Archive for 'Pro Tools'

Since Christmas is only a week away, I wanted to share a little something with you guys that is holiday appropriate. A few years ago I wrote an original Christmas song and recorded an a cappella version of it. This year my wife requested I bring it back and record it with a whole band. Well, time was limited so I decided to do the whole song myself…in Pro Tools. So I thought it would be a helpful post to play you the song and then briefly show you how I used my Pro Tools system to make it a reality. Thanks in advance for listening!

“This Time of Year”

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Starting With What I Had
Like usual, I started out by opening up my songwriting template. This is always a time saver as I have tracks already labeled and routed to my gear the way I like it. Since I wrote the song on acoustic guitar originally I knew I wanted to start there and build up. As I recommend to most people I started by creating a solid guide track, complete with a click and markers. Then I simply laid down the basic guitar part all the way through the song. I doubled it on another track with another pass through, cleaned up a few parts, and then I was done. If I were recording another group I would have laid down a scratch vocal, but since I know the song pretty well (I wrote the dang thing) I decided to wait on vocals.

Enter Pro Tools
Now without the rest of the band available I had to let Pro Tools fill in the gaps. Thankfully for me, that’s exactly what it’s good at! To record every instrument other than guitar and vocals, I turned to only two plugins. Digidesign’s Strike and Xpand! Strike is an amazing virtual drummer plugin that I had to purchase separately. I used it for every drum sound you hear in the song. Xpand however comes free with Pro Tools system…and it is a life saver. Just take a look at what I used it for on this one song:

• Bass guitar
• Piano
• Strings
• Bells
• Organ
• Tremolo suitcase piano
• Arpeggio effect

Talk about versatile. Xpand is one of the best virtual instruments I’ve come across. It’s packed with hundreds (thousands I think now) of patches, but even better than that is just how simple the interface is for tweaking the sound to your liking and mixing with effects, all within the plugin! The bottom line is that Xpand helps you make amazing music out of the box in a matter of minutes. No confusion, no fuss!

A Product of The Revolution
To be honest, this song is truly a product of the Recording Revolution that I believe we are in. We live in an age of amazing accessibility to outstanding recording gear for a mere percentage of what it would have cost for such amazing tools 20 years ago! That’s why this blog is called The Recording Revolution. We live in a unique time where anything we can dream up in our heads we can create in our home studios. And that is why I’m sharing this with you…I want you to be empowered and encouraged to fire up your home studio and start crafting great music and all the while ignoring all the hype and babble out there about the extra gear you “you need” to make pro recordings. While those people are debating which A/D converters to purchase you can be putting the finishing touches on another great song!

So you’ve finally jumped into home recording. You have a simple setup like I’ve described before and you’re laying down great tracks. Let’s say you’re a guitar player who mostly records your acoustic and vocals. You’re probably getting the hang of capturing a great acoustic guitar and vocal track. But what if you want more out of your sessions…perhaps getting some strings, drums or even horns into your song would go a long way. Read on…

Unlocking Your DAW’s Potential
You’ve already heard me espouse the benefits of using your home studio as a songwriting tool. Pro Tools for instance comes bundled with a whole host of pro studio grade virtual instruments that are just waiting to be opened up. My favorite is Xpand, which is like having hundreds of instruments in one box. I use it for grand piano, cello, synth pads, drums, a rhodes, and even the occasional pan pipe or sitar! The point is you get all of these amazing sounds that can be used to “fill out” your song, giving it that professional polish; all without having to hire studio musicians!

All that being said, just knowing that your recording software comes bundled super fancy virtual instruments doesn’t mean those sounds are getting recorded. So how do you “play” them and get these instruments into your session? The simple answer…you need a keyboard controller. Let’s a take a quick look at some affordable options.

The Simple Option: M-Audio KeyRig 49
A keyboard controller is basically a plastic keyboard that doesn’t have any built in sounds. It only can trigger (or control) software MIDI instruments. If you just want a basic keyboard controller that will get the job done, you can’t do much better than the KeyRig 49. Via a simple USB connection to your computer (not your audio interface) you can have access to all the great virtual instruments that your software has to offer. It features 4 playable octaves at once (49 keys) and you can of course bank up or down for higher or lower octaves.

