Recording Home Recording - Audacity/Garageband

[jbtsax]

Personally, I find it a better use of my time to try to perfect my playing rather than "dress up" a spotty recording. Perhaps if I were making a CD for posterity to give to my grand kids, I would get into the studio thing, but I'm not. All of the recording of myself that I do right now is to participate in the Ballad of the Month and Song of the Month. Typically I will do several takes, and submit the one I like the best ie. dislike the least. For me there is a degree of openness and honesty in sharing one's best playing at a given point in time without "doctoring" the recording other than adding just a touch of reverb. I can go back to earlier recordings and see how much I have grown technically and musically.

 

[nigeld]

I wouldn't want to publish a post with a spilling mistake in the first sentence. Nor would I want to publish a soundtrack with an obvious mistake in bar 5. An easy-to-use sound editor seems like a useful tool, just like the taxt aditor I am using for this post.

So for me, simple editing to remove nasties seems like an obvious thing to do. Personally, I wouldn't choose to spend many hours in the editing studio for a BOTM track, because sound editing doesn't particularly interest me, and because it would seem to be missing the point, but I have no problem if somebody else does so, as long as they aren't raising the bar too high for everyone else. I certainly don't think it's cheating or dishonest in any way. The important thing is that people feel confident to share their efforts, and if a bit of editing helps, then that's good.

 

[Veggie Dave]

So, going back and playing a section again so it's perfect is bad but using an artificial effect to artificially make your playing sound better than you really are is good.

Okay, got it.

 

[BigMartin]

I got tired of not being able to fiddle with reverb settings in audacity while the track is playing. Reaper is much nicer to use and excellent value.

 

[Colin the Bear]

Creepy name though

 

[Taz]

I think it depends on what you are trying to achieve as to whether you edit your recordings or not. If you are after honest criticism then what's the point of editing it. All you are after are compliments. If you are producing a CD or perhaps demonstrating how a piece should be played the I feel the need to edit is warranted. I prefer to practice the piece and do it in one hit if I can, but sometimes that inappropriate note or unwelcome squeak has to be removed.
I use Cubase more often than not and I find it very easy to open a second track, re record the offending piece and then either cut, copy and paste or even just mute the bad portion and then mix it all together. Simples!

 

[Colin the Bear]

I put the good recordings on sound cloud and have the link on my business cards. It's sometimes quicker to edit in a phrase than record the whole thing again. With a new tune I may have several takes so I can pick and mix. For some reason I seem to fluff more when recording than playing live. That red light distracts me.

 

[jimmylh]

When I post to the ballad or tune of the month, I want people to hear something as pleasant as I can make it. Critiques are fine but that's not what I'm looking for. I already know what I suck at and what you hear is already the best I'm able to do at the time. When folks say I'd like to hear better articulation or your vibrato could be better, believe me, I'd do it if I had the skill! lol

 

[jbtsax]

When I post to the ballad or tune of the month, I want people to hear something as pleasant as I can make it. Critiques are fine but that's not what I'm looking for. I already know what I suck at and what you hear is already the best I'm able to do at the time. When folks say I'd like to hear better articulation or your vibrato could be better, believe me, I'd do it if I had the skill! lol

I understand perfectly what you are saying. However, I believe that an "impartial" listener can often pick up on things that I get used to such as playing some notes a bit sharp or cutting off phrase endings too early. Even if a suggestion or observation is beyond one's ability at the present time, it can become a goal to work toward.

 

[jonnie]

Now here's where home studios fall down - monitoring. A DAW like Reaper does allow post-effects monitoring at the click of a button, however, you're going to need a serious PC/laptop to avoid lag. And even then it might not be perfect. When it comes to monitoring there's no substitute for real outboard effects through a real desk. Except that's not really a home studio, that's a real studio.
"

I think the first rule here is to experiment - try adding reverb after recording in audacity - watch the little progress meter and then compare that with the length of the recorded track - gives a reasonable idea what the PC/laptop would be expected to do in real time to give effects in the monitor mix - add to that it would also be trying to cope with playing the backing track in the first case which involves the DAC ( Digital to Analogue Convertor ), and also mixing the backing track and the post effects sax track etc. Of course when someone reads this in two years time it will probably be out of date and laptops will be doing all of this and making your coffee.

 

[jonnie]

Personally, I find it a better use of my time to try to perfect my playing rather than "dress up" a spotty recording. Perhaps if I were making a CD for posterity to give to my grand kids, I would get into the studio thing, but I'm not. All of the recording of myself that I do right now is to participate in the Ballad of the Month and Song of the Month. Typically I will do several takes, and submit the one I like the best ie. dislike the least. For me there is a degree of openness and honesty in sharing one's best playing at a given point in time without "doctoring" the recording other than adding just a touch of reverb. I can go back to earlier recordings and see how much I have grown technically and musically.

I agree fully with the value judgements, I do not add more than reverb and I see the objective as being able to play straight through, also the openness and honesty in sharing our recordings together.

However I also find great value in using Audacity (or similar) and a microphone as a very enjoyable learning experience, I use recordings to listen to my tone, I like to have multiple attempts at a certain lick because the first one contained an idea I really liked but I did not quite nail it the first time.

