First steps Making your own home demos has two big advantages over the commercial studio. Firstly it's cheaper apart from the initial outlay for the basic equipment which could comprise as little as a multitracker, mic and headphones. Secondly you can spend as much time as your want perfecting your recordings. You should be aiming to capture the best performances and recording quality possible so try and allocate your time sensibly. Make sure you can record with no disturbances such as screaming kids, passing lorries or the Red Arrows doing a fly past as these will surely ruin your best of vocal takes. Try and set a mood with low lighting and create an atmosphere - and that doesn't mean lighting a million joss sticks as the smoke won't do your voice any good unless you want to sound like Joe Cocker at six in the morning. Whether it's a band or a solo demo you should first decide if you will be utilising midi. If you do want to use drum machines and sequenced keyboards and don't want to waste spare tracks then you're going to need some sort of midi sync set up. Choose the number of songs you'll be recording but it's best to pick your best three or four. Remember to put your best song first on the demo and make sure there's not a three-minute intro. You want to be into the meat of the song within 20 seconds or so to prevent your demo ending up in the dustbin with all the others. The band You will quickly need to organise tracks at your disposal and decide if you have enough left on your multitracker for live drums. If there is no place at home for the drum kit or it would be too loud and would annoy the neighbours then consider recording the drums or part of the band at a rehearsal room. Naturally to record drums you will need plenty of mics and a decent mixer to cope. When recording live drums always remember the type of mics needed for the different parts of the kit, mic placement and drum tuning and dampening. Alternatively, if the drummer is prepared to bite the bullet you could use a drum machine but try and give drum patterns a looser, live and more human feel by shifting the odd note slightly off the beat rather than ruthless quantising. Of course you don't need all the members of the band in at the same time which could be handy if you have only got a room the size of a shoebox. Solo It's a lonely life on your own but things can be a lot easier with no argumentative colleagues moaning their middle eight vocal is flat or the hi-hat is too low in the mix. You can free loads of tracks for live recording by using drum machines and sequenced keyboards, allowing you more time to concentrate on getting the vocals and any other live acoustic instruments right. The onus will be on you to deliver the goods and be self-critical at all times because unfortunately although you might be a John Lennon you won't have a Paul McCartney to bounce ideas off. So try and get a few friends in to play the parts you can't do or just to add a bit of variety to the performances. |
MAKING A GOOD DEMO |
RECORDING |
