Some of you may be aware that I like to dabble in the music recording business every so often. I used to use a free recording program called Audacity to do my dirty work, but a few months ago when I was earning money and putting it to good use (read: squandering it on expensive things like laptops and such) I decided to go all professional and buy a Yamaha AW1600 Digital Recorder. It's an incredible piece of equipment, and as of yet, one which I am still very unfamiliar with. Every time I go to read the manual I just get lost in a sea of 'buses' and 'stereo tracks' and 'mixdowns' and 'loop samplers' etc etc.
However, I have figured out the extreme basics of the machine. I can play my guitar and get the recorder to, well, record it. I can also play several tracks on top of each other, and I can even add in some effects. Armed with this exact knowledge a few months back, I decided to go about recording a version of 'When I Survey The Wondrous Cross'.
Taking a Christian song and recording my rendition of it was something I did a lot of with Audacity, so I decided to continue that on in the new, more expensive era of my home recording. With this particular song, I first of came up with the idea of an almost Braveheart-esque drum beat going right through it, and building up at the end for a rousing finale. Everything else kind of just spawned from that. The drums and bass were both recorded from my keyboard, hence their poor quality. The acoustic guitar and vocals were done through a very nifty condenser microphone, and the electric guitar was picked up with a Maplin-bought dynamic microphone (what was I thinking?) placed in front of my very tiny amp.
The result is quite rough, because I pretty much just played everything once and kept it, unless I just went horribly off time or something. I didn't really spend any time properly mixing the song either, so to say it doesn't sound very professional would be a massive understatement. Given more knowledge and more time, I'd pan certain things and increase the overall volume too. But since I'm too lazy to aquire more knowledge, and since I'd like to think I have better things to do with my time, I've just kind of left it unproduced.
The reason I post this now, having actually done the recording back in March, is that I just learned how to record the song onto a cd this morning, and therefore transfer it to my laptop. Listening back to it now, I'd of course change some things in terms of structure, but over all I'm reasonbly happy with the outcome given the rawness of what went into it. Anyway, have a listen below (best to do so with headphones) and feel free to tell me what you think - with both honesty and dishonesty more than welcome.
PS - This isn't the song of the week.
However, I have figured out the extreme basics of the machine. I can play my guitar and get the recorder to, well, record it. I can also play several tracks on top of each other, and I can even add in some effects. Armed with this exact knowledge a few months back, I decided to go about recording a version of 'When I Survey The Wondrous Cross'.
Taking a Christian song and recording my rendition of it was something I did a lot of with Audacity, so I decided to continue that on in the new, more expensive era of my home recording. With this particular song, I first of came up with the idea of an almost Braveheart-esque drum beat going right through it, and building up at the end for a rousing finale. Everything else kind of just spawned from that. The drums and bass were both recorded from my keyboard, hence their poor quality. The acoustic guitar and vocals were done through a very nifty condenser microphone, and the electric guitar was picked up with a Maplin-bought dynamic microphone (what was I thinking?) placed in front of my very tiny amp.
The result is quite rough, because I pretty much just played everything once and kept it, unless I just went horribly off time or something. I didn't really spend any time properly mixing the song either, so to say it doesn't sound very professional would be a massive understatement. Given more knowledge and more time, I'd pan certain things and increase the overall volume too. But since I'm too lazy to aquire more knowledge, and since I'd like to think I have better things to do with my time, I've just kind of left it unproduced.
The reason I post this now, having actually done the recording back in March, is that I just learned how to record the song onto a cd this morning, and therefore transfer it to my laptop. Listening back to it now, I'd of course change some things in terms of structure, but over all I'm reasonbly happy with the outcome given the rawness of what went into it. Anyway, have a listen below (best to do so with headphones) and feel free to tell me what you think - with both honesty and dishonesty more than welcome.
PS - This isn't the song of the week.
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