I guess it depends. Sometimes sketches become the final take. The song Alive by Pearl Jam is the demo with a guitar solo overdub. Nebraska by Springsteen is another example of one take wonders making it onto records. Playing a song through the first time you can really capture a vibe you can’t later on in the studio.
You guys are probably pickier than I am. When I have a song idea or guitar idea, I simply open Audacity and record it there. I’m not concerned with having distortion, reverb and other effects on the song because I consider it just an idea that may or may not become a full blown production. I use either an acoustic guitar or my electric unplugged…When I practice guitar it’s almost always unplugged. Rarely do I use amplification…and I’m a classic rock/ hard rock/ metal guy…primarily. BUT, I do realize that many or most rock/ metal guitarists prefer to plug in, so this may not be a solution that you want to consider.
Nope. I’m the same. Slam the DAW on and record. The quality is not important, the idea is.
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If you can get that mic powered, I think you’re on to a really cool idea in terms of just laying down quick ideas!
To me, for capturing ideas, a readily available cheap mic is far more valuable than an expensive mic that I have to set up.
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thats 100% the point.
And I take “casual” to the next level. I do ALL of my guitar work while sitting up in bed lol. Im not going to stand or sit in some hardback chair and ruin my back while im doing hours of scale noodling or laying down ideas to a drum track
SOOOOO the killer hindrance right now is laying down vocals. There is simply a limited window of time for how long I am going to stand up on these tired feet to work on WRITING and laying down vocals.
So i am hoping to be able to actually work on vocal ideas while chilling, just the same as I do guitar parts
i can come up with cool guitar parts all day every day…but ive done it for almost 30 years and recording guitar is very easy for me. Ive only been singing for <2 yrs…so I still need hundreds of hours of practice coming up with vocal hooks etc. Im not going to get that while standing on my feet in front of a mic stand after working all day
Also I want to at least try actually coming up with vocal riff ideas WHILE coming up with guitar chords etc…as opposed to laying down some concrete thing and trying to force fit vocal onto it (knowing I will NEVER go back and rerecord guitar parts lol)
So I mean technically I could drag a mic stand and boom arm over to the side of the bed but thats just way too much hassle. Im trying to make the writing process as smooth and natural as possible
Early this year people mentioned goals etc. I had the goal to have this or that many songs FINISHED. So while all of my skills have increased nicely…I have NOTHING finished to show for it. I have dozens upon dozens of tracks that need vocals lol
on a side note, I think I mentioned losing 50lbs as a goal also. I have lost 38 lbs since April so I am not a total waste of space
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Great job with the weight loss man! I lost some too, but I found the majority of it again though. So I’m jealous!
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the ONLY thing ive done is eat 2000 cals per day. still eating whatever I want as long as its around 2k lol
dropped from 258 to 219ish. no exercise yet lol
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Most definitely so. Can you just record stuff onto your phone?
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im a bit behind the times on phones…rocking the flip phone
so far i havent done much “scratch” vocal stuff. In other words the vocal i have laid down were generally intended to be decent demo or “finished” quality
I havent gotten any method down yet for finishing songs. Its depressing really considering how many (hundreds) of decent quality guitar/drum tracks I have
The whole “step to the mic with 90% of the lyrics done and come up with a vocal melody on the spot” is what ive generally done so far, but obviously the results r mixed.
The other approach is to do really quicky scratch demo stuff until it seems fully “written” and then go back and rerecord everything for real etc. Thats a challenge to because I HATE to revisit stuff. I seem to be best at starting new ideas but dying with a HD full of semi finished stuff isnt that impressive either.
Im man enough to admit I dont have the answer currently. Of course im 50 now so time and energy levels are working against me
A MAJOR challenge is that it takes me maybe 30 minutes to really warm up my voice. So that also sort of works against me on my days off when I want to relax lol. There are so many competing distractions
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I love my totally portable zoom h24N mic for quick and ready vocal ideas… (plus other random sounds 
)… then I can just flick the wav. file into my project folder and either bung that onto cd to listen to in the car to see if I like anything or whatever… Re warming up the voice, I sometimes warm mine up by talking to myself or random singing while I’m doing chores, just to save time… my dog will hide away if I get too extreme… hehe… sometimes when I try out some wilder sounds she barks in protest… I used to use a little dictaphone thingummy but the zoom mic has great quality and can give usable sounds for some stuff.
