Your process

[honkytonk]

...snowed in today in washington state so i thought i'd pose this question to ya'll, sorry if it's been covered previously:


this one goes out to all the people recording their own music at home or wherever: what is your process in writing and recording? i don't very often hear people speaking to this directly and so i'd loved to learn about the different ways people work (or not work as this messageboard sometimes does) either by themselves or with others.

as for myself i often start with a loosely structured group of chord changes, melody, or vocal phrase and often hammer out the overall song structure as i record it (i.e. number of repetitions of each part, overall length) and so often make several discarded demos in the process. i then have a rough idea of how other instrumentation will accompany my scratch (usually guitar) track and sort of write the parts as i record, depending on the instruments available at the time. i'm not assigning value judgements to the way i work, cause it definitely has advantages and disadvantages and often requires alot of time in front of a mic that could be avoided with more pre-production.

anyway, i'd be interested in hearing from others, especially people who are doing most of the recording and playing solo.

[HuskerDude]

I usually come across a riff or melody by accident on my guitar or keyboards, flesh it out and pop it into the 4 track or archiving/forgetting about for 6 months. Then when I stumble across it at some later date, if I don't hate it, I'll write the rest of the guitar part, and improv some keyboard and bass arrangements until I find something I like. It then goes back into the "archives" and when I again find it, if after all this time I still like it, I'll show it to the band, and somebody works out lyrics for it and we give it a shot.

So after several years and many revisions, a 3 minute pop song is born.

[Verboten]

I generally come up with a melody or chord progression - play it 'til the structure makes sense - then I'll record it - playing the instrument I wrote the song with (usually guitar) and the vocal melody. At this point, I usually don't have all the words - so, I'll repeat what parts I do have or just hum.

Then, I'll write an arrangement by adding tracks to that initial recording. Sometimes I'll play some sparse drums or drum machine, add bass, electric guitars, keys, whatever the song needs.

If it's for the band - I'll take that demo to the band and have them fine tune the arrangement by embellishing on the parts I came up with.

Then we record a full band demo of it - usually just live to 2 track. At that point, we decide if it's worth playing live or putting it on the shelf.

[ahmedgarcia]

Recently I have been writing drum parts using loops and samples and starting an arrangment in ACID. I will record the song of just drums onto my MX and then write a song as I listen to the drums. Once I find the right chord progression I record my guitar on a different track on the MX, then melody guitar, bass, leads, etc.....and then give it away or find others to replace the loops with.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

for my current project, my singer will bring in a song, if the basic form seems cool, we'll record a scratch guitar and vocal to a click. then build the song from there. i usually will figure out drum parts first, record those and then basically just start throwing lots of ideas at it. lots. way too many. i'm bad like that. then i sit there forever and edit edit edit until it actually sounds like music again.

kind of a fucked up way to work. this is just how our process evolved because it was just the two of us doing everything on the record. which is cool and i'm glad we did it, but just working out new songs with the whole live band last night made me think that was gonna lead to cooler results. we'll see...

my solo stuff tends to be either droney beat soundscape kinda stuff that only i like or more straight up kinda indie rock guitar songs. for the droney stuff i'll usually start with a beat in rebirth or reason, record 5 minutes of that into wavelab and then do the lots of ideas and editing thing to it. the guitar songs...well of course those start with me sitting around playing guitar until something good happens. then i'll record that, then go back and figure drum and bass and keyboard parts.....

[jakeao]

I'll start by creating some drum loops. ( Yes that right I said creating drum loops ) Then I'll put down a simple melody line. After that It's just a matter of "fleshing it out". I like to work on a song from start to "finish", then leave it for like a week or so. Then I come back to it with fresh ears and add any final touches.

[black mariah]

Usually I have a riff or two and will knock those into some semblance of a structure, then start building drums around them. When I think I need a new part somewhere, in it goes. It's pretty simple.

[prince turbo lung]

i write 90% of my stuff on an acoustic. it usually starts with something in my head, then i create from there, writing the vocal melody at the same time. i then think about what i want it to sound like (maybe stoner metal, maybe dub, maybe indie pop, maybe noise, maybe just plain old acoustic) . then i round up players and insturments to pull it all off. usually there is a core live recording of 2 or 3 people then i listen to the original song and work out by trial and error overdubs arrangemnets. half the time it sounds good and i end up keeping the song as i first try it. the other half of the time it ends up like dog shit and end up re writing parts, lyrics, and try different insturments to see if i can make it sound right, sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't and i just abandon the whole thing. i tend to also start projects in the middle of other ones and return to old projects a few months later, this seems help me not be too critical.. fuck this is a rant maybe this makes sense to somebody.

[perhapsthemoon]

I usually get the song together on a guitar and record it to cassette tape using an old Panasonic cassette recorder. I'll listen a few times to see if I dig it. If I like the vibe of it but feel it needs something else, this is when I figure that out.

If I think it's something worthwhile, I'll mess around with adding/removing a bridge, chorus, verse. or whatever- until I have the structure of the song right. Then I'll record it into that cassette recorder again for final review. If I still like it, then I'll hook up the mics and fire up the things with pretty lights.

