so, the obvious thing is just Always Be Recording.roygbiv wrote:CK, sorry to OT an epic TO thread, but TBH, MSE comment is worthy of a thread in itself. IMHO.MoreSpaceEcho wrote:good topic.
sort of on-topic....since most of my songs start out with guitar, i've noticed that almost invariably the first couple 'scratch' guitars i record end up being the best, feel-wise. even if i'm playing to a shitty drum machine. basically i feel like the first guitars i throw down sound like The Song, whereas if i try and redo them later, it sounds like i'm playing the song. if that makes any sense.
I have the exact same experience. My best takes are always the 1st or maybe 2nd. Sadly, they more often than not also contain a flub or two, and then I have to figure out how to deal with that. Capturing a direct line in recording and reamping can help fix that, but stilll...,
I've read that some of my favorite artists suffer this syndrome (Neal Young, Westerberg, Joe Strummer).
Apparently, Neal Young will often not let his fellow musicians rehearse a new song before recording it. His goal is to get the elusive "real", or "live" feel of the musicians responding and reacting to the essence of the song when they first hear it for the 1st time, which he can then capture on tape. Rather than letting them practice and then just play their parts, as MSE alludes to above, or in my case, start to introduce to many "precious" parts.
Anyway, I would love to see a thread describing how to best manage the "first take" wonders.
if i'm tracking a band (which happens about once a year now), i always try and get the mics set up as fast as possible and then make myself invisible. record their warmups/first passes at the tunes, you never know.
if it's an overdub situation, and i have a good player out in front of the mic, i almost always will say something like "i'm just gonna roll the track, play along and get comfy, make sure the headphone mix is cool, and then we'll go for one." and of course always record the 'run through'. lots of times good things happen.
for me, i pretty much make music by improvising. i'll start with a beat and/or a guitar part of some sort, and then just start piling shit on. i always record the first take of whatever instrument i'm playing...i often find that when i don't know what i'm doing and/or aren't sure what the changes are, i'll play stuff i wouldn't otherwise.
obviously this can lead to lots of tracks to sort through later, which can be tedious. i'm pretty good at editing/sorting so i don't mind this too much, but i do try to minimize it if i can. so, if after my first take or two it's clear that i'm totally sucking, i'll loop the song/part and play along (without recording), and try and work out some parts.
more later, i need to actually do some work here for a change.