UPDATE: This year I am NOT making an album

ALR

At the start of this year I set myself a challenge: Write and record a completely new set of songs and have them finished and ready for public consumption on 1st January 2025.

I've been playing guitar since 1997 and I'm now in my mid forties. I've been collecting gear and building a nice if modest home studio the whole time, and aside from maybe a dozen finished tunes, have very little to show for the last ten years. I've begun to chastise myself for spending so much time and money to achieve so little, and I've decided that for myself I need to 'put up or shut up'. I've told about fifteen of my close friends and colleagues I'm doing this and will have something for them to listen to in new year, and I'm also going to share it on here. I'm a frequent if hitherto largely silent visitor to tFB, have been for about 8 years so I know what I'm getting into with you lot!

Hopefully my experiences will be interesting to anyone in the same situation.

I began work in January, and have written five songs so far, a batch of three which I'm actively working on, another one which I've earmarked as a slightly more complicated tune which I will keep working on throughout the project, and another one which I will not pursue. I aim to have the first batch of three demoed by 29th March before moving on to whatever comes next.

I've got a vision for the album: 10-12 songs, and no more than 40 minutes long - just like they were in the classic album era. I'm deliberately keeping the arrangement simple and to as much as possible make it sound like an actual real live band: 2 guitars (which are both different), bass and drums - plus lead and backing vocals of course. I will not use any more than 8 tracks in my DAW.

I plan to have all my songs written by mid summer and in some kind of demo form, then spend the next few months after that tracking everything properly, before doing the final mixes and mastering in time for Christmas.

Gear:
Guitars - 2014 Johnny Marr Jaguar, and 1997 Squier YN Strat (all hardware changed and creamery pickups used to replicate a '62 Stratocaster). Gretsch 5440 Bass.

Amps - Fender Custom '68 Deluxe Reverb into UA OX, Sansamp Bass RBI

Pedals - After selling off a load of pedals last year, I'm left with just a D&M Drive and a Boss DM-2w although I don't know if I'll actually use them, maybe just doing everything with the amp and the controls on the guitar.

Drums - my only concession to technology, I will have to use Steven Slate Drums. I can't play drums and I don't want to learn! I have a Nektar Keyboard controller to enter the notes. I make as much effort as I can to make them sound reasonably human.

DAW - Reason 11 (I think that's the latest version?) I've used this for years because it looks the most like a traditional mixing desk.

Other hardware: Mics are Rode NT-1A going into a TL Audio Fat Track pre-amp. Also have a TL Audio C1 and TL Audio EQ-1 (I like valve gear!)

I'm not by any means a good vocalist and prefer others to do the singing, but for this project I want to do everything myself - so I only have myself to blame if it isn't done! Style wise, the songs will just be whatever I can do with the gear above.

I have quite a busy life, juggling a career that involves much travelling plus family commitments and this has usually been my excuse for not doing anything before - however an excuse is exactly what it is!

I wanted to wait until the project was actually underway before posting here. It's definitely underway, and I'll periodically update here with my progress. I'd really like to hear the experiences of any other home recordists on here too.

ALR

Whistler

That is a great plan; all the best with it.

TTony

Put this thread on my watchlist - hope to see lots of updates and the album at year-end!

flying_pie

Sounds like an excellent plan and wishing you the very best of luck with it. We'll look forward to hearing the fruits of your labour.

I'm not sure about restricting to 8 tracks though. Bear in mind lots of classic albums will double tracked guitar and vocals because it gives width, thickness and clarity - so that's 6 tracks alone just for main vocal and 2 guitars. I think it's a great idea not to overcomplicate it but I wouldn't be too dogmatic about an 8 track maximum 

Snap

nice, look forward to hearing about it!

TTony

flying_pie said:

I think it's a great idea not to overcomplicate it but I wouldn't be too dogmatic about an 8 track maximum 

Likewise.

I used to put all my drums onto a single track - so kick, snare, toms, cymbals, the whole lot - which obviously means that any FX applied, applies to all equally.  

Then I read a tip here (in the making music / compositions challenge thread, IIRC) to at least put the kick, snare, cymbals, and the rest on separate tracks.  That allows you to both manage the EQ, reverb (etc) for each individually, *and* pan them slightly differently off centre.  Makes a huge difference to the sound of the final mix.

For much the same reason, I'll often have 4, 5 or 6 separate guitar tracks in a song.

All that said, weren't 8 tracks good enough for the Beatles in the early days?

GoFish

TTony said:

...

All that said, weren't 8 tracks good enough for the Beatles in the early days?

4 tracks even - but there were 4 of them, plus engineers and George Martin!

With fewer tracks, bouncing and sub-mixing was the order of the day, so they just approached it differently imo. Flanging was a bit simpler too.

To @ALR ; - I agree with the sentiment of not getting bogged down with track numbers. It's equally important to stick to the spirit of what you planned ie: a set number of intruments and virtual "band members", as close to a live feel and workflow as you can manage.

