, and loop them asymmetrically. Let's say the hats keep a steady 4 beats, but I'll loop it for 5 bars, and the kick/snare will loop for 3 bars, and so even though the slight position and velocity variations show up in the same place over and over, the two loops overlap in a random, syncopated way, so it doesn't sound like you're listening to loops at all.

Anyway, My recording consists mainly of acoustic hand percussion, electric bass and guitar, and MIDI everything else. If anyone knows any good hacks to tease a steady rhythm section out of a bad take, or make yourself sound like a better guitarist than you actually are, I'd like to hear those hacks. thanks!

[Syncretia]

I've been playing instruments for 17 years and I can't play for shit. That's why I took up electronic music. I originally had the same problems. But, you're stressing too much and forgetting that this is what computers were built to overcome! If you follow these tips, you'll have no problems, and I guarantee that in time you will gain confidence and your playing will improve.

4 simple tips:

-In your DAW allow the recording loop to record for a very long time (a couple of minutes). Keep playing the same loop over and over until you feel like you have it pretty close. Then just chop out the one part that sounds good.

-Use your DAW's time stretching tools to snap the notes in to place. Ableton is the easiest I know of. With warping you can move the transients right on the beat. Logic also has Flextime. It will sound dead perfect in time.

PS: Some people are scared of this functionality. These people are fools. Even the best of bands will use this functionality when they want to get that extra "tight" sound on a recording. If you are scared of losing the feel, you can add swing (groove/shuffle) later.

-Use some subtle compression to smooth out volume swings

-If you have trouble with long parts, break the parts up in to smaller chunks and follow my first tip again and again until it sounds right to you. In Ableton, you can simply put two clips next to eachother and then consolidate them to make one clip.

[publicradio]

Using time stretch on MIDI events is a good idea. I never thought to do that. I always use quantize.

Realistically, though, when I play out of rhythm, I rarely have a few randomly offbeat notes to correct. Usually O playing speeds up in places, which means the notes are still correct, relative to each other. This is why, when I go in and try to nudge notes into the right places, the notes next to them then sound weird. I think this warping method is a great solution and I can't wait to try it out.

[Arglebargle]

oh man I get this all the time. I'm not very good at the guitar, but I'm a lot better when I'm not recording. The second I hit record it's like my coordination gets cut in half.

[z.electric]

Have you got anyone else there to help?

What you can do is just play in front of a mic, and have someone else there to "press" the record button. But make sure they keep it a secret when they are, or are not pressing record.


All you need to do, is just relax and play, play as much or as little as you like, and completely forget the fact that you're "recording", because you aren't.

[Syncretia]

Realistically, though, when I play out of rhythm, I rarely have a few randomly offbeat notes to correct. Usually O playing speeds up in places, which means the notes are still correct, relative to each other.

ALWAYS TURN THE METRONOME ON

TAP YOUR FEET TO THE METRONOME

[Xenobt]

One technique that I've learned to take the pressure off is just comp any track that has live performances. It's been mentioned here, but here's how I do it:

Have the singer or player (even if it's you) do two or three passes OF THE WHOLE SONG, take a ten minute break (or not if they're rarin' to go), then two or three more. Later, you can micro-construct to your hearts content from all the takes, building something really exciting and hyper-real.

The track actually builds in intensity as it should from a complete live performance (because it is one!), and fatigue by the end of the tune is MUCH reduced. In my experience it's really rare that something cool isn't on ONE of those takes. But if not, a few passes on that section fixes things right up.

In the pre-DAW days, it wasn't uncommon to spend 4 or 5 hours on a lead vocal, punching in notes endlessly and basically choking any life out of it. "Okay, we're finished with verse one, two more and a bridge to go!" and watch the tears roll down their faces. SO glad that's gone!

And as a semi-passable guitarist, I just put up a tuner and the click and play my parts, with no backing tracks. Same story, five or six passes, then edit. I find that my parts sit right solo'ed OR in the mix, and the details are much cleaner than when I'm trying to hear them with the rest of the instruments in.

Just tune often, and remember that your second choices also make great doubles!

KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt

[publicradio]

Wow, that was excellent advice. Thank you.

[Xenobt]

Glad to contribute, publicradio, it is pledge week!

Seriously, this technique has changed the way I work. One hour tracking, one or two comping and the track is bullet-proof and ready to mix. Plus players and singers (or you!) don't dread tracking as much, and budgets stay low. Mostly.

And I often use something like TL Metro that lets you set different time divisions and instruments for the click and accents, because after an incredibly short time, that MPC "pop" click thru the phones gives SUCH a headache to everyone but drummers!

KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt

[publicradio]

Yeah, I use really simple beats as metronomes, using samples from old Wurlitzer and Farfisa type organs. So I'll load 'disco beat' and it's like the disco beat on one of those old machines. I find this is a good 'implied' rhythm track to get started.

The idea of playing something all the way through is a good idea, because then you start to actually have a record. In the past I've tried to start with a loop and work out and I just get trapped in the loop. Now I try to fill out at least 3 minutes of something as early on as possible.

Do you also write from the DAW? Do you do all the guitar parts and then figure out the rest? Until recently, I usually started with a hook I had in mind, and then fleshed that out -- but now I just have lots of project files with hooks in them, and nothing else.

[Xenobt]

A person after my own heart! I loooove those wheezy, cheesy organ drum sounds! I had a Whippany Rhythm Master that I STILL miss! If you don't know about this already, check it out:

http://samples.kb6.de/downloads.php

I contributed some percussion samples from a 60's Maestro G2 Rhythm n' Sound for guitar, you can get em free!

I usually write on guitar and try to bang out as much of the song as I can when I get that hook inspiration, even if it's just a verse or bridge melody sung into my phone. Crude but effective!

Then I do midi piano to the click first, (often slowed down, as was mentioned here earlier) followed by midi drums, hat and cymbals (separate passes/tracks) and midi bass. I only quantize at 97% or 98% to keep a little vibe in it, and go from start to finish, avoiding over-editing velocities.

I worked with Amy Winehouse producer Salaam Remi, and he played through whole songs, NEVER edited velocities, and credits it as part of the "live" sound of his beats. I took note!

THEN I do guitars, (after arrangement and tempo are locked), then sweetening like strings, pads and percussion, though by the time I get guitar, piano, bass and drums down, I need a LOT less than when I do that stuff first!

Something else he told me is that just ONE live, actually played track can make a whole song, even if it's just a shaker. I try to remember that when I want to sequence my guitars too!

KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt