Guitar Gear Forum

Hello guys,

I thought I'd post a thread about how do I make music these days in my basement home studio. It goes like this:

First I just play some riffs to a click that sound good, and when I have a couple that go together well, I record them, and try some vocals over it and decide where it should go for chorus chords etc. and then maybe after 1-2 hours I usually have a song base ready. I don't think much about more than the riffs and chorus vocals at that point. Honestly I don't have the time, I can usually squeeze in an hour a day due to kids needing attention.

So yesterday I thought I'd make a new song again, and spent an hour just playing riffs to a simple drum base I quickly played (badly but quantized), until I had about 4 minutes of rock playing with parts I thought will be choruses. Actually posted that in the 1 hour thread. Today I played drums on it. Took me 2 hours to get the drums down, I'm quite a beginner on drums.

Here's the first version with just drums and one guitar + lead part:

http://deeaa.pp.fi/TEMP/stage2.mp3

I made the 'chorus' kinda melodic so it should be easy to sing something over it. Not sure what will I come up with for the verses though.

Maybe tonight but more likely on Monday night I'll add the bass and probably I should add another guitar. I never usually double-track my guitars because they're plenty big and thick just one track but maybe I'll add some more melodic lines for 2nd guitar.

I'll post versions as I go along and add stuff in case anyone's interested. Feel free to ask and criticize away...

Sounds really good!!!
Can't wait to hear how it sounds with the bass and second guitar

Thanks!

http://deeaa.pp.fi/TEMP/stage3.mp3

Now with bass added! Can't add a link on mobilE just text. 2nd guitar maybe tomorrow. Likely will only have two axes here and there to leave room for vox.

Alright, put in the main vocal track. I'm not sure after all if it needs a second guitar at all...maybe some synth in the chorus instead? Quite full sounding even as is?

http://deeaa.pp.fi/TEMP/stage4.mp3

Pretty dope. Sounds like it was translate really well live. Cool rock and roll man. Much dug.

Rock on man!!!

Thanks guys! Beefed it up some, added some backing vox and keyboards for the choruses and I guess I'm pretty much done with it for now. Will check the mix later with fresh ears but I suppose it won't need a lot of tweaking any further.

Here the latest mix: http://deeaa.pp.fi/TEMP/whodoyoulove.mp3

So, this is pretty much how I make music these days. Make it a sort of a challenge for me, lay down guitar stuff first and then it becomes a nice puzzle to put together and try and come up with vocals and the rest of the instruments for them. Also they turn out very different each time, could be more metal once, more blues the other time etc...you never know. But it's a great way to practice playing and recording.

yeah I can easily get carried away with layers of tracks and sounds. It's tricky not to overproduce.

As it stands right now my future band will need two guitars, bass, organ/synth player, drummer, and percussionist for congas/timbales/cajon just based on how I've been layering sounds when writing at home. I haven't bothered with vocals yet. Maybe singer can hit the claves, guido, and shakers.

Mike LX-R wrote::lol: yeah I can easily get carried away with layers of tracks and sounds. It's tricky not to overproduce.

As it stands right now my future band will need two guitars, bass, organ/synth player, drummer, and percussionist for congas/timbales/cajon just based on how I've been layering sounds when writing at home. I haven't bothered with vocals yet. Maybe singer can hit the claves, guido, and shakers.

This sounds sweaty.

Nice! Sounds good man! Great production qualities all around.

pamukParty wrote:

Mike LX-R wrote::lol: yeah I can easily get carried away with layers of tracks and sounds. It's tricky not to overproduce.

As it stands right now my future band will need two guitars, bass, organ/synth player, drummer, and percussionist for congas/timbales/cajon just based on how I've been layering sounds when writing at home. I haven't bothered with vocals yet. Maybe singer can hit the claves, guido, and shakers.

This sounds sweaty.

It's a tall order for sure. Kinda no way around it and I hope when I'm done writing that I can actually finds some bloaks to play it. I don't really have any interest in 3-4 piece straight ahead rock anymore. Latin percussion and organ/synth is crucial for the music I'm writing, which, I'm having A TON of fun doing.

Mike LX-R wrote:

pamukParty wrote:

Mike LX-R wrote::lol: yeah I can easily get carried away with layers of tracks and sounds. It's tricky not to overproduce.