On a recent car trip I only had one CD and that had only two tracks on it - both me ! So I ended up listening to myself improvising on two tracks for quite an extended period of time, my CD auto-repeats.

Instead of driving me insane as you would expect I found it great, almost mantra like - I heard many other possibilites and ideas that I had not noticed or conceived when I played and I felt that a learning experience was going on - I do not usually listen to myself with that level of repetition but I think it was quite a learning experience, music actually seems to change as we listen to it over and over again and if the listener is also the musician then I think we often add a new track which is entirely in our own head and is the counterpoint and response to the line we laid down in reality so we start interacting with the recording in a new way without the instrument in our hands.

For all of the above reasons I do want the best recording quality I can reasonably afford so I can hear my tone and not the microphone or soundcards "tone" and experimenting with a single lick again and again seems like a great learning exercise but at heart I hear what you are saying and agree with it completely, my comments really apply to these tools as development tools not performance tools.

 

[Veggie Dave]

One of the best things about trying to record the perfect take, even if it takes multiple takes to achieve it, is the level of playing you force yourself to perform at.

For example, once your take is on that timeline, you can zoom in and see just how accurate, or not, your timing is. Often you can't actually hear little mistakes <1>, but boy you can see them in all their painful glory. So you practise that section or phrase over and over again until you can play it to the level of accuracy that you deem acceptable.

In my experience, this is a level of accuracy that goes well beyond playing to a metronome - unless you record those sessions and then check back, in which case it's exactly the same thing.

I know I've said this before but I've taught myself how to play the sax by trying to record professional sounding songs. I've sat there for hours playing a single phrase or riff because I wanted it to be as rhythmically perfect as I could get it. And as the phrase has become easier to play, the tone has improved, too.

The funny thing is, if I look at a song I've recorded, such as Birk's Works, where I had to do a number of takes to get a single, solid recorded performance, that is somehow a less than honest portrayal of my playing (even though it's me doing all the playing); because of the hours spent trying to get that performance, I can now play Birk's Works with a speed and fluidity that makes that recording sound wooden and, on a couple of the runs, jerky.

<1> If you're playing to a backing track then the only instrument with any timing problems is you, which is why little timing issues generally can't be heard. In a real band, where everyone is playing at the same level, that culmination of little timing issues can be the difference between a pro band that sounds perfect and a pub band that somehow doesn't sound quite right.

 

[jonnie]

The funny thing is, if I look at a song I've recorded, such as Birk's Works, where I had to do a number of takes to get a single, solid recorded performance, that is somehow a less than honest portrayal of my playing (even though it's me doing all the playing); because of the hours spent trying to get that performance, I can now play Birk's Works with a speed and fluidity that makes that recording sound wooden and, on a couple of the runs, jerky.

If you have been through the process of creating a 'perfect' performance in pieces its only a matter of time before those pieces start to get longer, eventually you may have only one 'piece', all the way through you have the confidence of knowing that you have the ability to play all of it even if you have to take many bites.

 

[Colin the Bear]

The criteria for playing and playing for a recording are so different. Playing live, if I go off track, and follow where it leads, it's a one off performance and gone forever. A recording is something that will be played time and again. It needs to be right, on song, in tune and as conceived. I get distracted by listening to what I'm doing and forget who's playing.

 

[jbtsax]

I agree with a lot that has been said already about the virtues of recording one's self and listening to the playback. The most important thing I believe is that one will never know what they really sound like to the listener unless they have done this with a good recording set-up. I suppose playing in a corner works to a certain extent, but it adds a lot of "room effects" with it.

Thanks to the Cafe for passing on the knowledge, information, and motivation to add this "tool" to my playing for the first time in over 50 years of being a sax-often- ist.

 

[jonnie]

For example, once your take is on that timeline, you can zoom in and see just how accurate, or not, your timing is. Often you can't actually hear little mistakes <1>, but boy you can see them in all their painful glory. So you practise that section or phrase over and over again until you can play it to the level of accuracy that you deem acceptable.

In my experience, this is a level of accuracy that goes well beyond playing to a metronome - unless you record those sessions and then check back, in which case it's exactly the same thing.

I had not thought of doing that - it's a good idea I will try it out sometime.

 

[Colin the Bear]

Timing is a very flexible thing. I can come in two bars late on some songs and make it sound right.

I don't think looking at your timing is helpful. Listening is the only way imo.

 

[Veggie Dave]

I saw a pro musician friend a couple of months ago that I hadn't seen for ages. Obviously, I ended up telling him that I was playing music again ... on a saxophone.

'Oh,' he said, 'one of those squeaky things that always comes in late!'

 

[Colin the Bear]

Is that not a "Virgin" train?

 

[ChillyMike]

I'll take your word for it, Dave. My Zoom came with a free CUBASE download. Since then, I've gradually started to record directly into CUBASE and use Audacity only occasionally for specific edits,

Today I have been having a play with Cubase LE. It came free with my Zoom H1.

I found it great and no latency issues such as I have experienced with Audacity.

I still have lots to learn but have the backing track going into the zoom and I use my earbuds to listen and I also get my sax coming through these as well.