Recording Neepery
Aug. 31st, 2011 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillI checked out the college again on Monday and the best time for recording is Friday mornings. The other days have a lot of classes in the building and the sound isolation of the edit bay is not terribly good. So I have time reserved from nine to noon Friday.
It has been quite some time since the last time I recorded, between finishing the canoe, the family visit, and campus shutting down between summer and fall terms. So I figured I'd better get re-acquainted with the Zoom H4n and Reaper, and I wired them up today. I didn't go all the way to adding the mic to the mix, since I don't have a mic stand, but figured I would work with the mics on the Zoom for now. I am actually considering using the Rhode NT1-A for some vocals and the Zoom mics for others to do the opposite of blending--to set the second voice apart from the first, so to speak.
I have been practicing with the metronome since the beginning of the week (practicing with the metronome is Hard Work and kind of fell by the wayside for a while too) and had noticed that it is a lot easier to sing to the metronome than it is to play to the metronome, and easier to play melodies to the metronome than to strum to the metronome. So I thought I would start with an a cappella piece. I already recorded a version of Hold The Line (coming next Alice Day to a blog near you) but I like it enough that it is an album contender.
When using the Zoom by itself, I can set it to include a metronome, but if that's possible when using the Zoom as a peripheral for the laptop running Reaper, I haven't figured out how. I poked briefly at the user manual for Reaper but couldn't see a way to get Reaper to do it either, so I just made the first track of the project my regular metronome. I turned it on, whispered my way through the lyrics (to get the right number of beats), and turned it off.
Then I figured I'd do something to make sure I didn't stray from the key in this a cappella project. I already had one track that wasn't going to make it into the final mix. So, I pulled out my iPod, called up Ocarina, and played the tonic note for the second track--all the way through. Some musician I am; so far this mix is just machines, and a little patience.
But it was easy, at least. I set the levels on tracks 1 and 2 and didn't bother to pan them. Then I created track three and I sang my way through the lyrics. Yes, I can pretty much stay with the metronome. Yes, the Ocarina works to keep me on pitch. Excellent.
Furthermore, it occurred to me my music nook room is actually not bad for recording. I like the natural reverb it has I'm not sure if it's what people refer to as a "warm" and "alive" sound but I am guessing it might be. The walls of this room are not drywall but a thin wood (or maybe plywood?) panelling, which may have something to do with it.
If I can find a sufficiently quiet time, one of the things I could do is a trick from olden recording days where engineers would find a space with a nice reverb and put a speaker and a mic in there and play / record the tracks they wanted reverb on. It would be a very analog thing to do, but with a good enough speaker it might work. Something to think about. For that matter, maybe I should check out the shower. But not until I get that drip fixed.
So, onward! I tried the backup vocals. Couldn't get them to work. Tried again. Still not working. Again. Arrg! It was like I couldn't remember the harmony--some verses it would work, some it wouldn't.
I finally realized what the problem was. I wasn't singing the same melody in the second and subsequent verses as I had in the first. D'oh!
Okay. Decided which variant of the melody I wanted. (The one the harmony worked with, it turned out, but I had to talk myself into a rational reason for wanting that one. This is just how I roll.) Redid the main vocals with the correct melody all the way through.
Did a couple of tracks of harmony vocals. It goes much more easily with a consistent melody.
Then I played around a bit in Reaper. It is much easier to poke through the user manual and try things that look fun than it is to find something specific, but some of the fun things I found were useful. There's a one-key shortcut to rewind to the beginning of the project, for instance. That sounds like nothing; how hard is it to mouse over to the rewind button and click it? But it's a noticeable time saver. There's a two-key shortcut to start recording and I can just hit the spacebar to stop. Given that I'm rushing back and forth from the mic to the computer, these are really nice. I wanted to cut the ends off all the tracks evenly. But tracks are split at the cursor--and clicking a new track to select it (really it's a new item; it's in a track but whatever) moves the damn cursor. The manual says if no item is selected all items will be split at the cursor position, but I can't figure out how to deselect everything. Wait--I can see how to select everything; let's see if--yes! All items split at the cursor and I delete the little tag ends and boom; done.
So this is all stuff that should be dirt-simple and I spent about two and a half hours figuring out how to do it and I have a long way to go, but I've got to start learning the program sometime. Better today than Friday when I'm trying to record. And hopefully this way I will have the machine (metronome and ocarina) tracks I need and will be practiced up on recording vocals and backup vocals.
Maybe if I'm really together I can do two songs on Friday, provided I have all the preliminary stuff done beforehand. I think tomorrow I will work on Art Feeds Life
And maybe I will re-record my Alice Day recording of Hold The Line, since it has the first verse different from the other verses. Or maybe I will use my scratch tracks from the music nook.
