what is going on in your musical life

Have been reluctant to out myself, but whilst my Working Stiff Old Man Student Jazz Band is on hiatus I have been taking Skype guitar lessons from Sund4r to work on my finger picking and such and it is really helping a lot. He is as good a teacher as one would expect: really organized, calm, focused and clear and, as you know, he knows a ton about the guitar and all kinds of music.

Ha, glad it helps!

As I’ve gotten back into making tracks under quarantine, I’ve also slipped back into staying up until almost 3am with my headphones on.

Just listened to a couple of tracks I made with my dinky rig from 1998 or so (in the college radio station’s newsroom, over the summer when nobody was using it, and I was the program director so I had one of the keys) and remembered why it is that I really like having my unbothered hours late at night to fiddle around. Now if only I had PROPER gear back then, etc

amen brother

So many good ideas, mixed like shit on weak monitor setups, with no multiplex compression

NO TIME TO DWELL ON THE PASHT

I need to figure out Acapella tonight so I can record myself singing a 4-part a capella arrangement of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" I put together yesterday for Sunday's church service.

I was the recording engineer for this piece last summer. The composer put it out on Youtube now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbzv1XYzDw8&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR1RrQEpt5gB4-0PFYb-4MAFYwoZjSPUNM36-FBoqIPe19kEAcXgyoguGpc

https://youtu.be/Nbzv1XYzDw8

hi all,

i want to start recording music at home, and i have zero experience doing so. i find the world of software, plugins, DAW, etc., a bit intimidating, though i could overcome that if i need to.

but i read this today in an interview with Phoebe Bridgers and i wondered if this might be something i should look at buying and using, and i wanted to hear what y'all think, if you're willing? From an interview with Guitar World:

What setup are you using for home recording?
“I’ve been recording through the Izotope Spire. It’s so sick. It’s this little at-home thing with one giant button in the middle. If you’re not a gear head and you want it to sound normal without trying very hard, it’s great. I do all my sessions on them.

"It’s like glorified voice memos and it means I’m not having to work on my laptop. It’s only eight tracks, which is great for me, because it stops me overdoing it. Then you can plug a mic into it - recently I’ve been using this AKG C414 B-ULS - and it’s a great preamp. Since I’ve been doing that, it sounds so much better and I feel like I took my glasses off.”

Anyone have any experience with this thing or something similar? Could it be a good place to start for a beginner?

I meant to ask Sund4r if he used iZotope Ozone to record that piece he posted earlier.

Personally I get frustrated with interfaces that are designed for one-track-at-a-time recording. Because I play lots of different instruments, it would mean a lot of plugging and unplugging.

My best home recordings have come when I have everything I might ever use plugged into a mixer (in my case an el cheapo 8-channel Behringer). The tape outs from the mixer go into an equally cheap two-channel USB interface (Edirol maybe?), and thence into a computer running Audacity or NTrack or maybe Reaper.

I can get fake separation with careful panning.

It's possible I will revise this rig as things get easier and cheaper? Still, as I need to mic a drum kit I will almost always need more preamp, more channels, etc.

if you’re trying to record a room with decent sound and little hassle, spire is a good option imo

I meant to ask Sund4r if he used iZotope Ozone to record that piece he posted earlier.

Ozone is mastering software. I wouldn't use it to record. I used Logic Pro and a basic Focusrite Saffire interface, with two ribbon mics.

Right. I thought I was getting that confused, thanks.

maybe i can turn this into more of a "help me figure out my next steps" direction ... and btw, thanks so much in advance for any/all help.

what i basically want to do is to be able to record ideas on guitar or keys and then try to build from there - adding guitar/keys, vocals, maybe a synth or something. not much. maybe my old mbira if i get inspired.

as for percussion ... well, i don't play drums, so i imagine i'll be using none for now OR possibly a canned beat on a keyboard or whatever. i'm not too worried about that part of it.

and eventually, of course, i'd like to be able to move stuff around ... like "oh, this little bit should maybe go after this instead of before it ... and i'll double it!"

i'm completely unconcerned at this point with sound quality ... in fact, i quite like lo-fi stuff in general.

any thoughts or guidance (or follow-up questions) is much appreciated. i'm no tech wizard but i'm not a total Luddite and i've been working on computers for 25 years, so i can muddle thru a basic setup, i'm sure.

spire would probably better for demo recording, i used it to record demos with my old band. I imagine it will be harder to multi-track than just plugging into a focusrite with guitars or keys.

spire could be useful for drums, i guess

I used Logic Pro and a basic Focusrite Saffire interface, with two ribbon mics.

