For my original songs, I work hard to find a style that sounds good with the song and I play it over and over to figure out what I want to mute or the settings to change. To make the recordings as good as they can be, within budget restraints (broke), what do you think about this.

I was considering 'hiring' someone who knows how to record. An acquaintance comes to mind who has a home studio, a gazillion dollars tied up in his recording equipment and he knows what he's doing. Demo's he did for me sound good to me. But could they be appreciably better?

I played just like I was at a gig and he recorded the keyboard. I sang with the mic off. Because I can play better if I sing. Then, I'd sing the vocal as the track played and he'd record that track. Then mix the two tracks.

Disadvantage of this is that the parts coming out of the keyboard, he is limited to what he can do, since the keyboard mixes them.

What about... recording these tracks separately. Drums, bass, other voices on separate tracks, just like I was using live musicians. Then, he'd mix in the traditional manner.

So, the question is, do you think it would be appreciably better? Of course, time (money) is an issue. But if it provided quantum leaps forward in fidelity, might have to raise the budget. What do you think? I ask this because I know little about recording but I need as high a quality as I can get... spending as little as possible, haha.

This would be for my own album (for sale) and they could also double as demo's for publishers.


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Me Bill
Yamaha PSR2000

Provided your friend is comfortable and skilled in mixing eq-ing, I am sure you will notice a marked difference you get with the final product by recording each musical track separately. It gives the studio engineer more head room in adjusting the levels for the vocals and the music together.


But I can not emphasize this enough … the quality depends on the skill level of the engineer more than it depends on the quantity and quality of the recording equipment.

Thanks for the reply. One more... I could try his home studio and ears and also a 'real' studio that I have used, although, the real studio would cost more.

Question is... if I record a song, (maybe two?), at each in the manner described and choose the one that I will do the rest of the songs based on that... is there any problem with using the tracks from the 'loser?' Anything I need to know about audio format so that the tracks could be used by another engineer? I don't know if 'mastering' is required for a finished product... if it is 'required' for a low-budget c.d. but perhaps, a low-budget mastering session is possible?


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Me Bill
Yamaha PSR2000

I don’t think after recording two songs at different studios you would want to think about mastering quite yet especially if you plan to do more songs.
When you decide who you will record with then you can look about mastering.

Deciding who to record with is your first task.
What you may want to do is after recording the song or 2 in the manner you described is take the tracks from the “looser” to the studio you would want to do the rest of the recording.

You would want to find out if they are using the same software program to do the laying of tracks (that is if they are using a software studio). If they are using the same program then you could request that they provide you with a bundle file or the initial file that contains all the track separations, audio and midi information. Word processor example: if both parties have MS word, and the original file was created as an RTF document, they can transfer the files as an RTF document.


If however, the two studios have different software programs that they work with, what the party who you will not be recording with could do if willing, is to export each track whether music or vocals as wave files. And then the person who you will be working with can import each wave file in to different tracks in their recording software. Word Processor example: If one party has a Word Processor program MS word and save the initial file as RTF and the other party has as a Word Processor program Word Perfect, the person who has Word can save the document as a text (.txt) file that would be a file common to both programs.


You would need to pay attention to the mix of both studios to see if you like the mix
How does each musical track interact with the vocal tracks.


Alternatively, if your keyboard has a sequencer, you could record the style with you playing the chord changes as a quick record. And then you could mix the music yourself and then record the music as one track. But that would depend on how much editing capability your keyboard sequencer has and how comfortable and confident you are with mixing the music yourself.

Just my opinion

[This message has been edited by to the genesys (edited 07-26-2005).]

Couldn't manufacturers help those seriously into recording by providing more track outputs on their arrangers? How difficult or cost prohibitive might that be?

I ask this question out of admitted ignorance ... If you have a 16 track sequencer (as does the kn6000) is there not some software that will record each track seperately in one take, and allow you to edit as you want?
t.

.... how about as a 'midi file' ???
t.

I am sure that you can probably get the midi dater from the KN6000 to a computer.

But if you want to record audio, you will have to use the audio outputs on the keyboard.

How many separate audio tracks you can record at one time would depend on how many audio outputs the keyboard has (for example stereo L and R + 2 additional = a total of4) and also how many inputs your sound card or audio recording device has.

For example, I had a sequence on my Genesys for someone and we had to go to another studio to record the audio. In that sequence I used 8 separate tracks. Instead of recording the sequence as one audio track or, instead of recording each track one by one (going over the song 8 times), I assigned tracks to different outputs. My Genesys has a set of stereo outs and two other outs. So I assigned track 1 to stereo left, track 2 to stereo right, track 3 to one of the other outs and track 4 to the other out. We recorded those tracks separately but in one take. For the remaining 4 tracks I repeated the process above but with tracks 5-8. So instead of having to record each of the 8 tracks separately and having to play the sequence 8 times we only had to play the sequence 2 times while still accomplishing the same goal of getting eight separate tracks recorded.


BTW the same thing can be done with styles if your keyboard would allow you to assign style parts to different audio outputs.