Third Take

I did something last night I never thought I’d do - I copied the lead vocal from the first chorus to the second chorus. In some genres, this is the normal, expected practice and a mandatory skill for the engineer. Other circles put emphasis on vague notions of authenticity and integrity, and duplicating a performance is seen as fakery. I usually relate to this more idealistic school of thought, but last night I broke my own rules. Read more

Cakewalk DAW Labs looks like a good resource for building or buying a new PC. They have links to pre-built PCs that have been “tested and approved by Cakewalk Tech Support” as well as tips for those of us who build our own. The list of supported audio interfaces makes it easy to compare different sounds cards’ capabilities, and identifies which ones have 64-bit drivers available.

I’ve been recording scratch tracks by dangling an SM-57 over the top of the amp. I know with a little tweaking I can do better, but dang, this sounds pretty good.

Of course, my guitar rig sounds good. Really good. So capturing it isn’t that hard. The best recordings start at the source.

Don’t let it stop you - a great post over at the IG Blog about playing guitar that easily applies to all music makers. How much time has been wasted in front of the TV or on the net because we were too lazy to practice our craft? What would our music be like today if we had practiced instead?

Cakewalk just announced a special offer to upgrade to Sonar 7 Producer for $129. The special pricing is good until June 29, 2008. It’s a tempting deal, but I’m going to pass for two reasons. Read more

After you’ve set yourself up for a successful recording, it’s time to press record and capture the (hopefully) great performance. Unfortunately, even the best performance can be marred by sloppy recording technique. Here are three tips to help you get a cleaner track. Read more

• ‘T’ is the keyboard shortcut for the normal tool. ‘C’ is the keyboard shortcut for the scissors. ‘Q’ mutes the selected clip.
• When working with track layers, it’s safe to “Remove Empty Layers” after deleting some clips. It won’t rearrange your clips like “Rebuild Layers” does.
• Remember to turn off the air conditioner before recording vocals. Remember to turn it back on before going to bed.
• Don’t tell a vocalist to “sing it more like Eddie Vedder.”

A few weeks ago, I sat down to track a guitar part for a song my band is recording. It just wasn’t working - I spent a couple hours tweaking guitar sounds, switching microphones, and changing mic positions, but nothing was making the part fit with the tracks we’d already recorded. Then I realized the problem wasn’t my gear or engineering skills - it was the way I was playing the guitar. Read more

I added a new category to this blog, called Philosophy, because I want to start writing about the philosophical aspects of home recording. I think most of us who have little “home studios” got started because we wanted to record ourselves or our bands. Many of us are singer/songwriters, or have a desire to record our own original compositions. I think there are ideas worth exploring that go beyond gear reviews, how-to articles, and links to free plugins.

One of those ideas that has been on my mind lately involves what is known on the internet as G.A.S. - Gear Acquisition Syndrome. It is the driving need to acquire another piece of gear that will make your recordings better, and I think it is detrimental to recording music. Read more

I downloaded the free Orca softsynth a while back, but never did anything with it. I don’t do a lot with MIDI or softsynths, but last night we were looking for a weird sound to add texture to a song and I remembered Orca.

Read more