The Super Compact Option: Korg NanoKey
If desk real estate is low, or you just want a super portable option for recording on the go, then look no further than Korg’s latest release, the NanoKey. This velocity sensitive “keyboard” is truly clever; boasting a lot of features for not a lot of money (or physical space). To the seasoned keyboard player this will feel a bit odd at first, but it will get the job done for triggering instruments and playing basic riffs.

The “Do It All” Option: M-Audio Oxygen 25
If you had to pick just one keyboard controller it might just be this puppy. Combining features such as multiple rotary knobs and assignable sliders, transport controls, and direct link to Pro Tools and Logic along with the small footprint of a 25 key controller, it doesn’t get much better (and simpler) than this. I personally use the older version of the Oxygen and can say with great confidence that it gets the job done right every time.

What Next?
Once you’ve decided on a controller that fits your budget, you simply need to install any drivers that came with it, and run any setup that your DAW might need for it. Once your software has recognized it once, it will recognize it every time you have it on and plugged in while you’re running a session. This is beautiful because it means you don’t have to think.

If you’re in Pro Tools, all you’ll be doing is creating a new Instrument Track (mono or stereo). Then simply insert the virtual instrument as a plugin (just like you insert your other plugins). Record enable your track, and start banging on the keys. You should hear the notes you’re triggering through the virtual instrument patch. When you’re ready to lay down something you just record as usual, but what you’re actually doing here is laying down MIDI data, which is digital information that tells your plugin what notes to play in the selected patch. You’re not actually recording any audio. This is fantastic because it means you can easily adjust notes or timing of your performance as well as completely change the instrument or sound while keeping your original performance. Talk about sweet!

Now You Know
Simply put, a songwriter’s best friend is his or her keyboard controller. Grab an affordable one (not much more than $100 or less), plug it in to an available USB port, and start tapping into all of the wonderful included instruments in your DAW. This opens a world of opportunities to people who would otherwise be limited to a guitar and vocal recording. Now you know…so get to it!

Like many areas of life, proper preparation will go a long way to insuring success. This is definitely the case with recording music. Just having a good song and decent gear in place doesn’t mean you should jump right in with guns blazin’. What you really need as you sculpt your masterpiece is a map. A reference point for all of your tracks to keep things orderly, in perspective, and consistent. Taking a little bit of time in the beginning to create a proper guide track will pay off big time as you begin to lay down all of your actual tracks. Trust me on this one….let’s see what this involves.

To Click Or Not To Click
I’m a big fan of click tracks. That wasn’t always the case, however. When you first start practicing or recording with a click track it seems to “steal” the groove out of your song. You feel rigid and you’re concentrating so much on staying in time that you lose the subtle nuance of your music. But trust me when I say that in time you learn to push past that fear and tension and the click then becomes your servant, not your master.

The first thing you should do when creating a guide track is open a new session and establish the proper tempo. Your song may even have tempo and time signature changes. Go ahead and map those into Pro Tools. Sometimes the slightest change in tempo (even 2 BPM) makes a huge difference. Sometimes I’ll even throw in a simple drum loop to follow the click track. You can always mute it later if it’s unnecessary. Take the time to play or sing along to your new click and make sure the feel is just right. This set time ruler (with a click) will serve as the backbone and the map for your whole song. It will be the reference for your drummer, your bass player, your guitars, keys, etc. It will be the one constant you all try to stick to. Even if you groove around the click, you will still have a reference point for editing, and mixing later on.

Scratch Tracks Save The Day
In most scenarios it’s helpful to record drums first in order to establish the rhythm and dynamic of a song. The drummer will then of course need to hear an instrument or two to play along with (it’s not like most drummers enjoy playing along with silence). Here you have two options: have a guitar or keyboard player jam with the drummer live so he can hear the main parts in his headphones, or have those tracks built in to your guide track. I prefer the latter.

After I establish the click track, I’ll have someone in the band lay down the main instrument part. Usually this is an acoustic guitar or keyboard part. If possible I’ll have the lead vocalist record a pass through of the lyrics. No worries if either of these tracks aren’t perfect. They just need to be in time with the click and accurate with the desired arrangement. I like having these recorded because then I know that each time I press record, they will be the same. Plus you don’t always have the luxury of recording the drummer when the guitarist and singer are present. And believe it or not, on many occasions I have pulled snippets of the scratch vocal track into the actual final recording because it had a relaxed feel to it that I couldn’t conjure up later! So do yourself a favor and lay these tracks down in the session. You’ll be glad you did.

