So I recorded a two track demo today....

[Daniel LeClaire]

A friend called me yesterday and asked if I could play drums on two songs for a singer-songwriter project. I agreed too and he dropped off a rough demo that I would be playing along too. The demo had vocals and acoustic guitar (both of which would be re-recorded) and a drum machine beat as a click.

We recorded both tracks this morning. The singer was there too. From listening to the demo I thought it would be a soft sound, so playing along to the demo would be no problem. In fact she wanted a much harder rock sound. This made it very difficult because the demo gave me very little guidance with no other instruments on it other than acoustic guitar. I tried to keep it simple and to work with what she wanted.

I was very dissappointed with the results. I don't know if it's a result of not having enough time to prepare, or if it was because the demo was so sparse, or if it was just me. I had a hard time really getting into the music. It was a bit like trying to play heavy rock while only hearing the vocals.

The time was another problem. I play slightly behind the click. That's just how I play. She tended to speed up and push the beat foward. So, I was faced with trying to follow her or the drum machine click track. I didn't want to let the time float around too much because so many other people still had to record their tracks. I tried to get more on top of the beat but couldn't quite get it. I kept good time but it sounded slow.

Did the circumstances make it difficult to produce a good track or is this just lack of experience? What do you do when you have little to no other intrumentation playing with you? How would some of you approach this? What can I do to improve my session playing?

[poumpoumtchak]

Hi there i was reading your post and i remember this same kind of thing occured to me already.Recording demos with nothing or barely nothing on it is a drag.Once i had to record drums on 5 songs /demos with only a guitar and a click track.The guitarist/singer had barely worked with a metronome and most of his playing was flamming badly with the click.So here you are trying to make it groove [img]confused.gif[/img] .I was quite young at that time and i didn't dear ask the sound enginneer and producer to do something about it so i did it anyway but i only focused on the click.At that point i asked them to turn down the guitar in the headphones and pump a bit more the click.
If i come across those situations now I try to add a little programmation or smth to bulk up the track rythmically it can be a loop or anything.
I would say that in your case maybe the "pre-production" part wasn't well made.It would have been easier maybe for you if you had more music to play to.And also knowing before hand what style you'd have to play .
To sum it up i'd say that it's not really your fault and that they should maybe have prepared their songs/playbacks better.
Bye

[S.P]

yeah i think all you can do in that type of situation is try your best to choose the part that will make the song feel as good as it can. Not your fault, and as musicians we'll have to ensure that we can play under the hardest circumstances

[troutbrooke]

It seems like every session I've played on in the last three years has been pretty back-asswards too. Now that everyone has Pro-Tools or something similar, the final product usually doesn't resembe anything you started off with. People don't even care about song arrangements since they can just chop it all up whenever they want.

In your situation, I would have just played to the click and tried to tune out everything else. After that, it's out of your hands. I've done sessions that sounded and grooved amazing in the studio only to find the end result horrible. You just never know what is going to be added or taken away in the world of multi-track and the digital realm. There's something to be said for direct to 2-track.

A few years ago I purchased a BOSS BR-1600 digital recording workstation (it's very portable, so I can take it to wherever my drums are, or even to a gig). Now, I just take a guide track from the artist, and then I record the drums myself. Then I send them the digital files for them to do what they want. This way I'm in control of the sound that gets recorded and I can do as many takes as I want to. It also gives me the freedom to try different approaches to see what works better.

If they don't have proper guide tracks for me, sometimes I use my keyboard to sequence a guide track with a click to record to.

I just finished a CD with my trio that we recorded this way. I think you would be surprised by the quality of the recording. Check it out at my site. I should have the discs in hand sometime next week at which time I will begin sending them out to everyone who has ordered one.

[Avi_drums]

Originally posted by drumming sort of person:
I just finished a CD with my trio that we recorded this way. I think you would be surprised by the quality of the recording. Check it out at my site. I should have the discs in hand sometime next week at which time I will begin sending them out to everyone who has ordered one.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Checked out teentown...that was smokin'. You should highlight the cd in its own thread.

[cjbdrm]

I did a jingle once where I nailed the click, but it didn't exactly sync with the out-of-time guitar part. The producer said "Notice how you're right on the click, but the guitar is 'flowing' with the click...can you try to do that, too? I very seriously said in a half-joking manner that he should re-record his guitar part...he wasn't gonna do that, so I did a few more takes until I was able to blend better with the guitar part. But I needed to play along with it several times so I could mentally note where he pushed or pulled the time- I thought this was total Bulls___!. I felt that if he had recorded his part better, we wouldn't be wasting our time right now, with me looking like I'm the incompetent one while I do take after take to 'get it right'.

In the age of Protools, it's even more essential to nail the click for editing purposes. The ironic thing is, if you DO decide to find the middle ground between the music and the click, or try to fit in with the music better(by not trying to nail the click but the music instead), you run the risk of sounding 'off' after everyone re-records THEIR parts...and before you know it, you find out someone else was brought in to replace YOUR parts because you couldn't cut the gig!!!

...and there goes your reputation.

I say always nail the click, if it's there...

[troutbrooke]

Originally posted by Avi_drums:
Checked out teentown...that was smokin'. You should highlight the cd in its own thread.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thanks man, but I wouldn't dare. It's not that I don't think the performance is pretty good, but it could have been so much better....

I'm actually prouder of the sound I got out of that equipment than the overall performances. Plus I'd rather let folks discover it on their own.

[Daniel LeClaire]

Well, let me just say that I appreciate all the replies. Thanks guys.

Certainly this was a tough demo to record. I can at least say that I learned something from it and that, hopefully, it's made me a better player.

[matricks]

Yeah DSOP, i dig [img]biggrin.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

[troutbrooke]

Originally posted by matricks:
Yeah DSOP, i dig [img]biggrin.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thanks matricks! [img]smile.gif[/img] I don't want to hijack this thread, so I guess I'll start a new one as soon as my discs are ready. I'll post some longer samples then too.