Struggling for the next step July 6, 2009
Well, I had to find and reach the next step. The songs structures, the basic drums, are made. Because i’m mainly playing guitar, for a long time, I thought it was a good idea to deal with them. So I spent some time trying to find a good sound for them.
Because I had some trouble with guitar recordings on “So many days”, I spent some time on finding a better solution. I actually spent some money on a new effect pedal, about to simulate a Vox AC30 amp, the Tech21 SansAmp Liverpool. Let’s say it, this pedal is amazing… But I had to find one sound, for it’s so versatile… from clean old sounds from the sixties to the most wild sounds made by the Velvet or the Jesus & Mary Chain… Well… I found a coold clean sound for the rythm guitars… Here are the settings :
Despite those settings, it didn’t work. I thought it was a good idea to make some tests on a few songs… 3. The cover, “Using pictures”, “City lights”… And it didn’t work. The sound was cool, but I didn’t catch the feeling that deserved each song… Well i then had some time thinking about it… and I found the solution today… I have to record a mellotron track just after that basic guitar track… well, strings… I then made a string mellotron track for each of these 3 songs, and I found the spirit I wanted to get… So I can then record again the guitars with the right feeling… and more punch…
Those 3 tracks, one mellotron string for each songs, are the first tracks i’m going to keep…
So here is what i’m going to do now (considering a drum loop runs all along the songs, with tempo automation) :
- recording of a guitar track…
- then recording of a voice track…
- then recording of the main mellotron track : for each song, this track is the first one i’m going to keep…
- then recording again the guitars, the voice, then the bass… then adjusting the drums… then some more instruments and sounds…
Well, quite weird to consider I will have to spend a lot of time for finding solutions… also weird to consider I have to rely on a mellotron track for the main track whereas I wrote and played for a long time with a guitar… but when I find those solutions, it suddenly comes really quickly…