Mark It Up
In Pro Tools there is a feature called Markers. These have many functions, one of which is a visual place holder to indicate a new section of the song. I use these to highlight where each verse, chorus, bridge, etc is located. It is super helpful for you as the engineer to quickly look down at the screen and know that the guitar solo part is coming in 2 bars. Take the time to place a marker at each important part change in the song so you can quickly jump around for punch ins and listening through takes. You can also place markers for alerts of tempo change, key change, or just a overall dynamic change that was agreed upon.

Use it as a tool…
Remember, the guide track is your friend. It is your tool to success. It takes a little bit of time to set up in advance, but it will serve you will as you begin to record, edit, and mix. You control everything in the guide track, so tell it to do what the song needs it to do. Think through all parts of the song to make sure that it doesn’t leave anything out. Once it’s done you will be more than ready to begin the tracking phase and you will have saved yourself a lot of future heartache.

Last week was Thanksgiving and I was somewhat out of commission work wise. What I did get to work on however was some songwriting with my band at Aletheia Church. We’re gearing up for a new EP due out early next year and we wanted to work out some new material together. To make our lives easier we wanted to be able to record, in an instant, what ever we were jamming on together so we could have a rough live demo for reference. This helps us go back and make arrangement adjustments later for when we’re ready to get in the studio for the “real” recording. How is this relevant to you? Well, if you have a band that needs a mixing or monitoring console and wants to do live recording easily and cheap…I have just the piece of gear you need!

Enter The StudioLive
In the past when your band wanted to capture a live recording (either from a show or a rehearsal) you had to have external gear out the wazoo to capture a copy of each track going into your mixing console. This usually meant a mess of cables, a multi input audio interface to match the number of tracks in your console, fighting with gain staging, etc. It was a hassle. Finally the guys over at Presonus got smart and built a brand new, full featured, intuitive, and affordable digital mixer/audio interface all in one.

Briefly here is what is so great about the StudioLive. You get a compact, 16 channel digital mixer with excellent preamps and converters. It has all the bells and whistles you’d need for live mixing (compression, EQ, gates, limiter, verb, delay, subgroups, scene recall, flexible routing), plus monitoring (aux outs for up to six separate mixes) laid out in an easy to use (and teach) format. But the beauty is in how easy it is to do live recording.

All 16 channels going into the board plus the Main stereo out are routed to a single Firewire output on the back of the board that can connect to any mac or PC. Combined with a simple piece of software called Capture you are two clicks away from recording any audio coming through the board with your levels perfectly set. This means all you need to record is your laptop and the firewire cable included. No other hookup needed! And if that doesn’t blow your mind enough, this board retails for only $1999.

How We Use It
So here is a brief example of how our band uses the StudioLive. On Sundays we use it as our main board. You can even daisy chain 2 of these together for 32 channels! In order to record our band and our Pastor during the service we simply hookup an old Powerbook G4 via firewire, load up the Capture software and hit record. Whatever is coming into our board is mirrored out to the laptop. We also used the StudioLive in the same manner during our writing session last week. The band was plugged into the board and we were jamming like normal, but when we had something we liked, I simply hit record on the laptop and with no mess we could lay down a “live” version of the new song.

What’s even better. With one simple menu option, I can export all of the individual tracks out of Capture into a folder ready to be imported into Pro Tools when I get home. This allows me to take advantage of all the editing and mixing power of Pro Tools without having to bring my audio interface to the practice (or even own a multi input interface for that matter). Presonus Capture makes it easy to “capture” the audio I want out of the board, but then throwing those tracks into Pro Tools gives me the power to finish the mix beautifully!

Suggestions…
The Presonus StudioLive is a great option for a few scenarios. If you’re in a worship band at a church, this can be a super helpful tool. Use it as your main console, your monitor console, and an audio interface for live recording and podcasting…all in one! Then dump the tracks into your Pro Tools rig (you can have one for under $500). Also, if you are in a band that needs to have a “touring” rig of your own, the StudioLive is a great option. You can have everything you need to ensure a great mix no matter the venue, with different scenes saved for different settings, and also with the addition of a laptop you can be recording all of your shows so you can easily make a live album or DVD (if you video) later.

