Recording

[fenderbender]

 
Alex /groundy bumped an old instro of mine from way back
Thank you Alex
It made me cringe listening to it again -I'd forgotten all about it.
More bum notes than anything
but the thought just struck me-
The days of just recording and no fancy stuff no trying to show off -
The pleasure of putting a song together -be it a cover or original

If you all know what I mean-
I think I have lost the rawness and the sheer pleasure of putting a song together and recording it and saying
yes !!!!!!!!
That's why every now and then I bring in the girls -The Octavias  -just to keep the rawness and fun in what I do-In other words just to act the maggot/for fun -so I can snigger and hope it will make someone else snigger as well-
cos maybe we all take our selves too seriously at times.

Just a thought guys/gals

[Oldrottenhead]

it's world naked gardening day.................................you know you want to 

[fenderbender]

 

[Groundy]

it's world naked gardening day.................................you know you want to 

But be careful with the rake...... .

[fenderbender]

Och !!!!!!

[Speed Demon]

It's National Butcher's Day.

Don't let your meatloaf.

[bruno]

I do know what you mean, I think you need a balance between the excitement of a new track, and the time spent on it. after a while you get bored of the song, and start wondering if it is any good. Whereas I produced some 'masterpieces' that in the moment sound fantastic to me, and then I listen next day and they sound like an incoherent jumbled up mess, and quite horrible. Its easy to get carried away. I preferred working faster than slower, but sometimes feel like I should spend a lot more time on my tracks, particularly when I listen to some of the more considered and well thought out productions produced on this site.
B

[Farrell Jackson]

I understand fully what you are saying here Tommy about just recording because it's fun and keeping the fun in it by not going over board with perfection. Some favorite songs of my own are the ones that I recorded early on and didn't spend a lot of time on them. I cringe when I hear the basic drum loops and mistakes but they also bring some good memories with them. Now I labor on a song to get it just right and it might get done and it might not. I agree, we need to keep the fun in it.

Farrell

[AndyR]

I get what you're saying... not the naked gardening bit - no problem with the naked, but what's this gardening of which you speak?

But, yeah, on the recording thing... I hear what you're saying, and I have done some "quicker" ones, but although it's fun, I'm never that satisfied with the results... so I don't usually post them!!

The thing is, for me, I have LOADS of songs. I write songs on paper, very rarely write them on the recording machine. And I don't try to record a song unless I think it's pretty good.

What I'm wondering is whether they "joy of recording" that some folks get when doing it fast is actually what I'd regard as the "joy of writing"?

When I'm recording, I'm trying to best capture/arrange a song I'm already in love with. I want others to love it too, so I have to do the utmost to show it in as good a light as I can manage. The excitement of creativity, the songwriting, was over pretty quickly. The "getting it out there" so that other folks can hear what I meant is what the recording process is all about for me. It's the work I have to go through to get the feedback I want on the initial song. If I had drummers and keyboard players and a bassist (all prepared to do what I told them), then it would go a LOT faster.. Most of my time is spent in faking the other parts and doing my best to make it sound like some folks who sat down and played it together. But I don't usually attempt that unless I have a song in the first place (when I was in bands, we never wrote together much - it was always me, or possibly someone else, going "hey I've got a new song" ... and I already knew how I wanted them to play it, it was all in my head and guitar part...)

I've got a "for example" of what I go through. The next song I'll post (about a week away at least) is from 1983(! - it's for the 50th birthday of the girl I wrote it for). The band I was in back then played it a few times, but half the band didn't think much of it.

I started a rough demo a few weeks ago. Me and Mrs R went "wow!". I always thought it was pretty good, and couldn't figure out why the band hadn't liked it. And there it was, "wow!". SO I started working up some rough guitars and looking for a bass/drum arrangement. And then I hit what the band hadn't liked - it just had no oomph or whatever.

I'd been trying to get rid of the four-on-the-floor white-boy-rock, but it was useless. I was quite depressed about it, but Mrs R still liked it, she couldn't hear the problem until I pointed out it was a bit "ploddy" (the new-wave hippies in the band had called it "rancid" - a term they also used for a couple of covers me and the drummer wanted to do, eg, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"). But Mrs R said "it still has a good tune".

So I hammered away at it. And then a week ago I realised I was playing it just a little too slow (cos it's better to sing like that). I scrapped the first version and started again 3 bpm faster. Suddenly it came alive (but I've yet to do the lead vocal - the guide is ok, but not relaxed enough).

I replaced all the new guide guitars the other day. Finished mixing the new ones this morning. Managed to get the piano done, and then gave up for the day on the organ.

I have the organ to do, the bass to get right, and a few tweaks to the drum program. Then there's the lead vocal and some harmonies (they were improvised on the slower version - almost perfect, but I've got to get them "off the cuff" like that on the faster version).

The state it's in at the moment is OH... WOW... But it's still not good enough - it's not as good as I know I can get to if I just give it some more time and effort. At the moment I don't actually know how to do that though... so I've got a few days of fiddling away at it for the organ part. I'll know it when I hear it... it's there waiting for me, I've just got to find it. I could post it like this, but it's not the recording I want everyone to hear. When I compare this one with the finished version, it'll be obvious... some people might actually prefer the one we have now - but that's ok, they're not doing it, I am, and they're not going to hear the current version.

Now, am I fed up or bored with the song? Er... no. I'm fed up with not being able to get it finished as fast as I want, but the song, I can listen to it over and over again. It always feels like that to me on something I complete. When I get fed up with a song, I stop working on it and "file" it.

What I'm doing now is arranging and recording, it's taking a while, but it's what I do and I'm having a ball.

The joy of creating the thing, the song, is LONG gone. That was back in 1983

(Having said all that - I'm very envious of, say, someone like Greeny... I know he often/usually does the same as me: writes away from the machine, and doesn't start recording until he hopes it's worth recording... But he manages to get the thing done in a couple of days!!! I always start a recording intending to do that too... but... er )


The main thing is to not get too hung up on it... (I can hear people getting fed up with their fast method same as I do my slow one!!). The way I look at it is if I'm not enjoying it, then stop and do something else. It's not like I'm having to do it to make a living like the poor b@stards I look up to!

[fenderbender]

Some good points there Andy -
Maybe the "newness" is gone but the pleasure from the finished recording is still there-
Thank you for taking the time to put your feelings out .
Keep writing and rocking.

Tommy