Incidentally, the composer was originally not that happy with how I recorded it. Iirc, he wanted a more distant, roomier sound, without ribbon mic colouration. I guess he came around to it enough to put it out there.

alpine static, I'd recommend you just get Logic, a sound interface, a couple of microphones, and a pair of good studio headphones.

For sound interface, get an Apogee Duet-- the preamps are really good in it, you won't need anything else. If that's too expensive, get a Focusrite.

For microphones, the AKG 414 that Phoebe recommended is a good workhorse mic for everything. Except vocals. 414 isn't good for vocals. Get an SM7 for vocals, it's cheap and makes everyone sound good.

If you want to get a stereo pair of mics, everybody has different opinions about it. I use these active Rode ribbon mics but they're not for everyone.

Do you use the Rode NTRs? I would be interested to try those. I used the AEA N22 ribbons for that recording (and for a piece of mine that was recorded in the same session, that I shared last year). Tbh, since I stopped working in a studio, I've usually just been renting mics - music stores rent them out p cheap, which I might recommend as an option, alpine.

@ Sund4r yes, I bought a pair of NTRs prior to working on a film score that was gonna have a lot of harp on it. They are fussy to use because they're so heavy-- having them in a stereo pair with just a bog-standard mic stand means I gotta be careful about balancing their weight. They sound EXTREMELY good on weird shit like harp, harpsichord and celeste-- all the difficult-to-mic instruments, they're amazing. I like them on oboe, also.

Oh nice

awesome, thanks so much fgti and Sund4r. much appreciated.

i wish there was a way to play around with a few options before i drop hundreds of bucks on this stuff. i suppose i should watch some demo / review YouTubes.

I need to come up with and record an arrangement of Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing by noon Saturday, possibly involving another singer I've never met. FUN TIMES NO PRESSURE

I found a reel to reel on the curb at trash day and it works. Not a fancy model ($200 on EBay) and it's pretty creaky but it has tube preamps and sounds pretty wild even not going to tape.

Received my Slum of Legs vinyl finally today & am really digging it right now — sounded great on phone/headphones but it really opens up in the living room with a real stereo. So glad I shelled out for the physical thing! It’s a treasure.

Aw jeez. Thank you <3

today is my debut on a recording as a sideman! even the tiniest things are enough to brighten my mood a blip so i am trying to enjoy this milestone :)

i just went ahead and used sideman because there is no gender neutral option and i wanted to show again how absurd that term is. we can do better!

I attended a Zoom workshop led by Ben Monder yesterday, which was the most I've felt challenged in a long time - pretty much a 90 minute barrage of information. Just working through the first bit of it, I already feel like my soloing has gotten a lot stronger. The takes I laid down for the piece I'm working on are a lot closer to what I want them to be.

i just went ahead and used sideman because there is no gender neutral option

Mike Watt uses "sidemouse"

thank you for acknowledging my post sic :)
and wow i forgot about that album! its most distinguishing characteristic is being too large for normal CD storage. i did not remember that song.

it's a lesser track on the album but I've always liked the neutrality of the term! hope your mousegig goes well

I attended a Zoom workshop led by Ben Monder yesterday, which was the most I've felt challenged in a long time - pretty much a 90 minute barrage of information. Just working through the first bit of it, I already feel like my soloing has gotten a lot stronger. The takes I laid down for the piece I'm working on are a lot closer to what I want them to be.

serious question, but where would be a good *starting* point to strengthen lead playing. I'm a dude who settled for playing rhythm years ago, and I'm not looking to be Joe Satriani, and I know there are a ton of online lessons, but I tend to be the type of dude who just has a hard time getting started, once started i'm good to go.

like if u got any good videoz to point out for someone who has played the occasional bluesy solo but isn't doing tapping solos or nufin

richard lloyd is more than available for online lessons iirc

not actually joking, one of my buddies took weekly lessons from him while he was still in nyc and it was apparently amazing

