ArconicA

If youre a solo musician or band wanting to record your own music, or just interested in how I recorded and produced where eternity ends, then read on.

So first thing I need to tell you, is that 2 years ago i had no idea how to record or use a daw (digital audio workstation) to record my songs. it was a steep learning curve that i learnt by trial and error, and also looking at you tube videos to get the results i wanted. there is a plethera of information out there that will help. so don't just stick to the manuals. the daw i use is abelton 12 standard. i selected this as i purchased a native instruments komplete kontrol s61n keyboard which came with various plugins for the daw. you can also purchase a whole load of other plugins that will give you every type of instrument or sound that you want. abelton also include a load of their own instruments, sounds and recording tools. so if you are on a tight budget, you can probably find something you like within their own library already supplied with the daw. of course there are other daws to choose from like steinbergs cubase,  image line fl studios, avid pro tool (for recording professionals),  and exclusively for Apple, apple garage band (beginners DAW) and apple logic pro (for recording professionals) there are more out there so do your research before you choose.

another piece of software you will need is used to get your sound recording levels right. i use a software called youlean and is a free download. this type of software is absolutely crucial to getting your recording levels to the spec expected by cd manufacturers and streaming web sites. the levels required differ for a lot of them. Again there are others available like iZotope Insight 2, Nugen Audio VisLM 2, and signum audio bute. or for a budget friendly option, TBProAudio mvMeter2, Waves WLM Plus or Melda MLoudnessAnalyze. These all measure Loudness, dynamics, peak levels and so on. but stick with it and do your research, and you will prevail.

i am foremost a guitarist. i have limited keyboard skills but i managed to build my music in small chunks. apart from the guitar and vocals being analog files, the rest of the instruments can be produced using a piano keyboard and the notes are reproduced as midi. yes, even the drums. i will show you what a midi file looks like later. you can then audition the sounds that you want by using various sounds from your plugins. this can take time to get the exact sound that you have in mind for your music. the beauty of this is, once you have created your midi file with all the midi music notes in, you just have to select a different sound option from any plugin, and the daw will play back that sound to your music. cool or what!

i composed all of my music on my guitar, including the melody. i also play folk and classical so this came easy to me to do. i'm telling you this as i wanted to start off with one of the tracks on the album called hollow woman. as I said, i am not predominantly a keyboard player and although i could play most of the parts, there was one part i couldn't play on the keyboard but could play on my guitar. this technique was a godsend when i by chance found it in the options.

piano parts

so how did i do it? first, i played and recorded the part in question on my guitar. once i was happy with the recording and at this point, the sound level was not of importance, but had to be fairly acceptable) I then converted the analog file to a midi file. now because the daw is extremely sensitive to picking up sound, there will always be what I call music shrapnel in the midi file. i think that this shrapnell is harmonics picked up from the guitar. so i then had to clear out (delete) all the unwanted notes and at the same time move some of the notes that were not strictly to timing which you can do in a midi file quite easily. so if you have listened to hollow woman in full, the bit i'm talking about is at the end of the first half of the song, and the end of the song itself.

for other piano or synth parts, again i played the easy bits, and for the more difficult bits i programmed the midi notes in manually rather than using the above method. not all guitar parts can be converted to midi simply because you cannot always play piano parts on a guitar…..unless you have a hand span of 20 inches. if i didn't like the particualr sound i had originally chosen, i simply auditioned others from my available plugins. all the notes were there, i just needed to find the right sound. its the same for drums and any other instrument you've used from a plugin. this can take hours…..but its fun as all of the recording process is.

drums

the drums were again created from the piano keys. all the drum parts are assigned to an individual piano key. to get the sound, just simply press the piano key. 

so, what is the best approach to create your drum track. well it definitely is not to try and play all the parts, cymbols kick drum, snare hi-hat etc in one go. its best to build them seperately. and when i say seperately, i mean a seperate track for each drum part. reason? because you can easily adjust the sound levels later in your recording. when you have all the parts on one track, it becomes not a task, but a career in getting them right. 

the way i did this was to first record a track with the kick drum and cymbol. just record the basic rythm of the song. no fancy stuff at this point. the cymbol i would later cut and paste into another track. then i would add another track and add the snare drum. once you have those basic elements in place, you can start to add more fills to your tracks, either manually or by using the keyboard. and do yourself a huge favour. use the daws click track. i learnt that the hard way. on my first recording i ever did, i didn't use a click track and rather than turn it on and start again, i opted to rearrange the midi notes manually. it took me over a week to get it right. every days a school day right! it was a fundemental error and i certainly didn't make that mistake again

so what does a recording look like. see below.