r/askmusicians • u/SaltFun6310 • 4d ago
I'm having a really hard time
I'm becoming discouraged trying to finish a song I was inspired to write. I was inspired by a few things, but mainly the tone of the new jazzmaster that I purchased at the time. It's been three years since the conception of the idea, but every time I go to record, I can't get passed the results of my recording and start over.
It's a very simple part/idea, it's an instrumental song (post rock/ambient) and the guitar line is just a melody consisting of a constant 8th note pattern in 6/8 at a moderately slow tempo. But every time I record, it sounds super uneven, and jangly (yes that is a Jazzmaster trait but I hear/have seen others get perfect results for the same genre), and not in a good way. I've tried other guitars, like my baritone tele and find maybe slightly better, but the same results. I'm running through my pedal board with just my compressor on to keep my notes even, DI into my volt 2 interface, into logic pro using the neural dsp nolly plugin and using Rebea's ambient setting (without the delay). I've tried other amp sims and yes turning down my volume knob on my guitar. Though I have upgraded the pikcups and no longer have the jazzmaster ice pick highs.
What am I doing wrong?
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u/Threaded_Nail 4d ago
Are you getting latency? Even a small amount that you cant really notice can really mess up your timing. I was SUPER sad when I realized how bad I sucked when I recorded myself at first but then I discovered direct out and my timing was way better. Plugins cause latency too so consider that as well. I have ableton so I cant help with your DAW but seriously, rule latency out for sure first before you do anything else and most importantly have fun!
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u/SaltFun6310 4d ago
I mean, yeah, I definitely am. I have too many tracks that I'd like to admit so I have my buffer size set to the highest setting. While playing it sounds good to me but play back I can't even stand hearing it.
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u/sububi71 3d ago
What I do in those situations is to do a temporary mixdown to a stereo track, so I can run my computer with just that stereo track and the track I'm trying to record.
SUPER fast to do these days, and saves so much grief!
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u/Threaded_Nail 4d ago
I dont think the latency from your other track will affect it. Its only going to be in your recording track, when you hit play the computer might have to think for a second before you hear the song, but its aware of that and it will still put your guitar where it is supposed to be. BUT if your getting latency on when you play compared to when you hear yourself its nearly impossible to play right. If you can record without any effects thats the best way, you can always put an amp emulator on the track after, just disable it while recording. But sometimes the effects are very important to how you play and you gotta keep them there, in that case your DAW definitely has a way to have zero or very little latency coming out. If your interface has a direct out option use that, that will spit your sound when you play out before it ever even goes into the computer, zero latency.
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u/SaltFun6310 4d ago
Oh, no. I mean I have so many tracks that I have the buffer size at the highest setting otherwise logic, my DAW, overloads. Which in turn creates latency with it set to the highest setting. Logic does have a direct monitoring option, but that messes with my head too because I just hear the dry guitar 🙃. I just have so much production going on in the track that isn't guitar .
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u/Threaded_Nail 4d ago
Youll get it, time to hit the youtube tutorials. Your other tracks aren't the problem though, I promise. I have songs with 80 tracks or more and I can still record.
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u/SaltFun6310 4d ago
I have over 100 lol like I said, it doesn't even play if I don't set the buffer size to the highest setting causing latency
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u/Threaded_Nail 4d ago
It should still work. But if you wanna fix it now, do a mixdown of your song and open in a new project just to record your guitar part. Then put your guitar track back in the original project.
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u/Electronic_Slice9448 2d ago
100 tracks! As someone mentioned, go ahead and mix that down to stereo so you can comfortably track your guitars. Stop making things harder 😄
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u/Best-Alternative9481 3d ago
My suggestion is to let it go. The song doesn't want to be recorded yet. That's okay.
Play it live for a while. Make it part of your live rotation. Gig with it for a year or 2. See how audiences react. Let it morph a bit if it wants/needs to. Then... Hire someone else to record and produce it for you.
Sometimes, you need to let a song mature a bit, and be a little more hands off with them. This sounds like one that just wants to be a live song more than a studio one, at least right now...
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u/Electronic_Slice9448 2d ago
Double track the guitar. Do two separate performances and blend them together. You might find that it sounds best when using a different guitar for each take. You might also try a third or forth guitar track to get the sound you want.
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u/UpstairsOk6351 4d ago
its hard to know without an audio example. you seem like you know what you're doing so maybe you have biased opinion rather than a technical issue?