OK, I’ll BUMP your secret stealing thread this one time!
First thing I would do if I could start all over again in that world would be to have a clear idea of what kind of recording I would want to end up with. Pick only one song to record at first and don’t get bogged down by sound quality issues just yet. Realizing the idea/song is by far the most important thing. Then you can re-map and be anal about each part you multi-track. Great recordings can be made from home! I’m no expert but I do it all the time so ask away and I’ll try to help if I can.
I’d suggest maybe publishing finished works.
Unless you want your children eaten.
No, but seriously if you beleive me, get your sh_t together first elsewhere.
I was in a Christian band long ago- I wouldn’t link here until I was dead set ready to rock.
I’m using a PreSonus Firepod. 8 mics into the pod, which runs into the laptop via firewire. You’d need an external firewire drive capable of at least 7200 rpm. For software I use Cubase. For a mic I’m using a Shure XM-58. I also use an ART mic amp.
I had some great songs. I’m talking guaranteed hits. I put them all on tape. My wife used them to wrap Christmas presents. I think she’s afraid that I’d have too many groupies.
Write about what you know. What is close to the heart and universal in feeling and experience. Learn about song construction. How many verses before a chorus, etc. you can break rules , but good songs seldom do. There is a good songwriter’s rhyme book/ thesaurus out there. Know your strengths and weaknesses. What you lack either musically or poetically ,find someone to collaborate with to fill out what you may lack. And Never...never..let someone steal your stuff.
Best wishes.
There are several songwriters here. I PINGed one, the others’ screen nicks I can’t recall at the moment.
Anyway, to me it’s all magic, even though I did write and had one tune recorded, but it was really a translation (not a cent of royalties), and years ago contributed to one huge hit, without attribution, and I’d like nothing more than to overcome my mental block to be able to come up with something that rhymes or not, but adds up in the end to a lyric that can be put to music.
Writing a song requires your willingness to change it. Don't get stuck, perhaps that nice chorus you think of is better as a verse, etc. etc. The best songwriting book I've seen is "the 84 wrongs of songwriting and how to write them". Don't know if it's still available. Good luck!
I use a Boss BR 900 CD and a 1600 CD for recording. The 900 is great if you are working alone because it has guitar, vocal, bass effects and modeling built in as well as an excellent library of drum patterns (or write your own). It also masters and burns CDs. Very cool tool.
Don't know if they're still in production but you get them easily on the web. If you get a 900 get some 1GB Sandisk Flash cards because Boss only supplies a 128 MB with the machine. The 1600 has an on board hard drive and doesn't use flash card.
But you can get a fairly good interface from Presonus that will take care of your overdrive problems as long as your computer can handle it. (CPU speed and ram memory, etc.) then you need software which can be several thousand bucks or as low as a couple hundred.
I use a Presonus FP10 and Cubase and it is amazing. You can do just about anything including turning your music into a Dolby Digital Soundtrack. I've worked in Studios for nearly 35 years and just 10 years ago the recording ability I have on my computer today would cost 50 thousand dollars or more.
Please, just be original. Don’t go by a songwriting formula. Lots of radio music sound exactly the same, so boring...even most of the Christian music too. Sad.
No. But my sister just won the Austin Songwriter Award -First place - Blues category
I’m just trying to keep up ...
;o)
"Sometimes A Great Notion (The Oh Ah Song)"
Oh ah oh ah
Whoooooaaaoo hoo hooooooo
Oh ah oh ah
Whoooooaaaoo hoo hooooooo (baybeh)
(repeat 4x)
Whoop whoop hummahumma yeah yeah
Whoop whoop hummahumma yeah yeah
Whoop whoop hummahumma yeah yeah
Hooo hah (baybeh)
(chorus)
OooooOOoooOOoOOoOooaaaaaAAAAaaaaAAAahhhh
OooooOOoooOOoOOoOooaaaaaAAAAaaaaAAAahhhh
Oh ah oh ah
Whoooooaaaoo hoo hooooooo
Oh ah oh ah
Whoooooaaaoo hoo hooooooo (baybeh)
(repeat 4x)
Whoop whoop hummahumma yeah yeah
Whoop whoop hummahumma yeah yeah
Whoop whoop hummahumma yeah yeah
Hooo hah (baybeh)
(repeat chorus)
Mackie Onyx Blackjack USB recording interface...
With Traktion 3 software... good stuff easy to use
Hey waterhill, I’m a songwriter. I love discussing songwriting, and hanging out with songwriters. I love the process of writing songs, crafting them and performing them. But right now, I’m heading for bed. We had a very long day and have another one tomorrow. I look forward to hearing some of your stuff sometime. Our band web site is:
Hope to talk to you later about songwriting. Keep doing it!
Get an iPad.
Get “Garage Band” software
Get an Apogee Jam http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/jam.php
Record your stuff.
If you only sing, you can sound professional with a “Helicon VoiceLive 2”
http://m.youtube.com/results?q=helicon%20voicelive%202
Are you talking about the music or the lyrics? Of course, write the lyrics down. On paper is probably better because paper doesn’t crash and it’s immediately there to work on and alter. As far as the music goes, keep playing the piece and refining it until you can play the entire thing through without screwing it up too much and then record it. After that you can figure out which other things you want to do to it without having wasted a lot of time spinning in too much on details before the mature form of the melody and song is developed. That said, if you happen to get a really nice melody it wouldn’t be a bad idea to jot it down in musical notation because it’s REALLY EASY FOR SOMETHING YOU THINK YOU’LL NEVER FORGET to just evaporate leaving only a vague sense of what it was. Musical notation will preserve enough of it to jog your memory. Leave effects and mixing to the very end. Of course, if you’re playing keyboards, there may be a particular patch that sets you thinking in a particular musical direction. If you’re composing on a keyboard in the early stages where you’re likely to forget something and can turn on record and forget about it, that wouldn’t be a bad idea either, just in case. Otherwise, like I said above, once you get the idea so you won’t forget it, just keep playing until you get it all worked out and then make the recording from which you’ll do further work.