It’s hard to beat the StudioLive for ease of use, included features, sound quality, and affordability. If you’re in the market for a live console, give this one a chance.

In Part 1 of this post I exposed 2 of the most prevalent myths relating to home recording floating around out there. You don’t need thousands of dollars of gear including boutique preamps to make pro recordings…it’s just not true (remember Ari Hest). Today though I want to touch on 2 myths that swing the other way slightly. Kind of playing devil’s advocate here. Because the other problem I see out there is people who claim to have all the gear I recommend and they just aren’t getting the results they want, so they blame the gear. Let’s take a look…

Myth #3 – “I have Pro Tools and it’s the industry standard, therefor my recordings should sound amazing!”

You’ll see this one a lot online. People will buy a Pro Tools system and then bash all the other software users out there while at the same time espousing that just because they own and use Pro Tools, they should be making pro level recordings. Now I’m unashamed to say that I love and use Pro Tools practically everyday. I think it is the industry standard for a reason and continues to serve as an awesome recording solution for hobbyists and professionals alike. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, just having a good tool doesn’t guarantee good work.

On this blog and when I do consulting I recommend most people get a Pro Tools system. Read some of my earlier posts to see a lot of the benefits to Pro Tools and why push it. I believe it has all the tools to help you make pro recordings. But that’s it. It won’t record for you and it won’t get a great acoustic guitar tone for you. YOU have to learn how to record, edit, and mix yourself. It takes time and experience, not money. So get the right tool for the job (and don’t pay anymore than you have to) but then learn the tool as best as you can. That is the ONLY way to get a good recording.

Myth #4 – “My recordings sound good to me so they must be good!”

I’m going to be honest with you right now. Just because you think your recordings sound good doesn’t necessarily mean they ARE good. Now how could I say that?! Isn’t music subjective? Well yes and no. I do encourage creativity and innovation. And many styles and sounds we now consider the standard were once new and weird. And you must make music the way YOU want to hear it. It is the only way to satisfy your creative spirit. If we’re all just recording music to meet some standard of perfection then we’re simply a factory churning out clones. But there is an important other side to this coin.

Taking all of that into account, when you make a recording you still need create a balanced and clear representation of the music you have in your head. It will need to be captured in a way that translates well onto computer speakers, iPod earbuds, car stereos, and home theaters. You have a medium in which you will be delivering your art and there are standards to which you must adhere. The problem comes when you have spent hours in your home studio working on a song or an album and it sounds good to YOU. But have you tested it on other speakers? Have you played it for people you trust? Have you compared it to they way your favorite professional recordings sound? These are vital steps to help you actually see the true recording behind your bias mask (we all have this). If you truly care about making great recordings, then take the time to ensure what you are creating will translate well into the real world.

Don’t fall for the myths…

You’re a smart person. You are reading this blog for a reason. Obviously you care about good music and making great recordings. Do yourself a favor and don’t listen to all the myths floating around on the internet or in recording magazines. And don’t espouse those same myths to yourself that will actually hold you back from making the best possible music. Instead focus your energy on getting the right tools, learning them well, and just getting in the studio and doing it.

Here on the blog my goal is to help musicians like you get the most out of your home recording gear while saving both time and money. Hopefully my posts are helping you do that. Sometimes however you might have a specific question that you’d like answered and I want to do my best to answer those questions here on the blog. Today I have a great question from one of my readers regarding Pro Tools  and whether or not one should switch to it from a different recording program. Check out the video and decide for yourself!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…we live in an era where recording gear is so affordable and so widely available that we should all just get out there and make more music. Turns out we also live in an era where bands are now recording their songs on cell phones. It’s crazy I know. If you haven’t already seen this video I want you to take 3 minutes out of your day to watch a group of talented musicians remove the “I need more gear” excuse out of the recording equation as they make a killer recording on their iPhone. The band is The 88 and the song is called “Love Is The Thing”.

Some Observations…
I want you to notice a few important things presented in the video. All of these line up with the philosophy of recording I try to teach here on my blog and when I do consulting…

First, they were recording in someone’s house. We’re not talking a nice renovated basement studio in a house, just an actual, lived in house. The bass player is sitting on the floor next to some kids toys for crying out loud! I’m guessing one of the band members lives there, but either way it was a convenient and comfortable environment. That goes a long way to making the band feel loose and ready to record.

