Lessons

Lesson Info

Recording Lead Guitars II

Let me I won't turn up this stretch out before you place so you need a that level work for you yeah tone is probably not exactly what we had on original but it's close I think one of things I mean you know the thing you know obviously with layering it's cool like this part might be like all that way too in the forefront it could be out of context but that's the beauty of mixing just this little little you know a note thing you know baird in the mix a little bit it just makes the part a little more unique and I'm a fan of like listening to records on headphones and you know you're in clear the little things like that is one thing we learned we did the cover album from between the berry to me they covered a bunch of you know, commercial covers and and were you know, I had never thought about how layer a lot of records are you know so many things going on that you mean a song like me straightforward and your guitar drums, bass and vocals or whatever but then there's so many other stuff sl...

ightly bury the mix and that's what makes it sound real but makes a sound produced up now for instance, this thing right here and tommy I mean, we don't have to do this but I'm only just copy and paste this just to show people one of the luxuries of having everything kwan ties is that obviously this part in the next time it happens is the same thing I think on the record we just track still for real right just you know just have variety of whatever but um you know like if it's supposed to be the same then you can always just ah copy and paste it and having the click track having everything kwan ties you know it's it is going to sit right into in time I'm just having to transit was having to the click here normally with bt band we do everything for riel said normally we don't copy and paste or whatever but there's a psychological reason to copy and paste a lot of pop music and things of that nature and sometimes they even banned you know artist with huge budgets and things like that the courses and stuff if you hear you know so you have a commercial structure song that's got like two to three or four courses or something like that if you hear the exact same thing again and then a third time it's like subconsciously is more in great grains and you're you know you're in a brain like just harder so it's like there's a you know there's a there's a reason that you can do that or whatever but you know it depends like like what tommy whatever between the very to me they're more fun performance base you know emphasis of whatever I think as far as you know what you guys were actually doing is more based on performance so we go from for performance on everything you know I mean there are courses on my record and especially since it is a verse chorus kind of approach rather than the band well we've taken the approach a little bit to get some courses yeah just to make it just to make sure office and he's exactly the same usually with the bbc band mint and tommy or whatever like he will still be some element to be the same but then he'll add more later we'll take away or about buildings yeah, it'll be the same but not the same you know? So it's just you know that progressive in nature you know, in an approach were we got that you want you want to do the clean thing yeah. You know there's no more guitars is there after that um it's just the verse and that's that yeah well we got the clean rhythm and then lose anything over there yeah there's a few little just a clean rhythm that yet to alight verb dry ok, we'll change the channel on this just for the people out there the city we're using for the rhythm we went for this regular mark for setting the mark five am allows for a new extreme metal setting which doesn't makes sense for this, but he's a more classic mark mark four setting and also has the mark to gain structure on here, which is great. But what changed to the more clean channel? Yeah, theo actually trying to pick up ironically, pretty flat here what we're set for the master on this is the smiley face acute, everybody hates on that. But these things, you have to have that because if you have the mids, it zero on this, this thing, it just sounds so boxing and mid range and it's almost like they know people going to do that. So they just met you know, I don't know, but that's just from the mark for and even the premise anyone's with the mesa graphic I mean, it's, just you've all what, you always see that and it is always like a joke kind of thing. Whatever you like, I would usually never do that on a base or whatever, but for this thing, it works. But this enabled, like, think way have the modulation. Sounds kind of cool. Was it just wade modulation that yeah, just try that for a time. Do you think he did the tremolo more stuff for those you home? We have some stuff with probable track here, but it's just that we have percussion in this song it's just is literally a loop of will yeah it's with the shaker or something and we just were able to loop it percussions one of those things that I realize it's a very hard thing to track people think they're like all tambourines bigger it's hard it's really I mean the guys that are good to complain I mean the whole song to be that consistency is an endurance test but like said normally what I do another benefit from having the drums kwan ties is like said, you know we'll just impromptu bunch of percussion stuff and like we called a cool moment of something he did we could just take it, grab it and loop it out and it's you know, this is one of things like, you know, obviously want to be performance so we actually use the performance we live today because you know, this stuff has to be tell me ever does this material live? You just put this on the background is not going percussion player on stage to me there's you know, that's