As it stands right now my future band will need two guitars, bass, organ/synth player, drummer, and percussionist for congas/timbales/cajon just based on how I've been layering sounds when writing at home. I haven't bothered with vocals yet. Maybe singer can hit the claves, guido, and shakers.

This sounds sweaty.

It's a tall order for sure. Kinda no way around it and I hope when I'm done writing that I can actually finds some bloaks to play it. I don't really have any interest in 3-4 piece straight ahead rock anymore. Latin percussion and organ/synth is crucial for the music I'm writing, which, I'm having A TON of fun doing.

I don't think I have said it before but I think this is fucking cool... and you will have the ability to get booties shaking with that setup


OP: that is a cool song you are putting together - very nice!

pamukParty wrote:

Mike LX-R wrote:

pamukParty wrote:

Mike LX-R wrote::lol: yeah I can easily get carried away with layers of tracks and sounds. It's tricky not to overproduce.

As it stands right now my future band will need two guitars, bass, organ/synth player, drummer, and percussionist for congas/timbales/cajon just based on how I've been layering sounds when writing at home. I haven't bothered with vocals yet. Maybe singer can hit the claves, guido, and shakers.

This sounds sweaty.

It's a tall order for sure. Kinda no way around it and I hope when I'm done writing that I can actually finds some bloaks to play it. I don't really have any interest in 3-4 piece straight ahead rock anymore. Latin percussion and organ/synth is crucial for the music I'm writing, which, I'm having A TON of fun doing.

I don't think I have said it before but I think this is fucking cool... and you will have the ability to get booties shaking with that setup


OP: that is a cool song you are putting together - very nice!

thanks. my vision includes professional dancers too.

but yeah, back on track: OP's jam is killer. It got better with each update.

Heh, I'm also playing drums for this band I also produce at the same time and record and we've got the same issue- when we make songs in the studio we always add a LOT of stuff we can't play live. it's only a trio but we have like dual layers of synths and dual drum layers too, normal drums and percussion as well.

So if we're ever gonna replicate the stuff live, we'd also need at least two more guys to get even close.

But, so far we've been kind of re-arranging those songs for trio playing, and also in more rock style than on record.

deeaa wrote:Heh, I'm also playing drums for this band I also produce at the same time and record and we've got the same issue- when we make songs in the studio we always add a LOT of stuff we can't play live. it's only a trio but we have like dual layers of synths and dual drum layers too, normal drums and percussion as well.

So if we're ever gonna replicate the stuff live, we'd also need at least two more guys to get even close.

But, so far we've been kind of re-arranging those songs for trio playing, and also in more rock style than on record.

Yeah, that's kinda what I worry about for myself. It's gonna be hard to pull off some of my Latin Rock stuff live without rearranging to a more straight ahead rock format. And I just don't want that. I want it to be as authentically Latin sounding as possible.

But it sounds like it wouldn't be too difficult for you guys. The overall vibe is non-fucking around rock.

Ah, that's a different band. This song here is me doing everything solo all the way, the other band is kind of...I don't know what it is. It's pretty progressive with long songs and different parts in them and it's also kind of folk in a way with mostly clean guitars. The singer guitarist is kind of Bob Dylan type but the overall feel is weird, artsy stuff. Definitely not ever gonna be a popular thing for sure.

This is the band where I only play drums...and backing vocals. It's also sung in Finnish.

http://deeaa.pp.fi/pasuskemas/mixes/Tuh ... _12_14.mp3

I see. Too bad there really isn't much money is selling records anymore. Cause then it wouldn't matter. If people buy the sound then you could session guys for live shows. But nowadays you gotta play your sound live out the gate. Makes things a little different.

I have a lot of bands kind of, one metal, one pop, then this weird one and also my own solo stuff, and then I'm also kind of regular session singer on a few more bands...I like to keep busy with music.

None of the stuff I make is commercial though. I put much of it on Spotify and iTunes as well but I don't make a dime on any music I make. It's all for free.

Very true!

However I do make an odd buck now and then doing like narration jobs and even some paid session singing. But it's not a lot. I make maybe circa 1000 bux a year doing that kind of odd jobs. Just enough to get me some new piece of equipment I need no real income.

Well, here it is hopefully done now. Completely replayed the solo and added a new one at the end, also several backing vox, lots of reverbs and such.

http://deeaa.pp.fi/TEMP/whodoyoulove_II.mp3

Now it might be done, we'll see what starts to bug me later on...