Neanderthal, are you very comfortable with a couple of movable major and minor scale forms? (I'm assuming you can play pentatonic and blues scales from what you said.) That's probably where I would start, with a metronome, and practising both picking every note (I favour alternate picking myself) and also playing slurred scales (hammering on going up, pulling off coming back down) in time with the metronome. If you haven't done this with the blues scale, that might be a good idea too. When that becomes easy, try doing slurred triplets with combined hammer-ons and pull-offs between adjacent notes on the same string (e.g. fifth position A natural minor: A-B-A, B-C-B, D-E-D, E-F-E, G-A-G, etc.) With bends, the thing is usually being able to hear/feel the right pitch you are bending to - practise hammering on to the target note, then try to duplicate it with a bend. Focus on just one thing at a time, though; definitely don't try doing all of this at once (I don't really know your level so maybe some of this is too basic?). Also just find easy solos you like, slow them down (easy to play Youtube videos at 50% or 75% speed if you don't have software that can do this), and play along with them, recording yourself.

(Not Neanderthal but) my trouble with soloing is this: I am cool with a decent bunch of scales/modes and movable scale/mode forms. You can get pretty far if you're staying in key and noodling in an appropriate movable form.

But the harder part (that has never quite clicked for me) is keeping the current chord in mind and choosing notes from (or that go with) that chord. Like, an okay solo works with the key. To do a good solo, your note choices need to work well for the particular chord you are noodling over at that moment. So, like, it's one thing to play something that sounds generally good over an A blues; quite another to play something that tracks its movement between the I, the IV, the V, etc.

use arpeggios?

So, like, it's one thing to play something that sounds generally good over an A blues; quite another to play something that tracks its movement between the I, the IV, the V, etc.

speaking as a former all-state jazz first trombonist, this is all in your head. just have a blast and the progression will eventually come back around.

this sounds like overthinking dance steps -- i can pretty much never follow dancers who are very rigid about "correct moves" but if the leader goes with feeling, it's way way way easier to follow (if i have to follow)

Think of it less in terms of what notes are allowed with each chord and more about do I like the way this melody sounds with the accompanying music.

Agree with NickB that it helps to practise the arpeggios for the chords you are playing over (or for standard progressions), identify a couple of places you can play each, where it is easiest to transition between, and essentially fill in the spaces with passing notes, or to start that way. Also thinking of tendency tones helps: so e.g. the leading note (7th note of the scale) will tend to rise up to the tonic if e.g. you end with that note over a V chord when you are about to change to I; sevenths of chords (not the 7th scale degree) tend to fall at a chord change, etc. Usually avoid or de-emphasize notes that are a semitone above chord members. Unless you're playing over something like rhythm changes, where the chords change every two beats at 200 bpm, in which case, yeah, just feel it out. There are a million backing tracks for standard chord progressions on Youtube you can practise with. You definitely don't need to apply any of this like a strict rule but it's a good way to get started with getting out of a box.

Usually avoid or de-emphasize notes that are a semitone above chord members

where is the fun in this I ask you

Well, don't do that if you want dissonance, which I often do! Leading into the chord member from a semitone away or a semitone below and above is a common jazz trick.

But yeah, assuming that YMP wants to follow the harmony.

("don't do that" = do the opposite of what I said if you want to sound dissonant)

See, I can play arpeggios, but that's basically the same as playing rhythm, to me.

And as far as sund4r's "thinking of tendency tones" and "avoid or de-emphasize notes that are a semitone above chord members," well, to do that I need to know what the chord IS, and that's the rub. If I have actually remember where we are, or look over at the other guitarist, "shit, what chord are we on now" then I lose the trance-state. As Tombot says, that's not as fun as letting loose and not caring where you are in the progression.

Anyways, it's not THAT big a deal - I do fine for the situations I put myself into, and I rarely have to play improvised leads anyway - I am usually on mandolin, or on drums, playing rhythm guitar. When I have to play a mandolin solo, I tend to write one and memorize it, as opposed to improvising.

just play don't think so much

Ah, if the trouble is keeping track of the changes, and this is something you want to do, then you probably will need to actively listen and count, which will mean getting out of the trance state for a while. And/or practise over those changes at that rhythm. Playing rhythm and playing lead are not that different - instead of repeating the arpeggios in a rhythmic fashion, you move around between the notes melodically and fill in the spaces. If you're doing fine letting loose and not caring, and that's more fun for you, then do that, ofc. I was just trying to answer the question (or at least the question I was inferring).xp