How long do you spend working on your stuff? (1 Viewer)

[Denny Oubidoux]

I'm recording a two minute pop song, I've been at it for days and its nowhere near finished. Its the fucking drums that are bogging me down.

I havent done any recording for about 4 years so I guess its to be expected that it'll take me a while to get back into it. My singing is desperate and me tinnitus is flaring up again.

 

[ann post]

IT DEPENDS.

ages usually, though most of the time spent not doing anything audibly constructive.

 

[dudley]

too much time.
currently most of my time is spent staring at the folder on my desktop and getting too daunted to open it.

 

[Anthony]

In "demo mode" I can lash stuff out. Hardly caring about mic positions and sounds.
In "oh my got this has to be perfect mode" I take ages and ages, usually trying to recreate the demo. Example, recently recording a solo, took me 64 takes. Also spent about 50 takes on a verse the other day. Listened to it again... shite.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

64 takes! do you save them all and piece together a good take? I find (or used to find when I used to do such things) that the guitar solo has to be done in no more than three takes - first time when you know your fingers are sizzling, second one if you get wrong and then maybe a third but if you have to go beyond that then forget it, the moment has passed.

I recorded some guitar parts the other day straight into the computer, no amp, because i wanted to work on the general structure of the song and the house mates were home and i didnt want to piss them off . Then i spent ages tinkering with them, trying to make them sound good even though i knew i'd have to rerecord them again with the amp when i had the house to myself. total waste of time.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

I never really got demo tapes, i think i'm too young

 

[Scientician 0.8]

I never really got demo tapes, i think i'm too young

They made sense when:

a) home recording was bad quality


and

b) studio time was (relatively) more expensive than it is now.

 

[Anthony]

Yea, 64 takes. Didn't want to do any comping because I wanted it played straight through. Oh, and wAs a rerecording of a solo thAt was an improvised 1 take job.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Did you get it in the end?

 

[dubh in seattle]

Ah Anto will get it! Yeah, the ability for us all to do dozens of takes (or in my case, send a band dozens of mixes of each song-- hi Anthony ) is a blessing and a curse. Holy hell, when budgets allow & I'm mixing at a 'real' studio, with every track on a console strip & not mixing by mouse it's a trillion times faster work. Or CAN be; in those situations then I've got the desire to replace all the plugins with actual rack units, so back to square one sometimes...

More than one person/band on this board knows that I've finally realized what an obsessive freak I can be when mixing & I've started asking for specific deadlines. And it's only taken me 20 years of mixing to figure that out D'OH. Funny how true the saying is "work will always expand to completely fill the time allotted" or whatev; having a real deadline sure as hell helps me get stuff done. Actually done, 'cos otherwise I will keep going going going. I need to start imposing deadlines on my own original stuff; it's embarrassing how long I've been working on some of my own stuff. It's sooo easy to endlessly tweak the eq on a single guitar phrase, or the kick drum, etc and totally lose the plot. It was in some ways easier when I owned a studio & ran full sessions, 'cos a band's time constraints meant that done was done. Hah but just as many 20+ hour days then as now that I'm just mixing.

So yeah Shaney, I hear ya. Man, the tinnitus is worrisome & a maddening pain. As hard as it is, it's vital to take breaks every couple hours, heck have even 5 minutes of silence every hour and it'll really help. 5 minutes of silence, deep breaths and jogging in place will help even more... getting circulation going + a bit of quiet is huge in resetting the ears. And is your mixing space ringy or all hard surfaces around you as it is? That can totally speed up the onset of tinnitus on its own.

Mix-wise, it can be really helpful--REALLY REALLY helpful-- to grab a song you like the drums on or the general tonal balance of, import it into the song you're working on & listen to just that song a time or two through your speakers, get used to how it sounds. Then mute it & listen to your song; every now and then solo up that song to see how everything fits together in comparison, switch back and forth as you adjust your mix. Sure the goal is not to copy somebody else's song or tones, but more to see what's happening that might not be working together right in your mix.