It has been quite some time since the last time I recorded, between finishing the canoe, the family visit, and campus shutting down between summer and fall terms. So I figured I'd better get re-acquainted with the Zoom H4n and Reaper, and I wired them up today. I didn't go all the way to adding the mic to the mix, since I don't have a mic stand, but figured I would work with the mics on the Zoom for now. I am actually considering using the Rhode NT1-A for some vocals and the Zoom mics for others to do the opposite of blending--to set the second voice apart from the first, so to speak.
I have been practicing with the metronome since the beginning of the week (practicing with the metronome is Hard Work and kind of fell by the wayside for a while too) and had noticed that it is a lot easier to sing to the metronome than it is to play to the metronome, and easier to play melodies to the metronome than to strum to the metronome. So I thought I would start with an a cappella piece. I already recorded a version of Hold The Line (coming next Alice Day to a blog near you) but I like it enough that it is an album contender.
When using the Zoom by itself, I can set it to include a metronome, but if that's possible when using the Zoom as a peripheral for the laptop running Reaper, I haven't figured out how. I poked briefly at the user manual for Reaper but couldn't see a way to get Reaper to do it either, so I just made the first track of the project my regular metronome. I turned it on, whispered my way through the lyrics (to get the right number of beats), and turned it off.
Then I figured I'd do something to make sure I didn't stray from the key in this a cappella project. I already had one track that wasn't going to make it into the final mix. So, I pulled out my iPod, called up Ocarina, and played the tonic note for the second track--all the way through. Some musician I am; so far this mix is just machines, and a little patience.
But it was easy, at least. I set the levels on tracks 1 and 2 and didn't bother to pan them. Then I created track three and I sang my way through the lyrics. Yes, I can pretty much stay with the metronome. Yes, the Ocarina works to keep me on pitch. Excellent.
Furthermore, it occurred to me my music nook room is actually not bad for recording. I like the natural reverb it has I'm not sure if it's what people refer to as a "warm" and "alive" sound but I am guessing it might be. The walls of this room are not drywall but a thin wood (or maybe plywood?) panelling, which may have something to do with it.
If I can find a sufficiently quiet time, one of the things I could do is a trick from olden recording days where engineers would find a space with a nice reverb and put a speaker and a mic in there and play / record the tracks they wanted reverb on. It would be a very analog thing to do, but with a good enough speaker it might work. Something to think about. For that matter, maybe I should check out the shower. But not until I get that drip fixed.
So, onward! I tried the backup vocals. Couldn't get them to work. Tried again. Still not working. Again. Arrg! It was like I couldn't remember the harmony--some verses it would work, some it wouldn't.
I finally realized what the problem was. I wasn't singing the same melody in the second and subsequent verses as I had in the first. D'oh!
Okay. Decided which variant of the melody I wanted. (The one the harmony worked with, it turned out, but I had to talk myself into a rational reason for wanting that one. This is just how I roll.) Redid the main vocals with the correct melody all the way through.
Did a couple of tracks of harmony vocals. It goes much more easily with a consistent melody.
Then I played around a bit in Reaper. It is much easier to poke through the user manual and try things that look fun than it is to find something specific, but some of the fun things I found were useful. There's a one-key shortcut to rewind to the beginning of the project, for instance. That sounds like nothing; how hard is it to mouse over to the rewind button and click it? But it's a noticeable time saver. There's a two-key shortcut to start recording and I can just hit the spacebar to stop. Given that I'm rushing back and forth from the mic to the computer, these are really nice. I wanted to cut the ends off all the tracks evenly. But tracks are split at the cursor--and clicking a new track to select it (really it's a new item; it's in a track but whatever) moves the damn cursor. The manual says if no item is selected all items will be split at the cursor position, but I can't figure out how to deselect everything. Wait--I can see how to select everything; let's see if--yes! All items split at the cursor and I delete the little tag ends and boom; done.
So this is all stuff that should be dirt-simple and I spent about two and a half hours figuring out how to do it and I have a long way to go, but I've got to start learning the program sometime. Better today than Friday when I'm trying to record. And hopefully this way I will have the machine (metronome and ocarina) tracks I need and will be practiced up on recording vocals and backup vocals.
Maybe if I'm really together I can do two songs on Friday, provided I have all the preliminary stuff done beforehand. I think tomorrow I will work on Art Feeds Life
And maybe I will re-record my Alice Day recording of Hold The Line, since it has the first verse different from the other verses. Or maybe I will use my scratch tracks from the music nook.