not a compromise and integrity here and you think you know, but the only other percussion we had in this particular song was I think some little symbol the bill oh yeah, yeah don't even know what that is it's just a it was a little bill little tiny simple we found later I think it's actually my son's little toy ways yeah that was will's idea socal uh oh yeah let's do this uh this clean rhythm for the verse sorry to stop you and I will turn the game down a little bit that's what I was saying about going with your good want a little more presence a little less game good try again just sound a little duel in the mix and I just know in terms of layering cuts how'd you feel that's pretty good great double that was close and like at the end there you know how it kind of built it up that's something you know in the studio just as working with you a lot I know we can make that build yeah I'm a natural yeah so that's that's something you always think about yeah what ways to make the course pop a little bit and we use reverse symbols a lot or just there's a lot of tools to kind of yeah they make of course pop pop in your face a little more they made their soul with light risers and things like that is put you know like oh sample banks we could pull from like a lot of people use based trump's obviously like our big reverb kicked ramadi using you just have to create impact and uh effect and stuff whatever course we'll get into that when we do makes no no no we used much anything synthetic on this song whatever now this song's what do you know we could talk about that have fun this is about uh yeah one thing I wanted to mention real quickly I thought about and you know tom you're doing excellent with it but one thing that I make notes like before you start tracking try to find out from the client if they're uncomfortable with like people being present like the other band members talk about that with the locals like obviously thomas you know whether musician is right so just do you experience definitely that but I think I feel like that really affect some people you know there's a lot of times you're thinking about what their mother with the people with you know the audience is thinking about not what you're supposed to be thinking about this the music and the performance and it's not enough to have to play from oven engineer that you don't have only known for a short while but that's one thing I always try to talk about to the to the client like hey do you want me send everybody all the room are you comfortable with the other band members some people actually like having people they feed off of it they have more energy and actually play better with a new audience um but you know some people were just like I just want to be more myself not distracted and I tried you know you know, I've had a situation where bands, you know, they have members or a member who was trying to play the role of producer and it really dragging the whole thing down because they're like, you know, they you know, they have that brother relationship, brother, sister relationship, and they dropped their dragging the person down instead of being constructive, and I'm just like, hey, dude lists, let this guy do what he's got in mind, capture that, and then you come in and we can produce it after the fact, you know, in a more constructive fashion or whatever, so I can kind of be, you know, I usually don't bring it up unless I notice it's an issue or whatever and with between barry to me and they're comfortable and, you know, I kind of know how they are with things, whatever it over the years, I mean, yeah, I mean, I used to never have anyone into with vocals seriously, and you still prefer yeah, desires being also whatever, but yeah, I mean, I think you know, to me, the whole too many hands in the cookie jar thing is never give that, you know, you get to meet people oh, try this, try that it's like, dude. Let he's playing it let him try what he had in mind especially in the bands like a democracy or you know you have you know, a band structure is not like a songwriter with hired group of people if you have a songwriter high group of people I think like with will who did the drums tommy needed to be there to kind of help direct him and tommy was cool let him do whatever you want to do anyway for the most part but you know, we were able to there to kind of convey that idea is a little more and say what you like and don't like that nature but uh but I so much wanted to interject there but let's let's put you in half way of I think the first half good, right? Yeah, those two way so we have two more into the build up do the build one more time I'll get to match the other one a little better about it did you that's one thing I would want to mention why we're tracking guitars to guitar player bands particularly in middle uh you usually I've learned and this is industry standard approach whatever is to have one guitar player track the part and then do the guitar lift you got two guitar players because everybody plays a little different flurries is different and I'm a big fan of let's use the same man in the same guitar saying guitar player left and right. So you get matched, you know, nice tight is particular with metal and stuff that you want talking, articulate because, you know, that's a really, you know, you know, I do understand it using different aunts and different guitars or stuff sometimes can make it sound wider when I think having intonation issues based on different players, different guitars, tone, unbalances and things like that from system to system to me is not worth the slight widen issue get from half a day. You know, I would rather be tied as kind of the point, you know, as you know, one of the things you focus with a rock band, like, say, for guns and roses or something like that. You know, he had slash and easy, you know, then