Hey how're you doin. Justin here, today we're gonna talk about the benefits of
recording yourself and it could just be like leaning your phone up against the
coffee cup and using selfie cam and filming yourself playing a tune,
probably more what I'm talking about here is learning to record on a computer like
record individual tracks and listen back to them, that kind of thing
but first of all I wanna talk about the benefits of recording and why
I think you should get into it, then we'll talk about the how.
So the first thing is it is an incredible amount of fun, if you get into studio
recording you can spend your time making a track which is kind of like a finite
thing when we practice guitar regularly it's very incremental like you get a bit
better and then a bit better the next day and a bit better and you don't feel like
you're, the benefits aren't as obvious or immediate, but when you record a song
you've got something, you spent you're time recording and at the end of it you've
got a thing that you made, even if its a video of yourself playing one take on
ya know playing a song that you really like and singing, the fact that you will
have probably done quite a few takes to get there will give you that real sense
of achievement of when you've got the finished product and its done, okay so
it's loads and loads of fun but more than that, it's really beneficial, and by
recording yourself you give yourself the opportunity to become an impartial
observer cuz we all kind of feel things are a little different in the moment,
there have definitely been times in my life where I've played like a solo and in
the moment I didn't really feel like it was working or I wasn't really connected
but listened back and gone ya know that was alright and the other way where I've
been in the moment thinking like oh this is incredible I'm the next Jimmy Hendrix
and then listen back and gone uh I don't think so mate, it's been a bit rough.
So this idea of being able to see yourself back and look impartially is a really
really great thing to have that you can use to improve yourself as a musician and
as a guitar player. Somethings are gonna be really revealing so the first one
usually is timing and time, how well you keep time, particularly if you're
recording to a click track or playing along with drums, when you listen back
to yourself you can really hear like am I rushing am I playing too far back am I
with the beat am I sitting great, am I playing too far, ya know all of those
things become really obvious and it's hard to get that feedback sometimes in the
moment again like because we're playing you can either be like completely lost in
the moment just feeling it all out and not really being aware of it or concentrating
too much, there's a happy balance there when you start recording where you need to
be playing in time but not thinking about it overthinking it and making it all
ridged so there's, like you really learn a lot in the process of doing that
things like if your cords are a bit fluffy or some of the notes aren't ringin out
in the cords as well that one becomes really obvious, uh if you're improvising
if you're not leaving enough space or leaving too much or repeating the licks
too much or not repeating enough, or using too wide of a brighter, all of
these things become really obvious when listen back like it's someone else, uh a
tip for you that I'd give you in advance is that when I record myself I, I often
record myself back and think what would such and such say, so I use this friend of
mine, I still use the same guy, Reese, I haven't
seen Reese for a long time, he's a studio engineer I used to work with quite a lot
and I used to record these parts and go what would Rese say and I'd imagine like
what he, I'd imagine him listening back to the track and going yeah that line doesn't
fit very well or you didn't climax into the right point, or that vibrato wasn't
really working or what you know what feedback would he have given me, so it
could be an interesting one for you to think of a musician that you respect and
what would they say if they heard that track back, what feedback would they give
you. Another one of the great benefits that you get of recording yourself is
being able to collaborate online, I know definitely in my forum community there's
a real big scene of that of people one guy recorded a part and then sent it off
to another girl who lay out some tracks there and sent it to another
person who put some drums on and then it'll go back to this person who'll
do some vocals it's a really great kind of way of collaborating and
getting to know other musicians, where you get that experience of what it's actually
like to be a recording artist, but it's just on a fun not at all scary
level. That said you will have to face a little bit of red light fever, which is
one of the, another thing to benefit from that feeling of pressure you get in the
moment, it's a little bit like playing live in that you can really kind of you
feel the weight of the moment and you know that you've got to deliver it right this
time, like you've hit record right it's recording I've got to do it right now
you know that, we call it red light fever it happens I guess sometimes with making
a youtube video, but less often, for me it's more like a recording or a high
pressure live situation that you start to feel a bit nervous and hearts racing a bit
faster. You get used to it the more you do it for sure, so that's one of those things
ya know it's beneficial to have some experience of recording and getting used
to what that feels like to have a surge of adrenaline and it'll help you if you ever
play live or if you end up recording some stuff on your own as well. And lastly if
you're into song writing it can really bring your songs to life so rather than
just having an acoustic guitar and playing along if you can learn to record into a
software and you can add drums and base and strings and keyboard and mix it and
add different vocal effects and layer up the voice and add backing vocals you know
that tune that you had where you were just playing on your own suddenly can
become like a whole track now it does take a bit of time and effort okay there's
some incredible advances in technology in the last ten years or whatever that
have made it easy for people with very little experience to make actually a
pretty great sounding track so it is something I would definitely encourage you
to explore but it is gonna take up some time possibly some money, it's a bit of a
pit that once you get into recording, you can start off with really basic gear and
then you decide that you need a new microphone and then you decide that
you need a new speaker and you need a new preamp and a new this and a new that.
