Official Production for Challenges Thread

[Gsoul82]

On June 27, 2016 at 9:26 AM, Felipe Carvalho said:

 

Oh I meant I can't play it properly, as in if you gave me a guitar today, and asked me to play a few songs with your band, I can't even wrap my mind around what I would need to do to prepare for it. I would not even say its being humble, I can see how I am just terribly naive on it. I've mentioned that because if you use this technique with someone that is more experienced on the instrument and can play with a good sense of flow, rhythm, etc, it really sounds great ( I will record something in this setup soon with the help of the guitarrist that works with me).

But you know what, mdew said something in the lines of begin from the basics, and I've been doing that , its part of my daily routine now to pick the guitar and study something on it for at least 30 minutes. Let's see what happens a few months from now!

 

Well, believe it or not, I'm doing that as well (on about the 9th attempt to learn the guitar). About 3 weeks in. Turns out I never really knew what I really wanted to do, or how to go about it, when I decided I wanted to "learn" it, until I had already tried to learn it 7 times.

 

The more I thought about it, the cooler I thought it was to be able to make music with what's inside your mouth and what's in your hands. Singing alone is incredible, but being able to do it while accompanying yourself? It's much more complete. You're a one-man show. And now, beyond that, being able to create whatever comes to mind with an instrument other than your voice? Very powerful stuff.

 

[Gsoul82]

15 hours ago, Bzean123 said:

Right on Felipe and GSoul!!! Keep at it!

It just takes dedication to learn, that's all. Being a guitar player first and for much longer than I've been singing, I kinda feel naked singing without a guitar in my hands. And, yes,, as GSoul says, its just hugely rewarding to be able to produce the harmony (and a bit of rhythm) to go with the melody. One of the things I want to ultimately be able to do is create a complete arrangement myself: sing the melody, play the bassline and harmony on guitar and play percussion with my feet. Ambitious, ya think? BTW, this is not to contradict Ron's point about playing very simply when just starting out and when learning a song. That's absolutely the way to go.

But to get back on point - I came across this video yesterday and figured it might help. This guy has a pretty good, basic idea of how to put the singing and the guitar together: 

 

 

I first got a guitar 8 years ago. During that time, I had 2 teachers and attempted to self-teach myself several times. My first teacher was good, but took too much time off. We'd have a lesson, he'd go out of town the next week. We'd have another lesson, he'd go out of town for the next week. We'd have another lesson, he'd go out of town for 2 weeks. Second teacher, which was one of my last attempts, was actually my piano teacher who had given me lessons for 2 years, but school got too busy, so I had to make the decision to drop the guitar for the moment. That piano experience, by the way, is why I'm much more confident that I'll be able to stick with it this time. Between all that, I attempted to teach myself and never really learned more than around 20 songs and a bunch of chords. I had no direction when I was on my own. Now I know much more about what I'm doing and why.

[ronws]

Well, a perfect example of what I am talking about in simplifying is in playing and singing the "Rain Song" by Led Zeppelin. Having heard the song, I learned to play it from manuscript, which is a full arrangement, not just the guitar part. And the full arrangement is guitar, bass, melatron, drums, strings. I was tying my hands in notes trying to get chord voicings that accounted for everything.

However, another song, "Dust in the Wind," really is played with two guitars (a duet of Rich Williams and Kerry Livgren) but I had figured out how to play it on one and tend to keep it that way.

By all means, keep the rhythm and meter of the song in mind. In fact, I have re-arranged chord shapes around what the vocals need to do.

Another thing, change how you play a chord to fit the song. For "Highway to Hell," I play the A chord with just the middle finger across the strings at the second fret. this sets up my had to play the first inversion D chord that follows and alternate F# and G for what is essentially a harmonic bass line, though it is not the bass guitar playing this. In fact, the bass guitar only comes in at the choruses.

Normally, I might play A the way that I learned it from Mel Bay's Book of Chords, which was first finger on A, middle finger on F# just below, and ring finger on C# just above.

"Land Down Under," I start with Bm chord and use the pinky for the floating melody and move to A with the first finger across the second fret and the pinkie finger on the 5th fret and kind of arpeggiate the chord, just a smidge.

"Travelling in a fried out combie. On a hippie trail, head full of zombie."

(combie is australian slang for an RV or caravan type of vehicle and zombie was a slang for funny cigarettes.)

[Gsoul82]

5 hours ago, Bzean123 said:

Ron

Wow, well the Rain Song has  a lot going on even with just the guitar. So that's ambitious. I was working on it a while ago (just the guitar), but haven't played it in about 10 years. I have to brush up on it, cause its a great song and hey, I might even be able to sing it one day.

GSoul

Yeah, I'm sure the piano is a big help, especially if you sang along then. If you can sing with the piano, the guitar should be no problem whatsoever.

 

Yup, I did. Trying to start singing over things with the guitar and it's moving along.

 

The stuff you and Ron have been saying is also stuff that's interested me. I had seen and read a few things since I started playing again. Doing more on a guitar than just playing a song, like making changes in a way such that you're compensating for only playing one guitar is amazing.

[ronws]

The recording and mix stinks but the playing was much easier when I scaled back the guitar part to just guitar.

"Rain Song" # 2 by Led Zeppelin

http://www.box.com/s/09def48d0af59a258e5b

 

[Gsoul82]

40 minutes ago, Bzean123 said:

Great! Post something for us to hear!

Yeah, it's funny because the piano is so much more conducive to playing multiple parts. With the guitar it's a real challenge. As Ron said, trying to cram everything together just doesn't work. It's more about hitting the most important notes and creating the illusion that you've got everything going at the same time. For the record, I am no pro at this stuff. I've got a couple pieces I've kinda sorta got down, but at this point its more of an aspiration than a reality. I will get it though.

