Just wondering how many of you guys or gals are recording by yourself meaning drums,bass,"guitar of Course" vocals etc...

I record alot and have used drum machines but here lately the best method is real audio loops and you can't tell that you don't have a real drummer...Really... Check out Beta Monkey Music
http://www.betamonkeymusic.com/

I love their loops the best I heard yet. So all you need is a good computer recording software " I like Cakewalk Sonar", some drum loops in the style you like, a bass guitar, your guitar and maybe some vocals and your on your way. Well I should mention you will need a decent computer with a good sound card.

You will get some amazing results and noone will know since there's no machines. I personally hate drum machines and everyone can tell it's a machine. "Stiff Sounding" The great thing about using real audio drum loops is you can cut, copy, and past the loops and write song after song without losing focus working on everything but the guitar. Give it a shot and post your songs here. I wrote 4 songs today without my band and the drummer is amazed by the loops.

I checked out some of the sample loops at betamonkey and they sound awesome, I have some acid rock loops I mess around with.

You guys or anybody know where I can get free drum loops that you can customize the tempo? I particularly need any rock drum beat at 76 bpm. Thanks

Mixcraft 3 is free to try...it has real live drum loops however if you want to share your music and put it in mp3 format you need to buy it...its really cheap though.

Its a multitrack recording software with drum loops and bass loops.

Screenshot
http://1000watts.proboards21.com/index.cgi?board=mr&action= display&thread=1177038701

Sample of songs the songs I wrote using the real live drum loops...and yes you can change the tempo of the loops.
http://travtale.dmusic.com/music/

Drum Loops are great, better than a drum machine

Hey I downloaded and I'm within the trial period right now and it's great! Just what I was looking for. I was wondering though, how do you guys record guitar? I just ran a guitar to computer cable straight from the emulated line out on my Marshal mg50dfx into the mic input and it sounds pretty darn good for such a cheap setup.

[Edited on 8/23/2007 by Bill15]

Sometimes less is more. Send us some tunes when you get em done

[Edited on 25/8/2007 by moderator]

quote:

---

Hey I downloaded and I'm within the trial period right now and it's great! Just what I was looking for. I was wondering though, how do you guys record guitar? I just ran a guitar to computer cable straight from the emulated line out on my Marshal mg50dfx into the mic input and it sounds pretty darn good for such a cheap setup.

[Edited on 8/23/2007 by Bill15]

---

Came across this great site for DRUM LOOPS

www.atlassoundlab.com

This site offers DIRECT DOWNLOADS if you have a PayPal account.
They also have a E-bay store they sell some of the disks a bit cheaper ... (you can get to it from their main site.) They also have some FREEBIES!!

I got lucky when I ordered ... ASL offered me the entire collection to beta test .... blows BetaMonkey away ... and A LOT CHEAPER check 'em out.

OH YEAH!

AND ... they offer "Custom" Drum TRACKS ... you send them your mix and they throw some drums into it ... I had them do a track of mine ... blew me away ... the communication through out the process was awesome!

Keep on jammin guys ...

I was referring to mixcraft. But since I'm new to recording, I have two more questions to throw at you:

1) I wanted to run my guitar through the line in jack on my pc but when I did, sound only came out of the left speaker. You know anything about this?

and

2) When recording a rhythm guitar track, to get that stereo sound (almost as if there are two guitars), is one trick to copy the track and then stagger it so that it's very slightly behind the original and then set one to the left speaker and one to the right speaker? I thought they might have done that in the Mixcraft 3 demo song that they give you when you first intall it. I like the sound that they had going on that rhythm track there.

I usually double each track and pan each one on a seperate side...I double the rhythm and lead guitar,keyboard and so on...just right click on the track and copy then paste it where you want it.

Also when you pan each doubled track try and pan them at a different percentage/color as to not mud up the mix.

I wouldnt stagger your tracks...just copy and pan on each side or record each track twice live and use 2 different tracks to pan on each side...that should give more of a stereo sound because each track will be a little bit different if recorded twice.

Or you could record with 2 mics...I heard if placed in a certain postion you can create stereo sound.

Try and keep vocals panned in the middle or pan them a bit to each side.

Thanks for the reply. I just wanted to know, when you said, "Also when you pan each doubled track try and pan them at a different percentage/color as to not mud up the mix", do you mean pan other tracks at a different percentage, such as rhythm guitar at 100 % to each side and keyboard at say, 25% percent to each side? (btw, should the bass be mono?)

Not sure about bass...I have not recorded bass however i would try it with one track and pan in the middle and see how it sounds...I would also try and double the track and pan on each side to hear the difference.

I wouldnt double the drum loops...just leave the drums in the middle.

pan each track in a different spot.

for instance

doubled tracks

Keyboard...pan left 25%
Keyboard...pan right 30%
Rhythm Guitar...pan left 100%
Rhythm Guitar...pan right 90%
Lead guitar...pan right 50%
Lead Guitar...pan left 70 %

not saying you have to use those percentages...use what sounds good for you however try and have the tracks panned at a different percentage...even if its only a difference of 1%...thats what I do right now anyway...I might find a better way of doing it later on down the line however for now its what im doing.

another trick for vocals is to use classic EQ on the track and remove the lows in the track...click on edit next to EQ and turn the first 3 buttons down in the middle.




[Edited on 8/24/2007 by Spidercents]

Here is a screenshot of EQ settings for vocals if you plan on recording vocals.

Click on pic to go to page with image and then click on image again to enlarge.



Also add some compression to each vocal track...reverb can also be added...you can also add light distortion (acoustica distortion) to your vocals if needed

make sure your on the track tab and not the project tab when editing your tracks.

use project tab to add effects to overall project.



[Edited on 8/24/2007 by Spidercents]

quote:

---

I usually double each track and pan each one on a seperate side...I double the rhythm and lead guitar,keyboard and so on...just right click on the track and copy then paste it where you want it.

Also when you pan each doubled track try and pan them at a different percentage/color as to not mud up the mix.

I wouldnt stagger your tracks...just copy and pan on each side or record each track twice live and use 2 different tracks to pan on each side...that should give more of a stereo sound because each track will be a little bit different if recorded twice.

Or you could record with 2 mics...I heard if placed in a certain postion you can create stereo sound.

Try and keep vocals panned in the middle or pan them a bit to each side.

---

Yeah recording same track twice and panning to each side is a nice little trick Ive just learned recently...im sure it would work for vocals as well however it would be tougher to match 2 vocals however it can be done.