They used creative and unusual “mic” placement to get a great drum sound. Notice how they placed the iPhone in a little “fort” of pillows. It was catching the reflections of sound off of the walls and ceiling. They made adjustments to the kit (sheet over the snare and toms, played with brushes) and probably moved the iPhone around till they had a sound they liked that was balanced.

Their “studio” consisted of a simple 4 channel audio interface that costs $179. It’s insane to think that for less than $200 you can pick up the Alesis ProTrack that they used. It has a built in stereo mic as well as 2 mic pres for hooking up your own studio microphone. The 88 used the iPhone app FourTrack to record. Also according to their website, they used the actual built in iPhone mic for everything but the lead vocal! Simple, affordable, amazing.

They used Pro Tools to do the final mix. Obviously they were limited in the editing and mixing realm on their iPhone, so you can see they dumped their recorded tracks into their mac, and mixed them down in Pro Tools. This helped them get the right balance and dynamics to make the final song sound clear and punchy.

Wrapping It All Up…
I hope you are encouraged by this video. These guys are living proof that you don’t need expensive gear or a perfect studio environment to make a great recording. What you DO need however is a great song, talented musicians, time, and creativity (all of which these guys had). Put those 4 things together with some basic studio gear and you are ready to go. No excuses. No drama. So get pumped, and as Nike always says…just do it!

If you’ve been around me or read this blog for any length of time you’ve probably heard that I think all you need to get your home studio going strong is about $500 worth of gear. I suggested going the Pro Tools route and specifically picking up Digidesign’s Mbox 2 Mini, which is a great little 2 in/2 out interface. But recently a good friend of mine (and phenomenal drummer to boot) asked me over on Facebook what I recommended for him as he wants to record his drum set in his home studio. The Mbox 2 Mini won’t cut it if he wants to record with more than 2 tracks at a time. Here are a couple of suggestions I made to him that I think would serve any home studio well and keep costs down…unfortunately if you are a drummer (or recording a band with drums) you will have to spend a bit more, but honestly it’s not much, and it is well worth the investment!

M-Audio Fast Track Ultra – 4 to 6 tracks at a time
If you want to use Pro Tools (and I highly suggest you do) then you have to use a qualified audio interface made by either Digidesign or M-Audio (both companies are owned by Avid really). If you want more tracks, then you’ll need an interface that allows recording more channels at once and comes with more microphone preamps (mic pres) built in. A super affordable option is the Fast Track Ultra from M-Audio…

M-Audio Profire 2626 – 8 to 26 tracks at a time
If you can spend a little more and want a box that gives you the ultimate in affordable flexibility than look no further than the Profire 2626. This is a beast of an audio interface to be quite frank. It is a firewire interface (the name gives it away) that can also act as a stand alone set of preamps. What you get out of the box is 8 amazing sounding mic pres, plenty of outputs, DSP for routing and submixing, as well as 16 channels of ADAT ins and outs and digital S/PDIF for adding more preamps later.

Drum Microphones
Of course with wanting an interface to record 4 to 8 tracks of drums, comes the need for 4 to 8 microphones. You could buy mics seperately, or you could you spring for a drum mic bundle. I’ll save you the trouble and recommend one for you right now…

Samson 8Kit ($349) – This is such a great deal. For the price of 3 quality microphones you get 8 mics, each appropriately suited for your drums. You get one kick drum mic, one snare drum mic, 3 tom mics, a matched pair of large diaphragm condenser mics for overheads, and a small pencil condenser mic for hi hats. Talk about a steal! These mics are quiet, accurate, responsive, and full sounding.

But the best part is this: if you read my post about the $500 studio, I encouraged you to purchase one good studio condenser mic for about $100. You use this for vocals, acoustic guitars, amps, etc. Well one of the mics I recommend (the Samson C01) is included in this bundle. Actually you get two of them! That’s it, you don’t need any more mics for your studio!

