{"id":99,"date":"2007-07-23T08:43:18","date_gmt":"2007-07-23T16:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregbueno.com\/wp\/meisakuki\/2007\/07\/23\/knob_twiddler_1\/"},"modified":"2007-07-23T08:43:18","modified_gmt":"2007-07-23T16:43:18","slug":"knob_twiddler_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/2007\/07\/23\/knob_twiddler_1\/","title":{"rendered":"Knob twiddler"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been procrastinating on recording vocals because so far, it’s been nothing but an exercise in frustration. But it took recording someone else<\/em> singing for me to reach a few epiphanies about how it’s done.
\nAbout a week ago, OmarG<\/a> asked whether he could use my studio to record some parody tracks for a Latino Comedy Project show. I gave him some disclaimers about my ability to record vocals, but he was looking for cheap, and I was free. So we took a stab.
\nWe had a 3-minute karaoke track that had to be cut down to fit some substitute lyrics. I didn’t know if it could be done, let alone whether I could do it. But with some creative splicing and cross-fading, it was done.
\nThen came the vocals.<\/p>\n


\nI’ve read up on how to record vocals, and I know the general concepts required. But every time I’ve attempted to do it on my own, I get really crappy results. This time, I didn’t have to do both the singing and the knob twiddling — I could just concentrate on the knob twiddling. I also read up on how Cakewalk SONAR works with layers, something I’ve had no use for till that point.
\nThus informed, I tackled the recording session and came up with results that really sounded better than either of us expected. In short, I was doing stuff I didn’t know I actually knew how to do.
\nSo this past weekend, I tried it on my own, keeping the setup from OmarG’s session. I recorded a cover of AJICO’s \u300c\u6ce2\u52d5\u300d ("Hadou"), using the same techniques.
\nWhen I didn’t like something, I focused on that one line and recorded additional takes, till I got something I did like. On one word, I came in early. So I went into the editor and slid that portion of the recording over a bit to be on time. I even recorded backing vocals the same way.
\nWhat resulted was the first vocal performance I was actually satisfied with. That’s saying alot since I really don’t like my own singing voice. What does it sound like? Listen<\/a>.
\nThese results are encouraging. In the past, I would have to break down the mic setup when I was done, and from day to day, the slight changes in mic placement would yield different results, which would annoy me. Now with a room dedicated to studio work, I can record fairly consistent performances, sound-wise.
\nNow that I understand how layers work in SONAR, I can work a lot more efficiently. On my first tries I would scrap entire takes if something went wrong, even if the rest of the performance sounded good. (How wasteful.)
\nWith every project I do, I’m learning just a little bit more each time. Hell, I have to resist temptation to go back to stuff I did in 2005 and remix and remaster it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It took recording someone else singing for me to reach a few epiphanies about how it’s done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Bkir-1B","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregbueno.com\/meisakuki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}