Band Recording (Craig Not Writing)
After getting my MacBook Pro a couple months ago, the band started laying down audio tracks in my basement. I have been spending a lot of time figuring out what kinds of mistakes I have made in our initial round of recording so that we can get a polished product together. As a result, I haven’t really written anything lately on this website. I know that is bad, but there it is.
It has been a lot of fun, but at the same time, it is unnerving. I am pushing forward because, quite frankly, I have never been afraid to try something and fail, but I am really nervous that I am wasting my time and that we should just go into the studio to get an expert to put the sounds together.
And this should be interesting. Let me just tell you the things that I have been thinking about.
We all listen to music, but how loud should the drums be? Drums are an integral part of any recording, but they are a bit more of the focus in certain bands like Tool, Dave Matthews Band and others. The drums aren’t the focus of our band. After I answer the volume question, should I pan different sections of the drums to different sides?
How loud should the guitars be? Should I put Todd’s guitar on the one side and mine on the other? Should they work together on the same side? If I pan one guitar to the side, and the other guitar to the other side, where do I put the bass guitar?
Should I leave the lead vocals centered? How much delay and/or reverb should I put on the vox? How about backing vox? how high should they go, and how many effects should I put on those?
These are the questions that I have been asking myself, and what I am running into is that their are so many different ways to do things that I need to just come to a conclusion sooner rather than later, because I can’t afford the time it would take to experiment with every variable.
Maybe I will post some samples to let you hear what I am hearing.