Recording Drums – Total Cost
So let’s add it all up and get you the final figures so you can go out there and start recording killer drum tracks. Keeping in mind you will need a few more mic stands and cables for the additional tracks you are recording, here is my total break down for a drum capable home studio…

Option 1: Fast Track Ultra (4 channels) – $1200
Option 2: Fast Track Ultra (6 channels) – $1500
Option 3: M-Audio Profire 2626 (8 channels) – $1650

There you have it. For between $1200 and $1700 you can have a rocking home studio capable of recording drums, complete with plenty of preamps, drum mics, vocal mics, cables, stands, Pro Tools software, headphones, pop filter, etc. So pick an option and start making music!

Earlier this week I made the case that the ultimate songwriting tool is your home studio. I tried to give a few brief illustrations as to how your home studio can help you fill out an arrangement, collaborate worldwide, and save you time with templates. Today, I’d like to give you an example – using one of my own songs – of how much can be accomplished in a relatively short period of time. I hope this helps…let’s dive in!

The Demo
Take a listen to the MP3 below so we can talk about the example. This is a simple song I wrote on acoustic guitar. Once you’ve listened, we’ll break down what I did for the demo and how much time it took:

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First Things First
As I mentioned before, this song was originally just an acoustic guitar part – a verse and chorus. I had played around with it enough to know I wanted to “write” the rest of the song in Pro Tools. I fired up my songwriting template, set the tempo for my click track, grabbed my favorite mic and threw it up in front of my acoustic guitar. After a few takes to get the right levels and tone (mic placement) I laid down the guitar all the way through the second chorus.

One thing I like to do with guitar parts is to double them, or to record another take alongside the original one, to make it sound bigger and fatter. I did exactly that, and then I was pretty much stuck. I had no bridge, no lyrics, and no other instrumentation. But what I did have was a set riff, tempo, feel, and basic song structure captured in Pro Tools. Total time to do this: 15 minutes.

Drums and Bass
Now if you already know what kind of beat you want for your song then I would suggest you start off with drums in your session, but in my case I only had the guitar and, no real definitive drum ideas. So I fired up one of my virtual drum plugins, found a drum kit that worked, and looped a few of the preprogrammed patterns. If you notice the drums aren’t varied much and there are basically no fills. You can spend as much or as little time as you want here of course, but for just writing and demoing, I was fine with spending a total of 5 minutes on drums.

I didn’t happen to have my bass guitar that day so I decided to lay down a sampled bass guitar part. I opened up one of the free sampler plugins that comes with Pro Tools, picked an electric bass sample, turned on my keyboard controller (a simple $99 one) and plunked out a few basic notes, quantized them to fit the grid nicely, and then I was done! Total time for drums and bass: 15 minutes.

Filling Out The Arrangement
Once the drums, bass, and basic acoustic guitar were done I was able to play around with electric guitar and keys. For this demo I just plugged my telecaster directly into my audio interface and used a basic amp modeling plugin. I toyed around with clean sounds and distorted sounds for a few minutes and eventually laid down the parts you hear in the demo: clean electric intro (which replaced my acoustic intro), overdriven chords and octaves in the 2nd chorus and beyond, and finally heavy crunch in the bridge. It was actually playing around with the amp simulations that led me to write the bridge as you hear it.

I tried messing with some key parts very briefly, but in the end felt that it wasn’t worth my time on this particular demo. So all in all the only other instrumentation on this one was drums, bass, and electric. Total time for electric guitar: 20 minutes.

Laying Down The Vocals
Through the process of writing in Pro Tools, I typically start out with a basic melody and set of lyrics, but I tend to get more concrete ideas as I dive deeper into it. That was definitely the case with this particular song. After only 50 minutes of writing/recording in Pro Tools I was ready to lay down some basic vocals. I grabbed the same mic I used for my acoustic guitar, through a pop filter in front of it, and then tracked some vocals. I didn’t do any doubling or harmonies for this demo, so the process only took me about 15 minutes total. Not bad considering I was finalizing lyrics as I went.

Wrapping Things Up
Since this was a demo/songwriting session I didn’t take the time to do a real mix, but there were a couple of basic things I had to do to level the tracks out enough to discern what is going on in the song. Between that, bouncing it down to an MP3, and posting it online I would say I spent a grand total of 15 minutes!

So from opening the blank template to posting a final MP3, this demo took me less than an hour and a half! Not bad for a free afternoon or evening. Granted it’s a demo, and granted I have changed some things since, but the beauty is that by sitting down and writing in Pro Tools, I actually sparked more creativity and productivity in less time AND came out with a “finished product” that I used to teach the song to my band. Talk about time well spent!