you have the perfect player that was cool for that stalin music. So it's completely relatives his time. Tommy's, obviously, one man shows so it's, like, obviously is going to double himself. But this ptolemy's, it would be cool. Maybe what to do, but, yes, there's something. I also was thinking about that. I normally talk about that. Well. That I normally do myself I usually and that's sometimes becomes a debate within a band like we gotta to guitar player band and then some guys like you know, there's always one guy who's better than the other guy and that probably should track most everything and the other guys like not happy about it yeah that's a different discussion, you know? Is it good that outside of the psychology of yeah, whatever but as an engineer I got to try to you know what? I'm trying to get the guy who's not quite as good on his much stuff you can like a you know, like do that you do these parts and then you do these part you know, just teach him your harmony or whatever you know you're trying to be a leo leo he's on so that everybody gets some action on the record and you know, it feels like, you know, you know, especially when you got a bad situation it's unsigned and everybody's like paying, you know, they're like, well, I'm not going to be on the record this is crazy, but it really would sound better if it's the same guy doubles every once in a while finding a band that you know, I had a band once that had twin guitar players and they played exactly the same thing and it worked out but that is very rare so just a just a little thing is a producer I think it's ah you know, la times have clients you know who semi masters and the guitars or just really loose and it's called they lit different people tracked left and right they understand how to get like qantas the guitars that you still sound loose and like this duty to tell us to different players this guy's kind of half paul meeting this guy's really tightly palm unit and it just sounds bad, you know? He would sound good if this guy does either guy doubled themselves it would sound good. So anyway, let's finish this buildup and you want to hear that I mean even build up there, I like it and I made a mistake there are cut the recording off before the reverb trail don't do that but it's not a big deal you like, you know, I just faded out aware that doesn't when it's mixed properly that's not going to need to be there allowed anyway but normally wanted to make sure you have plenty. It is very more versus so we'll do that, theo, I think is more system this river, right? And then we'll be done with that tie this off? Yes, they have added more verbal sounds about right right was that a little bit of compression tio music oppression in this instance, just add a little bit of sustained to the note and this is the instance halfway through the verse the vocals changed no, I used the verses of building to the core of buildup to the course and halfway through like the guitar there needs to be something else because this is what I had written in this little thing we're adding right now we're just kind of still but on the way yeah we just you know, I was just messing around and I was like I want something very, very, very simple that doesn't take away anything but adds a cool texture in the background so that's kind of where this part came from let's get a little more we'll add a little more orchestration to counter counter melody these air consider them kind of lead if you noticed my group things like uh jamie can I hear the original one second with this sorry accidentally had the lead tricks engaged uh you want any specific side? Just one of the side the low side? No thanks. Yeah, I think I added a little extra reverb in the mix for processed it on there and this is actually left and right parts on the track it left or right sweet little booth thiss one thing about tommy likes it for the most poor and be seen and bury me guys and, uh you know you know that I recommend and we'll talk about this more later but the being prepared before you come in like said this is the part that that time we kind of we added to the whole thing but the rest of song was pretty much written and rehearsed to a degree and so we had time to mess around with taking it to the nail the other parts yeah yeah we got to we got to the gods of all the basic guts or whatever then we have time I have bands off all the time who ride on the computer and they don't you can't here is going to sound like yeah they don't want to do that but they don't rehearse or they play you know, write stuff beyond their ability to play and we spend all the time just tracking the bare bones and we're out of time you know, in terms of that's a good question for you tell me what what are some things that you do as in you're like from the writing process to the studio that makes the studio time a loss I wasn't touching that tomorrow okay but I can't no such on tomorrow okay save it so there's there's a good deal here tomorrow for sure yeah yeah but I mean I know with anything I do in between the bear to me we liked it's always good to have those extra days that you can sit back and everybody's already listed in their cars or whatever they're normalised the music on and this this part's empty we need something something even if it's something as little is this like this is one of my favorite parts of the record and no one replied no is with me but it's just that simple military makes this part really unique and cool to me, so I think just having that actual little time is really nice to make parts pop I'm going to be a champion pales that allows a time too, because even you yeah, we do schedule tons of bands are always schedule more than enough time that I think it should take in somehow the band's often times in using all that time you know, it's just like you and we'll have time to get