Getting started with home studio

roundthebend

I've got some gear - iPad with Garage Band, 2015 MacBook Pro with Garage Band, Focusrite Scarlet 2i2, Line6 PodGo, studio monitors, Rode NT1 mic, a spare room, electric acoustic guitars, mic stands, and a supportive wife. 

I want to capture ideas and develop them into songs. My genre is probably alt rock, grunge, but not always the heavy distorted guitar stuff. I like acoustic singer/songwriter stuff too.

I need help. I think. I'll say my first task should be to get a workflow for recording a simple chord progression or riff and then adding a second and third part of other instruments. 

How can I learn this? I'm not dumb, but just feel helpless with the kit. Anyone want a student?

roundthebend

Maybe I should start by recording covers? Then I don't get stuck with the ideas block. 

monquixote

Do the covers competition. 

Find a simple song and try and work out how to record it.

flying_pie

monquixote said:

Do the covers competition. 

Find a simple song and try and work out how to record it.

Yes. Do the Covers Challenge 

We've just started songs beginning with the letter V so there's Velouria by Pixies, Gasoline by STP or Vapour Trail by Ride off the top of my head as alt tracks. You can do them same as the originals, as your own take or something crazily different as you see fit.

Whatever you choose, it's a good way to try and learn the technical aspects of recording and hopefully have fun. It's a lot easier to come up with your own ideas when you can instinctively record them rather than lose the riff by the time you've worked out how to record it.

Riff Of The Month is also good for recording ideas in the short form 

roundthebend

OK. I'll see where I get to with that. I love Vasoline by STP and play it with my covers band, so that's an ideal starting point. My current ability to record would have me just record through the iPad onboard microphone with my playing acoustic guitar and singing without a microphone. That's not really what I need to stretch me, so I'm going to try and track guitar, bass, vocals and percussion separately. I'm going to try not to worry about production quality, so long as I play the parts well enough and capture it without clipping and glitchy timing then that'll be success.

Vasoline has a tricky drum pattern, and I'm not a drummer. Any suggestions on how to get that onto my cover other than finding a backing track?

thecolourbox

I quite often look for midi files of songs then tweak the drums from there. Or, when I'm feeling more like doing the boring legwork, I use drum tabs and type the drums in on "piano roll". Then through a drum virtual instrument, I tend to use Modo Drum by IK or the Cubase built in Groove Agent drum kits.

Can recommend the covers approach. I've quite often ended up using the arrangement ideas I come up with when doing covers as the template for my originals. The good thing is there's always more cover tracks to do than there are originals.

I often save track presets as well when something sounds nice. So in future when I think, "i want the vocal sound I did on Last Goodbye" I can just load up the preset and boom

Habanero

roundthebend said:

OK. I'll see where I get to with that. I love Vasoline by STP and play it with my covers band, so that's an ideal starting point. My current ability to record would have me just record through the iPad onboard microphone with my playing acoustic guitar and singing without a microphone. That's not really what I need to stretch me, so I'm going to try and track guitar, bass, vocals and percussion separately. I'm going to try not to worry about production quality, so long as I play the parts well enough and capture it without clipping and glitchy timing then that'll be success.

Vasoline has a tricky drum pattern, and I'm not a drummer. Any suggestions on how to get that onto my cover other than finding a backing track?

A good starting point would be to find a midi file and download it eg

https://bitmidi.com/vasoline-mid

I'm not sure if this is the correct tune though!

In Garageband on the Mac, open a new empty project, and drag and drop the 'vasoline.mid' file to bar 1 of the main window. This should import it and create a track per instrument. You can then delete, embellish or create your own tracks. It will probably ask if you want to set the Tempo track, and 'yes' would be a good idea.

This is probably also possible on the iPad version, but I've never tried it myself.

flying_pie

I mainly use drum tabs and a lot of copy and pasting midi drums. You get used to it eventually and now I can often write the drums myself without tab. It is time consuming though, especially to begin with

I did use isolated drums from YouTube on one occasion for this joke track for N but I wouldn't do it again as the AI separation brought in some harsh frequencies in the overheads which I couldn't EQ out and made the mix sound horrible 

Listen to New York New York - flyingpie by theFretBoard.co.uk on #SoundCloud

https://on.soundcloud.com/HUzuZMG3wibvKd5gvn

As a shortcut I've also just used the audio from the drums only on Songsterr app. I just played the audio from my phone speaker into a SM58! It works although you're such with the audio as is and can't adjust the volume of the kick/snare/hi hat/etc. It does sound very like a drum machine though although that can suit the song. The timing on Songsterr is also slightly out so it doesn't snap neatly to the grid

Listen to This Is The Day - flying pie by theFretBoard.co.uk on #SoundCloud

https://on.soundcloud.com/ACItJ3eg92hrJlNwie

theatreanchor

If you get Logic, you'll get the Apple Drummer which is pretty intuitive and a lot of fun.

Habanero

theatreanchor said:

If you get Logic, you'll get the Apple Drummer which is pretty intuitive and a lot of fun.

It's even there in Garageband.

Fez

I record covers of songs we play in the band so I can rehearse/practice them at home although many more are available as backing tracks nowadays it still can be useful to really get inside the song.