The Challenge
So my challenge to you is this: take one free evening (or Saturday afternoon), block off 2 hours max, open up your songwriting template (you do have one right?) and go crazy. See what you come up with and cap it off after the 2 hour mark. Mix it down as you have it. You might be pleasantly surprised to see what you get out of it! And if you like, send me a copy. I’d love to hear your latest work!

So if you’re a musician and you’ve come to the smart conclusion that you need a home studio (you only need $500), you may already be using it to record your finished song ideas. After all, that’s what the recording studio was born out of…a need to capture songs that people already had written and could play live. If you have a great song, a great group of musicians, a great studio, then you’ll get a great recording. However, the home studio today can be used not only for recording finished material, but as the ultimate songwriting tool. Read on to find out how…

The Band In a Box
One of the greatest things about using your home studio for songwriting is that you can arrange the whole song, not just the primary instrumentation. With the use of virtual instruments, amp modeling, drum loops, and multi-channel vocal recording you can capture the ideas for the whole band, even as you fly solo in your spare bedroom. This can be helpful when teaching song ideas to your band, or just remembering the arrangement you “heard” in your mind.

Sometimes I’ve even been looking for a cool keyboard sound for my guitar based song when I’m inspired to write a completely different song because of the tone I got out of my virtual instrument. I came in to the songwriting session going in one direction, but having the “band in a box” allowed me to take a creative detour which ended up with a new and better song entirely!

Collaboration Made Simple
We live in an age of affordable technology and unparalleled ease of file sharing. This combination opens up a huge door to us songwriters who like to collaborate with others. Again, when you fire up your recording system you are working digitally, so when you finish laying down your ideas (be it one guitar lick, or a full out arrangement) you can save the session out as an MP3 file, ready for sharing.

Why is this cool? Because what you can do is shoot that MP3 over to your friend, who in turn can import said file into his or her recording software. Now he or she can write and record new parts to the song and even “fill it out” with other instrumentation. Once this has been done, your partner simply saves the session out as a new MP3 and sends it on back to you. This is the power of digital recording as you can write and produce music with people all over the world with ease…all because you got smart and purchased a basic home studio.

Save Time With a Template
One of the best things you can do to simplify your songwriting life and save you precious time (and ultimately that’s what matters…simplifying and saving time in the studio) is to create a songwriting template in your recording software so you don’t have to spend time setting up tracks for all your instruments, labeling inputs or outputs, or any other monotonous thing each time you want to write music. You just want jump right into writing before your idea is gone.

Here’s what I do in Pro Tools to set up a songwriting template, but it will apply to your DAW of choice if you use something else…

1. Create a new session, name it something like “Songwriting Template”, and save it to your audio drive or wherever you save your Pro Tools sessions.
2. Once inside your session, create tracks for everything you can think of needing. Here’s what I include: 3 vocal tracks, 3 electric guitar tracks, 2 acoustic guitar tracks, a bass track, 1 stereo track for drum loops, 1 stereo keyboard track, 1 click track (metronome), 1 reverb return, and 1 delay return. Make sure to label the tracks accordingly.
3. Route all of your tracks to the correct audio interface’s input. For most of you this will be either input 1 or 2.
4. Insert any effect or instrument plugins you will want to use. These could be virtual guitar amps, synth effects, drum machines, etc.
5. Arrange your windows and display settings so you can see what you want to see when writing and recording.
6. Save the session.

When you’re ready to do some songwriting, fire up Pro Tools, open your template, then choose “Save As” and name it something different, like the name of the song you’re working on. Now you’ll have the session already setup and waiting for get your creativity flowing!

Taking things one step further…
Songwriting in your home studio is great for many reasons as we saw: you can fill out the arrangement even as a solo artist, you can collaborate instantly with people all around the world, and you can be up and running with a time saving template. But let’s take things just one step further…

The true beauty of writing in Pro Tools (or any recording software) is that when it comes time to record the “real” tracks, you already have scratch tracks in your session, at the correct tempo, all ready for you to go. You’ve just eliminated one step in between writing and recording…seamlessly! That’s the power of digital recording, and that’s the power of having a studio in your home, where you are more likely to write music. All of this saves you time and saves you from losing creativity. Both of which are precious!