 

Cool Ron! This song really shows Jimmy Page's genius. It's so lyrical. The singing and the guitar together is all that's needed IMO.

When you get to 'I felt the coldness of my winter.....'  you really got the Robert Plant belt down! I'm nowhere near being able to sing that.

 

Working on it. I can almost play this one Isley Brothers song all the way through. Could already sing it without completely decimating it, lol.

 

I don't know. Something about the guitar always attracted me. I think everybody at one point heard at least one song that made them go "Wow! I want to play that!" and decide to pick it up for the first time.

I never really listened to music that had that instrument in it, but once I started to, I knew I wanted to play. Something about those sounds it can make. 

 

8 hours ago, ronws said:

The recording and mix stinks but the playing was much easier when I scaled back the guitar part to just guitar.

"Rain Song" # 2 by Led Zeppelin

http://www.box.com/s/09def48d0af59a258e5b

 

 

Reminded me of Bowie at a couple parts.

 

 

 

 

[ronws]

Thanks, Bzean. considering I was overloading the mic, singing so loud. It is also my favorite part of the song. The rest of the song, I feel like I am holding back but during that part, the G-F-C progression, I can let go and get it out.

"Talk, Talk

I felt the coldness of my winter.

I never thought you would ever go.

I felt the gloom that set upon us, upon us

But I know that I love you so ..."

[ronws]

More tricks and hacks in our production thread. For this, I need to use Felipe as an example, at least of end product, regardless of what he may be actually doing. When he does a recording, he treats the whole recording.

Here is what I mean by that. Say you are buying a karaoke track from the link supplied here. Don't assume that you cannot do stuff to that backing track, Go ahead and do stuff. And run a compressor on your master track to glue everything together. Treat the result of your singing with the backing track as a whole new product. Really be the producer.

Use auto-ducking compression to lower track volume of the music when your singing appears.

Put some EQ plug-in on the backing track and notch down a decibel or two around 2 kHz. The human voice sits in that area and you can give it prominence that way while having it sound like it is in the mix, as a whole.

You can also do a high-pass filter at a low point. Because if  you dip the backing track at 2 kHz, you may make it bottom-heavy unless you take off some bottom end.

And if you are like me and like to record stuff, even covers, playing your own instruments, realize some things that can make mixing easier. An output from a keyboard, or outboard guitar modeler, like the Line 6 Pod or my Roland GS-6, is already providing some compression. The quietest and loudest notes are not that far apart. So, don't apply extra compression on that track.

You can fatten rhythm guitar with layers. Either double track playing the guitar part again, or duplicate the one that you have and give it different eq, effects, pan, etcetera.

Lead Guitar should not be doubled but you can  fatten it with chorus and delay, either with your effects unit before input or with plug-ins on the track.

Bass guitar should be direct inject and you can mutilate the stuffing out of it, later, if you want.

Unless you are an awesome drummer in an awesome room with a plethora of mics and a tuned set, stick with either MIDI or keyboard drums. Worst case scenario, it may sound "programmed" but at least the timing is correct. (Thinking of Glen Fricker's t-shirt "1 2 3 4 this shirt is already smarter than your drummer.")

 

[ronws]

I am with you, Bzean. It is also a continuing journey for me. Both from the wisdom of the two dozen or so books I have read and my own adventures, sometimes with great results, sometimes with horrible results. The nice thing about a really big mistake is that you clearly know what NOT to do again. When I get something right, usually by accident, I cannot always replicate that.

Although I must say that my greatest successes were not about equipment but about really knowing the song like it was the back of my hand. And some of my most strongly critiqued recordings were often one-off shots, usually experimenting with something new.

For example, first time I turned on and tried my Zoom H1 portable, I decided to do a song I have never played before. "Everybody Talks" by the Neon Trees. First and only take, me literally sight-reading and singing at the same time, though I had heard the song plenty of times before (one of the secrets of sight-reading.) But, just about everyone gave me pointers on that.

So, I realized, this is not the place to present sight singing and new experimental steps with a new piece of gear. This the place to put forward the best recording you can, as if it was something you would hear on the radio.

But I still had fun.

And while we are on the subject of recordings being anything but an actual live event, something we can do with vocals that pros do all the time. You have one chorus that really shines. Another one, not so much. So, don't use the bad one. Copy and paste the good one where you need it. A recording is all "fake."

Now, if this was a campfire,  I could get away with a sight-read. As long as you have had enough beer, it should sound good ....

Now, have I done that? Pasted a good chorus in place of a not good one? No. I do the Ryan Strain method, sort of. I sing and go. And when I get a section I like, I drag the item down (in Reaper) to a keeper track that is not armed. "Keeper" means I am keeping what is on that track. Point being, I go ahead and sing each chorus, though I may sing it more than once to get what I like. That is what I did with "Highway Star" by Deep Purple.

You can also do this while singing through one time. You are going along and mess up at a certain point. Snip off the screw-up. Drag down the good part. Then start back up just before the mess-up, not at the beginning. And keep going until you mess up again. Maybe you won't. But I find this a very relaxing work flow. It doesn't matter if I screwed up, you won't hear it. I will just keep doing that part until it sounds right. This takes the pressure off of me trying to do the whole thing just perfect. Because you will not sing perfect.

One thing some engineers know, as much or more than some vocal specialists, is that you never sing the same way twice.

edited to add: one cheat I will admit to for "Highway Star." Two instances of the chorus were in the wrong point in time. So, I moved them to line up where they should be. Color me bad, I am on the highway to Hell.