Recording

The time has come to record again. Not Record...with a capital R...record with a small r.  Basically I've got two new bands where everything is fresh and exciting and they both are thinking
1) we need a demo to get gigs
2) we need to be able to record song ideas to remember them
3) all our friends want to hear our songs!

The first two of these sentiments I can get behind. The third makes me wince. No one wants to hear our songs. They just don't. They say they do, but they are just being nice. I've only really been in this music game for about ten years, but I know enough to know that 1) people say they will come to your shows but they don't 2) people say that they want your record but they will never listen to it. I also know that producing a recording of any kind of quality that is worth more than just a glancing view on Youtube costs time and money. And probably isn't worth it. I like recording my bands to archive that period in my life. But doing it for other people is not that important in my experience.

Anyway, sometime after 2008 my main method for recording, my multitracker, developed a strange quirk and so I stopped using it. It wasn't until maybe 6 months ago that I resolved the quirk. But now I've forgotten everything I ever knew (which wasn't much) about using the thing. But I guess it is time to get back up to speed.

I have two main issues with my setup...one is that it predates USB, so the only way to get files out is by burning them to CD...which takes a long time, wastes discs...and on that fateful day when the CD Rom gives up the ghost (which it surely will) renders the device useless.  It also only has two inputs...which means that I either need an external mixer or to record parts by track. This is fine when I'm alone in my house being a one person band...but when there's a pile of other people sitting there with you who may or may not know what they are doing...well it is just a pain in the ass. Recording is hard work, especially multi-track recording. It takes time and I'm not really interested in spending that time right now.

I say let somebody film us on their shitty digital camera, post it on YouTube, and call it a day. This is good enough to get gigs with and to placate the people who say they want recordings but who are actually full of shit. My main goal with my eager bandmates will be to impart this point of view.

But there's another reason to record...an unexpected one. Which is that yesterday I wrote a song. I haven't done that in about 4 years.  The song is for one of the bands, and I'd like to be able to make a recording of vocal, guitar, bass, and maybe drums to present to the band so that they can go off and write keyboard and horn parts (and probably better drum and guitar parts). And hopefully for someone else to learn to sing it cause I sure don't want to sing it. Having a recording to give them would be way easier than trying to play it for them live and them having to try to remember it. I don't want to be in the songwriter/director mode. I just want to say...here's an idea...go work out the details and come back and let's try to play it.

This project will require the multitracker for sure. Or multitracking at least.  I think I've realized that I may actually be able to use Audacity and a regular plug and play laptop microphone to get this done, as least for a scratch demo track (help on pc mic connections here). I know that having an actual USB microphone and protools would be better...but if I can manage to limp along with what I have than why not? Here's a full step by step on using Audacity to record.

There's no time to test out any of this now...it'll be next weekend probably before I get a hack at it. It puts me in the position of running equipment that I don't really understand and then being percieved as the "expert" but oh well. It is my curse.