Third Take

It’s late at night, and I’m messing around on the guitar before I go to bed. I’m tired, and work is going to come all too quickly tomorrow morning. Just as I’m telling myself it’s time to call it a night, I play something that makes me stop and sit up – some fragment of an unwritten song, a riff, a melody, or some other hook. It’s what artists call inspiration – that magical moment of creativity that could lead to a finished work.

The unfortunate reality of our times is that the world does not stop when we get an artistic idea. I still have to go to work in the morning, and the sooner I get to bed the better tomorrow will fare. Yet the promise of a new song hangs in the air, and I know from experience that it will be forgotten if I leave it now. But I have a “recording studio” right there in the room with me. Is it ready to go?

In my case, it is. If you’re a singer/songwriter/musician with a home studio, you should be able to press record and capture your moment of inspiration in under five minutes. It’s the same idea as having one of those microcassette recorders, except your studio sounds better and makes it easier to catalog and organize your ideas.

I have a project template set up for exactly this purpose. I launch Sonar, create a new project with this template, and am ready to go. I keep an SM57 hooked up at all times. It usually functions as a talkback mic, but in this situation I can put it on a guitar amp, sing into it, or even record acoustic guitar. You could also use an amp modeller, or just plug your guitar into your preamp if you had to. Keyboard players have it easy because they just have to plug in their keyboards.

When I’m trying to capture an idea like this, I’m in a hurry – too much time spent setting up microphones, the metronome, or trying to program a drum beat and I’ve forgotten the idea. I’ll set up a proper project later, when I come back to it. When I’m “in the moment” I just arm the track and record.

Likewise, I don’t fiddle around trying to get the best sound, or even trying to play a perfect take. This project is just a notecard – an audio snapshot of the idea, so I can go to bed and not worry about that sick-to-the-stomach feeling the next day when I can’t remember the exact rhythm or notes that made the part so compelling. The idea is not to start tracking a masterpiece, just to capture the inspiration.

I used to have one of those microcassette recorders, and I’ve also used the record function of my MP3 player. Neither one comes close to the power and flexibility of using your home studio. With the studio, you can immediately begin overdubbing any complimentary parts you hear in your head.

When I’ve got the idea recorded, I usually save the project with the date as the project’s name and a short description (like “2008-09-29 eg riff”). Putting the date first makes the folders easy to sort and organize in Windows Explorer.

1 comment