lucky and the record turns out great anyway, there's a lot times man is like this record is better and there's a fine line too you don't want too much time because you don't want to wait I want to put too much over yeah there's that that support my job is kind of like, ok, you know, I think we're over a long yeah, everything we're doing now is stuff that no person will notice when we started putting like horse sounds yeah it's shaking wait a lot times until clients too you know, it feels good roll with it if it doesn't obviously we'd come back ideally comeback listen everything make sure it's good sonically but it doesn't feel good just do it again especially and I think that concludes air guitar tracking let's pretend that we listen to all of this and we decided hey, all the guitars rocking list tracks and base that was that was the kind of whole idea behind this I've never written a song that's one pretty much milady the whole time and basing a song around that that that was kind of ideas so base will go by very quickly cool so you got some place that needs help and I can talk about what we were saying like it's something feels wrong okay? If something feels wrong when you're tracking to just speak up that's something I've over the years I've kind of I've learned to just do it like no matter what, not if it's gonna make somebody upset or it's going to make a little more work for you or jamie like you need to say it because I think every musician when you listen back to records like there's that part it always you always remember it your like I wish I could change that and I almost every record I've ever been on there's those moments and with this record especially I was like a stated the studio for the first time I've ever done that and so in the mornings I would get up by myself and listen to the songs and every little thing that bothered me I made sure to fix and this was the first time I was like why haven't always done that because there I mean there's little things that no one would know but it just little things that bother you so like speak up if something bothers you especially as a vocalist because those little things will get to you because it's your voice you know when you hear your voices awkward anyway so yeah listen over and over and then bring would you just make a list notes that you would then take to jamie yeah there's certain things that and you know I even even with this record I cut two songs which with the band we we know they don't you know we know my right what's going on the record and that's how I've always done things and and I remember like I think we're track for twelve days for this project and how many songs did you do like the whole project well total twelve in twelve days yeah for well we tracked fourteen keeping miners like three two of the songs were elektronik they got cut ok so a lot of that done already done yeah so basically we focus focused on was the live instruments drums, vocals, guitars, bass um but yeah, just just sitting back and you know, everyone I was sit back and that those two songs would come on just like they don't work like they should be on this record I like the songs you know they're close to me because I wrote all right you know but yeah I think that's important to just was it stylistically it didn't fit the rest of the people didn't feel he said like I know I know aa lot of people know the band and me for doing a lot of different sounds and and but at the same time we love things to flow and feel good like even if it doesn't feel good to somebody else like this a bunch of chaos but the us has to really feel right and the album has to flow as album not song the song you know that's that's how we've always approached him with and with those songs it just every time I got to it I was like I would probably cut the record off right now if I was listening or change the song I think I think just fine and those this faults and yourself in those things that you know you should change it's important and it's taken me a long time to realize that because I would always like I'll get over it it's fine yeah now you know I'll listen back an old wreck and light there's a part yeah didn't change it so so when you're writing for between the very me do you write you write in the team do you write all the parts out and then we take those parts of the van that it really to change it and it really depends if it's something that's like if it's a guitar riff all right how I think this section just should sound sometimes I put like, crappy sound and fake drums on it just to be like is kind of the field for the part but or it could just literally be a riff yeah and sometimes to the mayor sometimes that works with something somebody else has written it really depends or some things I'll start with keys you know it really just depends but we all we all right a lot on our own and then as a group we kind of get the songs how we want cool like a lot of the operation yeah with between a very mean a lot more than you know I'll talk about this stuff tomorrow my preparation which was fairly it was fairly simple but between the bear to me like we're doing that right now we're writing a new record and it's spending so much time I mean you really don't realize how much work goes into and it's it's worked and noah well or know about or and then we're not getting paid for it but it's, necessary toll is how many tunes do you write? You said you were you recorded. Fourteen, ended up with twelve very normal record for between barry, meet. Well, they know we're we're. We do, you know, like our last year was a constant record, so it was kind of a big piece music, and, you know, certain songs would be cut up in the multiple songs. So it's, hard to be like, this is a song. This is on there's, like segways, and but anywhere between eight and twelve tracks, only, hardly ever. More.