Our high school choir master was (and still is!) a great songwriter and produced his music using his old Casio keyboard, a classical guitar and a cheap PC microphone from a local computer store. He had no "industry grade" condensers, no "high quality" audio converters, just two instruments and a plastic mic attached to his trusty Pentium desktop at home.
He produced 2 original graduation songs for our school which stayed in the hearts of the graduates to this day, myself included. I did half of the vocals for both songs (they were duets), which is why I know exactly how they were produced. What he was able to achieve with the resources at hand ultimately inspired me to produce my own music as well. And so I set out to the next chapter of my "audio adventures".
So I got myself a copy of Adobe Audition 3.0 and my own plastic microphone and started recording covers at first (which I discuss in another article). I would find an instrumental of a song I liked and tracked vocals on top of it. Then after a few projects I figured I'd try producing an original song, but I wasn't sure how. I knew I didn't have the resources to track live instruments, especially a full drum set! So I thought, maybe there's another way to go?
Drums...in loops
After some googling I found a neat sample library from Adobe called "Loopology" that contained a lot of one shot drum samples. Lucky for me, Adobe Audition had this cool "tempo snap" feature for looping samples. Simply put, I could arrange the drum samples to create a beat, adjust the tempo and then just drag the clip to loop as long as wanted. Drum set problem solved! Sure it didn't sound like live drums but hey, at least I had drum sounds in my mix! :D
Now I that I had the beat, I was ready to track my acoustic guitar (I like to start with percussion so the rest of my instruments stay in tempo). I decided to close mic it right in the sound hole area. Why did I do this? Coz it's how the sound guy places the mic on my guitar when I perform at school. I didn't really know how to properly mic a guitar so I just winged it. Anyways it sounded like crap. But it still sounded like a strummed guitar so I moved on, thinking I'll fix it with "pretty effects" later. Of course I was wrong, but what the hell.
Now I needed to add some bass guitar to the mix. Without the bass, the song sounded thin and awkward so I knew I couldn't skip that instrument. I figured I could use the bass guitar sound available in my own Casio keyboard (Casio was the common "budget" brand at that time) and record it direct to the PC microphone jack. Just like how I did with my electric guitar as I explained in this post.
Then I added a lead synth instrument. Just to make it more interesting, and so I'd get a fuller mix. I experimented with some melodies that would go well with the song and kept what I liked. The synth sound still came from my keyboard. I tried to add piano tracks to the mix but it just ended up cluttering up the song so I removed it.
And finally, it was time to record vocals. I hated tracking vocals at home because I found it very uncomfortable knowing that everyone in the house can hear me recording my own voice. It still bothers me to this day, but I'm trying to stop it from affecting my sound too much coz my voice sounds SO WEIRD in this recording. I was holding back my volume too much and was so shaky just because I didn't want anyone in the house to hear me. So what did I get? Real funky sounding vocals.
Anyways, I was still VERY HAPPY with the final output. The only thing I did in the mixing stage was adjust the track volumes and panning. The guitar's crappy sound was masked by the rest of the instruments (I think) so I didn't bother trying to fix that. I didn't know how to EQ and did not even know something like "Compression" existed so that was it. 90% recording and 10% mixing, which is actually a good practice! Though I admit I did NOT record it a good way heheh..
Here's the song. It's called "Music Inside of You", which I wrote for my band but we never got around to recording it together. So I guess you can say this is the demo version.
Acoustic Guitar
Now I that I had the beat, I was ready to track my acoustic guitar (I like to start with percussion so the rest of my instruments stay in tempo). I decided to close mic it right in the sound hole area. Why did I do this? Coz it's how the sound guy places the mic on my guitar when I perform at school. I didn't really know how to properly mic a guitar so I just winged it. Anyways it sounded like crap. But it still sounded like a strummed guitar so I moved on, thinking I'll fix it with "pretty effects" later. Of course I was wrong, but what the hell.
Bass Guitar...keyboard
Now I needed to add some bass guitar to the mix. Without the bass, the song sounded thin and awkward so I knew I couldn't skip that instrument. I figured I could use the bass guitar sound available in my own Casio keyboard (Casio was the common "budget" brand at that time) and record it direct to the PC microphone jack. Just like how I did with my electric guitar as I explained in this post.
Lead Synth...keyboard
Then I added a lead synth instrument. Just to make it more interesting, and so I'd get a fuller mix. I experimented with some melodies that would go well with the song and kept what I liked. The synth sound still came from my keyboard. I tried to add piano tracks to the mix but it just ended up cluttering up the song so I removed it.
Awkward Vocals
And finally, it was time to record vocals. I hated tracking vocals at home because I found it very uncomfortable knowing that everyone in the house can hear me recording my own voice. It still bothers me to this day, but I'm trying to stop it from affecting my sound too much coz my voice sounds SO WEIRD in this recording. I was holding back my volume too much and was so shaky just because I didn't want anyone in the house to hear me. So what did I get? Real funky sounding vocals.
Final Output
Anyways, I was still VERY HAPPY with the final output. The only thing I did in the mixing stage was adjust the track volumes and panning. The guitar's crappy sound was masked by the rest of the instruments (I think) so I didn't bother trying to fix that. I didn't know how to EQ and did not even know something like "Compression" existed so that was it. 90% recording and 10% mixing, which is actually a good practice! Though I admit I did NOT record it a good way heheh..
Here's the song. It's called "Music Inside of You", which I wrote for my band but we never got around to recording it together. So I guess you can say this is the demo version.
People tell me it sounds like a cheesy mall jingle. What do you think? Have you ever recorded songs this way? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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