It's really true that reductive eq is more often your friend than is boosting eq... if the kick and bass guitar are smearing each other, try scooping different narrow bands out of each. Like, say, maybe a narrow cut of a couple/few/many dB at 140Hz from the kick, and a narrow cut around 95Hz in the bass. Narrow meaning adjust the 'Q' or bandwidth so it's a fairly thin slice that's getting pulled down. Those frequency suggestions (95Hz and 140Hz) are totally arbitrary examples to be sure, but I reckon you get what I mean. It'll depend on the song's key & how much whump and non-tonal rumble is on your particular tracks.

Often you can cut wider bandwidths out of a kick higher up, like the 220Hz-350Hz range and never miss it in the mix, same with overhead mic tracks, but it'll open up space for everything else. Often you can sharply cut off the low end non-tonal rumble on guitars (a high-pass aka low-cut setting) at 80 or 150 or 250Hz or whatever/depending on the song and never miss it in the mix 'cos the drums & bass will have more room.

Similar going for high frequency stuff, like cymbal overheads & guitars; I'm often amazed at how much better a mix fits together by notching down that stuff in the 2kHz-4kHz range. AND it'll spare the tinnitus onset somewhat. So maybe notch down the cymbals around 2.5kHz a couple dB and the guitars around 3.5kHz...very often there's little to nothing going on above 5 or 7kHz on guitars except 'sssssssss' and it won't sound like anything is missing in the mix if you play around with a low pass (aka high-cut) type eq up there & smooth it off. Sure the actual best frequencies will vary.

It's good exercise now & again to NOT solo tracks while you're making eq adjustments & see where that leads you... and save your mix-in-progress often as like 'mix in progress 01' or 02/03 etc so you can always go back if need be. Spending some time not soloing tracks while adjusting eq/etc really helps me realize how much clutter or rumble can often be eq'd out of a mix & not be missed, that I'd have never done if I'd been listening to just the drums or guitar tracks solo'd, for example.

God I've turned this into a thread-jack, sorry! To answer your original question, I think I always spend 5x longer than my original, 'it won't possibly take longer than..."-idea of how long I'll spend on something... hah, and as if on cue my wife just came in smiling: "ah have you been up all night again?" She's a goodie for real, she knows the way recording/mixing/thumped.com distort all perception of time 6'46am here now...

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

I'm not a proper musician / engineer. I'm just pricking around in my bedroom. Still havent finished the 2-minute song.

 

[ann post]

stick it online so we can !gloat about what you are doing wrong!!

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

If thats a suggestion for me then no way.

 

[ann post]

yes it was. ah go on.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

no

 

[ann post]

well the end result is people are going to hear it anywhoo. just sayin like.

 

[HMD]

I've loads of unfinished songs going back years. Spend ages getting ideas down, get a structure/rough mix and then realize i'm bored/over it and start a new song. I enjoy messing about so it doesn't bother me that there's so many unfinished master pieces on my HD.

 

[taubstumm]

64 takes! do you save them all and piece together a good take? I find (or used to find when I used to do such things) that the guitar solo has to be done in no more than three takes - first time when you know your fingers are sizzling, second one if you get wrong and then maybe a third but if you have to go beyond that then forget it, the moment has passed.

melt some nines

 

[Milker]

remember an interview w L. Cohen re: Bob Dylan. He said they'd met in Paris and were complimenting eachothers work. LC said he loved Jack of Hearts and Bob said heloved Hallelujah. LC said it was one of those 'written over a few years' kinda songs. Dylan said nothing. Lenny had to ask how long it took him to write Hearts...10 mins was the answer.

I know you're talkin about recording but I just like stories.

 

[dubh in seattle]

remember an interview w L. Cohen re: Bob Dylan. He said they'd met in Paris and were complimenting eachothers work. LC said he loved Jack of Hearts and Bob said heloved Hallelujah. LC said it was one of those 'written over a few years' kinda songs. Dylan said nothing. Lenny had to ask how long it took him to write Hearts...10 mins was the answer.

I know you're talkin about recording but I just like stories.

oh yes! Ah to be guided by the muse like ol' Bob was/is... I wish it'd happen to me more often.