1) DEADLINES. You need them. "By 6pm, I will have a finished demo song. It does not matter if it sucks, because it will be for purposes of creativity only. If I succeed, I get a beer. If I fail, I must clean the kitchen and then watch an episode of Ugly Betty." 2) JUST FUCKING PLAY. Record whatever riffs you've got. Fuck tempo. Tempo can be beaten to fit, painted to match. So can riffs. 3) IF A TREE FALLS IN THE WOODS. Things you record count. Things you don't record never existed in the first place. Hit the fucking record button. 4) FUCK THE CLICK TRACK. If it's a useful exercise, grab some old shitty drum loops and lay them down. Most any sample CD had enough loop construction in it to give you intro/verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus/outtro. Stripe that shit down in any tempo you like and play on top of it. Then play on top of it again. Then play on top of it again and get rid of the shit you don't like. 5) SILENCE YOUR INNER CRITIC. People who play music tend to be erudite consumers of music and well-honed critics. They're used to listening to music that has been refined through several albums' worth of dreck before genius is discovered. You will make dreck. You will not subject your friends to it. Cut an entire album just for you. Then sit on it. Then start recording things that you might make other people listen to. Trust me. Your second "album" will kick the shit out of your first. _____________________________________ That said, this is my rig: ...and I've composed and recorded exactly 1 song since 1998. So take all that shit with a grain of salt.
I've seen your setup before, maybe even the same picture, but it still makes me foam at the mouth.
Agree with you on everything but the "fuck tempo" part. Tempo is so important! Sticking to my guns on this one. I've had to scrap almost really good projects before because they were exactly the wrong tempo and I'd recorded too many tracks already and the prospect of beat correcting or manually shifting everything made me want to claw my eyes out. Then again. Usually if you just play the damn thing naturally, it presents itself in the best possible tempo. So maybe play it and then divine the tempo later? Possibly what you were saying, I guess. But TEMPO IS IMPORTANT!
Ahhh - but tempo as a part of the recording process? Completely irrelevant. 1) Record piece 2) Record stuff that goes with it 3) arrange, discover that you're nowhere near any sort of reasonable tempo 4A) Adjust the tempo map to fit your drunken playing 4B) timestretch your playing to match a reasonable tempo map 4C) get the arrangement right then re-record your drunken tempo part so that it's no longer drunken 4D) Any and all of the above
Only ever make it to 4C, then look at the profusion of noodles I threw on top of original drunken line, imagine having to re-record them all to fit the tempo map and then spend the rest of the night/life weeping silently in front of video games instead. But I'm willing to grant that not everybody adds about 18 lines too many to every song, and if you're reasonable in your songwriting, this is a totally viable option.
I've been pretty on top of 2 & 3, it's really about the only thing I do with the setup so far. It's a lot nicer than the memo recorder on my phone. I'll definitely make deadlines though. I've got a new instrument coming in Friday and I'll make sure the first thing I do is record with it. So what's that one song? It's 16 years of refined awesomeness, right?