No need to compromise on quality to mix the drums down, old style, unless you're using the 4 mic method or something. Technology means that you don't need to squeeze things down to fit on the tape, so each drum bit can have it's own track, as can each guitar and vocal etc - particularly as the drums are virtual - Just don't go doing 100s of guitar and vocal overdubs!

Other than that, Godspeed ... and keep us updated

thecolourbox

Well done to you for making the decision in the first place but also more so for the actual progress you've made so far. It's a very different activity, making music, than simply collecting and enjoying gear - it can be more satisfying but also more frustrating in equal measure at times, certainly is for me. Sounds like you have a good plan in place so hopefully you can more or less stick to it. But don't beat yourself up if you do vary it or certain bits take longer than expected as I'm sure it will happen, so let the songs and playing guide you as much as possible and I'm sure it will all come together.

Also slightly envious of your determination and progress - I also wanted to do an album this year, not all new songs but at least rework some old ones to sounds more coherent and produced by somebody who knows what they are doing. However i got as far as asking a producer/mixer guy about it and i've stalled and done nothing since he suggested a phone call about it. Arghhhh

Good luck mate, will look forward to hearing how it's going and the final result

thecolourbox

PS, i rarely use more than about 12 tracks on my Cover and Composition challenge entries but I think 8 would be hard with a full band mix, unless you're doing your drums all on one track I suppose, and very little stereo panning etc.

Wazmeister

Good for you !

I've been saying I'll make one since 1983....

Musicwolf

Limiting the track count should reduce the prevarication at mix-down but it also means that you'll need to make each track count.  That may increase the time between initial idea and recording whilst you iron out what it is that you are actually going to play.

ALR

Thankyou all for the words of encouragement, it's something I'm quite excited about and I'm glad I've got a few more people to share it with when it's done - and also more people to be accountable to.

Regarding the track count, the drums do have a sub-mix within the SSD plug in so I have scope to vary that a little bit. I would have liked to have done it the Glyn Johns way, with just three 'mics' but it doesn't seem like it's particularly possible to do it that way. As the drums are the only thing I won't be doing myself, I won't be making too much of a feature of them, although I'll be doing my best to make them sound good.

The eight tracks are roughly as follows:

1 - Drum Mix (stereo)
2 - Bass
3 - Jaguar
4 - Strat
5 - Lead Vocal
6 - Backing Vocal
7 - Spare
8 - Spare

Spare tracks could be something like a kick drum being on a seperate channel, or another backing vocal depending on how daring I get.

@TTony mentioned the Beatles and the way they recorded their earliest albums (plus Get Back) are an inspiration to me as they were essentially live recordings; my plan has to make something that would be possible for four musicians to replicate on stage even though that's probably not going to happen.

In the past I've used many more tracks than that and I'm sure I will do again in the future, but for my album this year I don't want to burden myself with extra complication. I just want to make each part count, as @Musicwolf says.

Currently I'm coming to the and of a two week job away from home. Before I left I did some very basic demos and I've been working on lyrics while I've been out here that I'll get down when I'm home next week.

thecolourbox

One of my favourite albums, Elephant by The White Stripes, was recorded on an 8 track tape machine. Albeit that was largely just vocals, two guitar amps and simple drums

Revolutions

I love this idea. I am in a similar situation - I should commit to something similar - an ep in a few months

flying_pie

thecolourbox said:

One of my favourite albums, Elephant by The White Stripes, was recorded on an 8 track tape machine. Albeit that was largely just vocals, two guitar amps and simple drums

One of my favourite albums, Blizzard of Ozzy by Ozzy Osborne has the guitar solos alone triple tracked!

Joking aside, double tracking rhythm guitars and vocals can have a huge effect for certain styles of music..I remember hearing that Butch Vig had to convince Kurt Cobain that John Lennon double tracked his guitar and vocals as he was dead against it.. As well as the old "one more take" trick 

But as with all recording there's no set rules and OP can do whatever suits his needs

ALR

Well, I hadn't planned on throwing the towel quite this early, but in a serious case of life getting in the way again I've ended up having a lot more on my plate this year than I planned. As a self employed person I'd planned on this year being fairly quiet but a few big contracts have come in that are going to take up more time than I thought so instead of frustrating myself and doing a half arsed job I'm going to wait until I have a bit more time and hopefully a more stable life (i.e. going back to a permanent contract instead of freelancing).

I might have been able to keep it up but for another project I've got going on. This year I started working with a singer/songwriter who I've been in a sort of quasi-band/jam group with for over two years. I mentioned I'd got my home studio up and running in preparation for doing some of my own stuff and would he like to do a few demos just for fun - but it's actually coming together much better than we thought and I'm thinking I'd rather devote what musical time and energy I have to that project - he's a far better singer than me and I'm enjoying the collaboration, the recording and the instrumentation I'm doing for it.

Hopefully we will hgave a four track EP done by the end of the year, so I'll post that here and any updates on that.

Thanks everyone for your encouragement above, and sorry to have possibly built up a bit of expectation for something thats now not going to happen - but I'm actually more excited about what we've been doing over the last few months anyway!

ALR