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I doodle melodies and lyrics ointo my phone.
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That’s the way I want to lose weight. Exercise doesn’t seem fun. lol
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ive spent years in and out of gyms etc, doing powerlifting blah blah. But ive never ever been disciplined in my eating. So even when I had some decent muscle mass built, I never looked buff etc.
So I havent been in gyms much in a few years now but I decided out of the blue to lose some weight anyway
in a way its not rocket science. figure out your BMR (basal metabolic rate…how many calories you burn doing nothing, just existing). Then calculate how many cals you burn due to your lifestyle (u a lumberjack or telemarketer?).
Lets say you calculate that it adds up to 2300 cals per day. Fine, start eating 2000 or 2100 cals per day. You gradually lose weight.
or, eat that 2300 but add some exercise to burn more cals etc
I track my calories on this site http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ once youve entered the foods u eat its simple, u just click them off each day etc.
So far I havent been hungry and essentially I eat whatever I want. I eat pringles chips and amp sodas everyday lol. I just dont go over 2000 cals. There is no gun to my head. A few days ago I went to the used music store 50 miles away and bought 3 cheap guitars. On the way back I had 2 sheetz sliders with mayo and bacon. 2000 cals for me is still an ok amount
That why I havent done any exercise yet. Im lazy plus im holding that off until the weight loss slows down lol. The exercise will be my 2nd gear. Plus I want to build back some muscle tone. I wont want to be “skinny fat”
I started at 258, am at 219.2 this morning. Aiming for 185 but might touch 175 just to see what it feels and looks like
im 5’8. When I went into basic training after HS I weighed 156 and came out weighing 147 looking like Bruce Lee. Hard to believe a 156lb guy could even lose weight but something about 16 hr working days in Texas heat will drop a few lbs
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So am I correct to assume this SB40 with its DYNAMIC (not electret) microphone will work into my focusrite 2i4
I have researched the sb40 vs the sb45 on several HAM radio sites etc and its clear that the sb45 requires Pip while the Sb40 doesnt
So i should be good to go with the sb40 then?
If that’s the case, it should work. If it doesn’t, just return it.
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Ill find out in a few days lol.
there may be a workaround anyway. I could try using ASIO for all for my audio output rather than the focusrite which I normally use. Then I could use the usb jacks for the headset/mic and also put the guitar/sm57/focusrite into the other usb jack for the guitar input
confirmed:
The Koss SB40 headset (dynamic…doesnt need PiP) WORKS into a focusrite
SB45 (electret…needs PiP) does NOT work. of course the SB 45 works fine into the headphone/mic jacks on the laptop but thats not what I needed them for
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That’s good news! Now it’s time to start making music!!
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yeah, actually this is pretty fat!
already wrote a song tonight…nothing Earth shattering but it shows how much easier it makes it when u can keep it more spontaneous.
The method is pretty cool. I started with a ez drummer drum track I had used before that was already structered. Intro/verse/chorus blah blah
So then I just armed 2 tracks. track one was gtr thru input 1 of the focusrite, track 2 was headset mic thru input 2 etc.
I skipped ahead to the verse and just started hitting a rhythm in E while singing a basic melody that went with the drumbeat etc.
Its cool because you can then go back and change EITHER track, for instance try different chords against the same vocal melody etc. Or the other way around, once you have chords u like, try slightly different vocal melodies
Obviously this will work best for more simple stuff like nice punchy songs etc.
The cool part for me is that I can now easily write songs while relaxing sitting up in bed.
The main downside is that its very hard to sing really good like this lol. Its hard to really get a good breath while sitting in bed and there is the whole neck bent forward things making it hard to sing. But as long as u can accept that it wont be your best vocal quality then its all good. Its better in a way because you KNOW you can sing the vocal much better later when its “for real”
Like I said, this is probably better for more simple songs etc. One might miss out a bit on writing the really soaring vocal parts because its hard to sing those sitting up casually in bed etc.
I think what Ill have to do is learn how to do easy falsetto approximations of high parts, knowing that ill be able to do them much stronger later etc. Its more of a mental thing to try to hear in your head what the final product could be while actually laying down lower quality vocal versions etc
In any case this is HUGE because writing vocal melodies is THE hang up for me
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