[JES]

I'm in a 2-bass cabaret act, except that sometimes it's bass and minimalist drums. And sometimes vocals.

We write, then record, then overdub, then overproduce. Our writing process is pretty straightforward. One of us comes in with an idea, or maybe a few ideas. Often, the other comes up with an additional idea. Since my bandmate sings, if it's his idea, he's usually got a vocal melody in mind -- unless he wants it instrumental. If it's my idea, he's got to think of something for vocals. the other thing we decide is instrumentation: two-bass/hi-hat? bass and drums? or piccolo bass and drums?

Once we record the song as if it were to be played live, we'll overdub. This time around, we're getting a lot more creative and taking more advantage of the digital studio. We'll record two totally different drum parts and fade them in and out. We'll double clean and dirty sounds for texture, I'll mic a drum submix on the monitors and bring it back into the DAW with tons of compression. We're at the stage right now in a couple songs where we're overdubbing entire different arrangements of the same section so that we can fade back and forth.

Did I mention we like to overproduce? I'm definitely the engineer, but he's full of good ideas as well, and we spend a lot of time experimenting and trying stuff out.

That's why home recording is cool.

Best,
--JES

[SLAG]

1. Start messing with instruments until I come up with something I like - a groove if you will

2. Turn on all my gear.

3. Hear a hum somewhere in the chain.

4. Turn everything on and off until I decide it's not the gear.

5. Start turning off lights, electronics, anything that could be the culprit.

6. Say, "fuck it" and decide to just record.

7. Make sure instrument is in tune.

8. Decide I need a different instrument/sound for the groove.

9. Get the new instrument going.

10. Now I Forget the groove was.

11. Decide it's too late to record and go to bed.

I have like hundreds of these "songs."

[I'm Painting Again]

SLAG LOL!!

I think everyone can relate to that in some way..

Me :

1) Girlfriend writes her poems

2) Boyfriend makes noises into the Mac

3) We sing the poems and edit them till they fit the music/mood

4) Then we have crazy sex to the music

5) If the sex is good for us both we mixdown, if not we can it!

[Brian Brock]

I don't know if I can compare to these last couple methods, but...

I seem to have two methods that "work", one is song-based, the other recording-based.

In the first, I write a song - it sits around for a while, sometimes not so long, I play it, I like it, my wife likes it. Then I get around to recording it; usually a click track and acoustic guitar (although recently instead of a click I've made a drum machine track based around the guitar part), then other stuff as I get inspired. Usually I work on one song at a time, until it's finished or I hit a wall, like how to get the guitar tone/playing I want.

In the other method, I get something I like. Maybe it's an acoustic guitar thing, even a full four minute chord progression. Frequently I'll have just an idea, and then basically improvise it onto record. One time it was an mbira loop which I dropped an octave, then added chorus, then rapping, then mandolin rythm/lead, then etc...

I think/hope that these methods are actually beginning to produce a similar sound. At first they were way separate.

Oh - I also write and record classical guitar pieces.

[jajjguy]

A song almost always starts with a pretty intense emotional state. Urgency, aggression, sadness, peace, whatever. That state, paired with a seed vocal idea (a phrase usually, maybe a bit of melody) is what gets me gong in the writing process. Usually the thing morphs a bit so that the end result doesn't quite express the original idea or emotion, but it still always comes out intense in some way.

Sometimes I'll write the whole thing out, songbook-style, with words and guitar chords. Other times, I'll just write the words and come up with the melody & chords later.

Then the arranging part comes. That part is more techy, like messing with gadgetry or graphic design or something, making use of what I have and inventing new things I didn't know i had (like stomping on loose floorboards for percussion). The arranging part is crative, but in a different way, it's more like problem-solving than pure creation. This is the stage where being excited about gear really helps, because it can give me ideas for sounds that will work for that song idea.

Sometimes the whole thing goes the other way, and I come up with a music idea, usually a simple one, that conveys a vibe and sounds good, and record a lot of it repeting for a while, and then come up with some vocals to go over certain parts, then layer instruments. In these cases, mixing is more about removing unneeded stuff in a given section, then adding it back in elsewhere and removing sometihng else, and letting the song develop that way.

[Piotr]

I usually imagine or dream something up before ever touching a guitar. Typically this happens in the morning or late at night, so it probably corresponds to heightened sleep hormones is my guess.

I hammer out an arrangement on the guitar and try and write it out for later. Then I let it sit for awhile, maybe a week. In that time I will have probably sung it in my head a few times. That's the best time for me when I am just singing to myself because all the really unexpected harmonies happen.

I try and record after I have most or all of the arrangement, melodies, lyrics written. The first recording is usually a rough draft to see how things fit together in time and timbre. I always use a click so that everything is easier later for overdubs.

Most times my rough draft appeals to me more than later versions because it retains that original energy and inspiration. Although it often leads to a rewrite of the arrangement or different choices in instrumentation.

Nothing ever really feels finished to me, but I know it is done when I can sit back and feel like I have gotten my idea across.