Home Recordings

[Juggz]

Since there are lots of folks here with recording gear, does anyone want to post some music they've made at home? Maybe post one song at a time and give a bit of spiel about what you were doing, the gear you used and how you used it to avoid a giant splurge of "look at me" stuff all at once. It might add to the interest, generate some discussion and give the thread a bit of longevity.

Maybe youtube links would be best since the forum handles that code nicely?

Who's first?

[ochoill]

Not a bad idea at all.  Would love to see how others are putting together their own stuff.  In Third Island, we do everything ourselves so i'll have a nosey at one of the more recent recordings later and give it a run down - Liamish can help out here since he did the majority of it too.

[Emphyrio]

Jaysus I'd be nearly afraid to upload stuff. I'm shit at mixing and there's clipping all over the shop! And that's just for starters.

[Juggz]

You upload now! 

It's not about dazzling anyone with hits, more about hearing what people are up to and discussing recording or mixing techniques or how people are using their gear, any interesting musical ideas people are doing in and outside of their bands, that kind of thing, even offering suggestions about mixes, etc.

[Emphyrio]

Ya, could be a good learning exercise. Not for ye, obviously, but I might pick up a tip or forty two.

[Hambeast]

Bellaras is a doom solo project I've been working on

The entire setup is fairly small and simple. 1 guitar and 1 bass which both run directly into an M-Audio Firewire 401 audio interface. From there, everything is recorded using Cubase SX2 as the DAW with software amps. Drums are all programmed within Cubase too. Vocals are recorded using either a Behringer C1 condenser or an XM8500, which are amazing mics considering they're insanely cheap.

Mixing and mastering is all done using a few plugins within Cubase. I'm fairly happy with the sound considering the half-assed setup, cheap equipment, and no professional knowledge or assistance. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxmLURbTkDU

[Juggz]

That's got heft, fair play. What is the drum plugin you use?

[Emphyrio]

Aye, good job indeed, fella.

[Hambeast]

Addictive drums. Great piece of software with a large variety of sounds available. Can be a double edged sword, as sometimes there's too much customisation available and it can be a bit overwhelming.

I'm happy enough to program drums, but I'm aware it can sound a bit stale and robotic at times. I try to key in each drum hit individually with different velocities to make it sound more human, rather than everything being robotically perfect.

I'd like to learn a bit more about drums so I can add fills and more variation. There's pre-made drum fills you can copy in, but I feel like that's cheating and I'd hate for somebody to ever point out "Hey! That's 4/4_HardRock_Groove_Fill from addictive drums!"

[Juggz]

I only started using programmed drums in the last couple of years. It's filled with endless possibilities but also amazing frustration. I used to play drums to a fairly moderate standard and, after I moved to the sticks, could record acoustic drums for home stuff without any neighbours close enough to be bothered. I could never play to a standard I was happy with, though, and sold the kit and bought the Slate Drums plugin. Like you, I spend a lot of time trying to humanise it and trying to remember the kind of thing I would play if I was really drumming. It's tedious. It's really, really tedious. I leave some hits slightly off the beat and faffing around with velocities to do whatever it takes to not sound like programmed drums and sometimes I spend so long doing that I lose any motivation I have for the music in the first place 

What did you use for guitar and bass tones? The bass sounds properly filthy.

[Pentagrimes]

Recorded the Coalinga demo in the most basic way possible a few years back, and it shows
http://coalinga.bandcamp.com

Basically this was all done with a 4 channel USB mixer with a  €20 mic from Maplins into Reaper - thing is, you couldn't seperate the tracks with it so for example there were four drum mics going in but they only came out as one track. Vocals were run into a reverb pedal that had a "Swell" function, guitars were a mic on a 10 watt practice amp , bas was straight into the mixer.

It sounds like shit.


I do a solo drone thing called Otterans which is just a guitar/pedals straight into Reaper, and it suits that much better.
http://otterans.bandcamp.com

[liamish]

Ill throw this on for the laugh if anyone cares

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P5uzgNgzIc

It's not exactly "home" recording but it was done in a storage container and 100% diy by myself and the band.

The drums were EZDrummer programmed by the sexy Ochoill himself. Synth was something in fruity loops which was ochoill again coz I get annoyed programming midi. Two guitar tracks were recorded double tracked through both D.I. and SM57's set up in front of the cabs, the bass was DI'ed and ran through BOD which is a great freeware emulation of a sansamp bass driver if anyone knows it. The vocals were recorded through a Rode NT1a. All plugged into a M-audio profire 2626 connected by adat to a focusrite scarlet for 16 channels into Reaper. Everything was recorded live off the floor except for the vocals which were dubbed in later and the programmed stuff obviously.

Wish I woulda spent more time on the vocals. These were a big improvement over our EP but I think a bit of double tracking the vocals could have made really polished it.

I cant think of anything else to say about it. Go buy our album lol.

[Hambeast]

I only started using programmed drums in the last couple of years. It's filled with endless possibilities but also amazing frustration. I used to play drums to a fairly moderate standard and, after I moved to the sticks, could record acoustic drums for home stuff without any neighbours close enough to be bothered. I could never play to a standard I was happy with, though, and sold the kit and bought the Slate Drums plugin. Like you, I spend a lot of time trying to humanise it and trying to remember the kind of thing I would play if I was really drumming. It's tedious. It's really, really tedious. I leave some hits slightly off the beat and faffing around with velocities to do whatever it takes to not sound like programmed drums and sometimes I spend so long doing that I lose any motivation I have for the music in the first place 

What did you use for guitar and bass tones? The bass sounds properly filthy.

Programming drums to be realistic is definitely tedious. Sometimes I feel like it'd be easier to just learn to play drums than spend hours clicking away at a drum map to make everything sound imperfectly perfect.

Guitar and bass were all run through Amplitube and Overloud

Recorded the Coalinga demo in the most basic way possible a few years back, and it shows
http://coalinga.bandcamp.com

It sounds fairly decent considering the setup. Other than the snare being too loud it's easily passable as a demo.

The drums were EZDrummer programmed by the sexy Ochoill himself. Synth was something in fruity loops which was ochoill again coz I get annoyed programming midi. Two guitar tracks were recorded double tracked through both D.I. and SM57's set up in front of the cabs, the bass was DI'ed and ran through BOD which is a great freeware emulation of a sansamp bass driver if anyone knows it. The vocals were recorded through a Rode NT1a. All plugged into a M-audio profire 2626 connected by adat to a focusrite scarlet for 16 channels into Reaper. Everything was recorded live off the floor except for the vocals which were dubbed in later and the programmed stuff obviously.

As a whole it sounds really good. My only complaint is that I despise EZDrummer. In particular the kick always sounds weak and plastic, and the snare sounds like it's played by a shitty drummer who keeps hitting it too close to the rim (that's a criticism of the drum software, not the song itself or drum machines in general). The handy thing about MIDI drums is you can always run them through different software at a later point and have a completely different sound. The mix sounds great though!

[astfgyl]

I'm shiting around with drum hits from my keyboard lately. I will post something if I can get it to sound nice

[liamish]

As a whole it sounds really good. My only complaint is that I despise EZDrummer. In particular the kick always sounds weak and plastic, and the snare sounds like it's played by a shitty drummer who keeps hitting it too close to the rim (that's a criticism of the drum software, not the song itself or drum machines in general). The handy thing about MIDI drums is you can always run them through different software at a later point and have a completely different sound. The mix sounds great though!

Thatnks. Im pretty happy with how it turned out. Weve got a drummer since so Ill have the joys of real drum recording to deal with next time. I have a shiity tbone drum mic kit that ill be playong around with in the next recording session.