Jump to content
Gibson Brands Forums

Looking for some recording help/suggestions


PrairieSchooner

Recommended Posts

My old buddy and pickin' pard and I live 1600+ miles apart. We'd like to be able to send songs back and forth with the goal of adding tracks, etc. We're both old and fairly tech challenged; would like decent sound quality but we're not planning on releasing any albums here - ease of use is frankly more important. Appreciate any suggestions; thanks...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is probably a good idea that you and your bud are on the same OS platform (ie Apple OS or Windows PC). Then using the same software, you can minimize any difficulties.

 

My suggestions would be:

 

Apple OS - Garageband (free with Apple OS)

Windows PC - Reaper (free download)

 

Then all you have to do is decide on a tempo and create a click track inside each piece of software (DAW - Digital Audio Workstation). Then you and your buddy can create your own tracks and send either WAV or MP3 files back and forth.

 

Another good resource is Karaoke Version custom backing tracks if you are looking to cover famous songs. Just search for the tune you and your buddy want to cover together on the site. The multi-tracks are only $4 each. Once you've paid for it, you can download each of the individual tracks and just toss whichever track you want to cover with your own guitar/instrument/voice.

 

Another good free piece of software for both PC and Mac is WavePad. It is useful for mastering your final mix. After you have all the multi-tracks you want, save the whole thing to a WAV file and then open it up in WavePad where you can compress, edit start and end fades and other mastering tasks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you have an iPhone? If so, it doesn’t get more convenient than to use it’s Voice Memos to make a quick clip, or plug the Apogee MiC 96k microphone in for a bit higher recording quality. Here is a good example of it’s audio quality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4iLpCdnkd0. There are some fairly nice recordings shared here on the forum that were made with the Apogee mic, or just straight into the iPhone.

 

A forum member some time back had let us know about Band Hub: https://bandhub.com/news. They can mix the recordings of people’s “collabs”. Your friend and you could appear in split screen in the same video.. Here is an example, Angie

(keyboard player nails it, singer doesn’t miss a breath):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2x0tTtxvpg.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What I'm looking for is, he records a song and sends it to me (or vice versa). I add my tracks - vocal, instrumental, whatever - and send it back. Maybe we do this more than once. Eventually we have a final and then we save the final product somehow.

 

 

 

 

I would suggest Kristal it's completely free, has multi track recording, can import saved files into new tracks on the project and a mixer for final with some fx.

 

http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

 

Get a half decent USB mic for your computer and you're good to go. I just hack around and use a Blue Yeti with decent results, good enough for me anyway.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Johnny

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What I'm looking for is, he records a song and sends it to me (or vice versa). I add my tracks - vocal, instrumental, whatever - and send it back. Maybe we do this more than once. Eventually we have a final and then we save the final product somehow.

 

 

Let's start simple.

 

 

Like Doug said above, find out which computer you each have and we will take it from there. For example, ifyou both have Macs of some kind, it is easy as you get free Garageband software to record/save music.

 

And do we assume you both have email to send files to each other - they could get very large.

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My old buddy and pickin' pard and I live 1600+ miles apart. We'd like to be able to send songs back and forth with the goal of adding tracks, etc. We're both old and fairly tech challenged; would like decent sound quality but we're not planning on releasing any albums here - ease of use is frankly more important. Appreciate any suggestions; thanks...

 

A Scarlett 2i2 audio interface and cubase elements turns your house into a freaking multitrack recording studio for under 200 bucks! You can go cheaper or more expensive but, well, that's what I'm running. An old buddy I haven't seen since high school keeps sending me these little guitar inventions, one of which I decided to add a keyboard track to (even though his fidelity is pretty bad), with the following result => riverleaf. Nothing special, but, well, kind of a soothing piece....

 

But with a multitrack system, you don't have to wait for your buddy to come up with his part. You can do all the parts yourself! I downloaded a realdrummer part off the internet and added track after track on this piece. Fun!

 

wav files will typically be too big to email, so convert down to an m4a file, which is the new mp3 I guess. Best of luck in whatever system you get!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Take a look at Audacity (free recording & mixing app). I've not used it as you envision, but I am pretty sure it would work.

 

I agree with Audacity in that is it free and a well built program. However, the user interface isn't so great. That's why I always suggest Reaper. It has a terrific user interface and is free. www.reaper.fm

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with Audacity in that is it free and a well built program. However, the user interface isn't so great. That's why I always suggest Reaper. It has a terrific user interface and is free. www.reaper.fm

 

I agree that the Audacity interface could be a lot better. When I looked at Reaper, it was a free trial period, but one would eventually have to purchase. What's the deal?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree that the Audacity interface could be a lot better. When I looked at Reaper, it was a free trial period, but one would eventually have to purchase. What's the deal?

 

I have to amend my comments about Reaper. I don't use it myself as I've been a Cakewalk Sonar user for more than a decade. However, when I had evaluated Reaper back when I was teaching audio, the program was "shareware". They have obviously progressed to a demo period and two levels of payment. Still, for personal use, $60 isn't too bad for a pretty good program.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have to amend my comments about Reaper. I don't use it myself as I've been a Cakewalk Sonar user for more than a decade. However, when I had evaluated Reaper back when I was teaching audio, the program was "shareware". They have obviously progressed to a demo period and two levels of payment. Still, for personal use, $60 isn't too bad for a pretty good program.

 

Thanks for the update, that's consistent with what I saw on the website: "Download REAPER below for a free, fully functional 60-day evaluation."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...