but really with the way tech is right now you can do a lot with just a guitar
and a computer and possibly an interface so lets have quick talk about the stuff
that you need to get going into recording yourself properly. So to start recording
you definitely could just be using your phone and recording a layer and trying to
record another layer or making one track one pass of a video of you playing
or an audio of you playing and singing a song or whatever that, so that's recording
and that will give you a lot of those benefits on the, on feedback and being
able to listen to yourself, so don't discard that, but if you want to get more
into kinda you know like a recording studio kind of effect where you can
record multiple layers and adjust the parts and cut between them and that
kind of thing the first thing that you're gonna need is software, so you're gonna
need a computer obviously but you're gonna need some sort of music
software, we call it a DAW which stands for Digital Audio Workstation, now if
you've got an apple computer they ship free with Garage Band which is absolutely
incredible bit of software for learning to record it really is, I still go like
I can't believe all of this stuffs built into the computer for free. It's really
dead easy to use, there's lots of tutorials around that will guide you
throught the process and a lot of it is quite intuative and that's free.
The software is free but you have to have an Apple computer which are
expensive computers so you're kind of paying for it one way or another
I guess. But that would definitely be what I recommend as a starting point
if you have got an Apple computer. Occasionaly they do sales on Logic Pro X
which is the professionnal recording software that Apple produces as well.
It only works on Apple computers. It's what I use. It's what I'm recording this
lesson with right now and it's incredible. It's like fully featured, full recording
studio situation. The other famous one is called Pro Tools which I used
exclusively up until maybe five years or so something and it's incredible but
I don't think it's as friendly for beginners. It definitely doesn't have
as many features as Logic Pro X. So that would be my recommendation
would be starting for free on Garage Band maybe moving to Logic Pro X. It's
relatively inexpensive compared to a lot of the other tools as well. If you've
got a Windows computer the free software that everyone raves about is called
Audacity. Now I haven't used it. It is available of Mac I've just noticed
and I will cjeck it out a little but more myself for Mac. Pretty confident with
my Logic skills I'm really not sure I have time to learn another program
but it has a huge fan base. It's extremely popular and the feature
set looks quite incredible. And again it's completely free open source
softwatre. So that's definitely probably your best starting point if you want
to get into recording on a PC. In order to get audio into you're computer
you're going to need an audio interface. These would usually connect to your
computer via a USB cable and that is what you would plug a microphone
into or plug your guitar into and it's also what you would plug headphones
into to hear back the audio. You could listen back on your computer speakers
I guess but that probably won't sound very good. Now there are a load of
different audio interfaces available with varying features. As a beginner you
probably only need two channels in and two out. So two in, two out. Because
technology changes so fast, I'm going to put my recommended products over on the
website rather then trying to explain them all now because it will date this
video very, very quickly. But you just need a simple audio interface, two in,
two out, that will take a microphone and preferably a thing called phantom
power which would drive a nice microphone if you upgrade to one later on. There are
very simple budget devices you can get that just plug a guitar in. But if you're
gonna get into it I think the budget audio interfaces are not particlularly
expensive and then you can get a microphone in. A microphone in
is a really good thing to have because it will not just do voice but it will do
acoustic guitar. Which leads me to the next thing which is a microphone.
Microphones again range from like, I don't know 50 dollars to 50,000
dollars, right? You can spend a lot on a microphone or a little. If you can
afford it there's a type of microphone called a Large Diaphram Condenser
Microphone which is what I'd recommend. The brand Rode make real good budget
microphones. My first Large Diaphram Condenser was a Rode mic. Really
great bang for buck generally, I don't have a deal or any sort of relationship
with them at all. But the're just really good. So as a brand that might be
worth checking out. You have to think a little bit about your budget there
because you could spend half the price of a Rode and get a microphone that
probably isn't going to be as good by any stretch but, you know, buying the
same mic you could spend a couple of thousand pounds and get yourself
an incredible microphone so a little bit of it depends on your budget.
The Rode thing, you know, maybe a couple of hundred dollars would get
you a really nice microphone that will do you a really long time. Again
recommendations will be on the website. I should point out that plugging in an
acoustic guitar is never going to give you the best sound. There's technology
around that's making it better now but a microphone with a nice placement is
always gonna sound better than trying to plug your acoustic guitar in.
So getting a microphone that's suitable for voice as well as acoustic guitar
would be a really great idea. If you only play electric guitar there's less of a
call for that. You can plug the guitar straight into interface usually. Sometimes
directly into your computer. And there's amazing guitar software around now
that will transform the sound of your plugged in electric guitar into almost
anything. Nearly all of time when I'm doing these lessons I use a thing called
a Kemper profiler. That would be out of the budget for most beginners but
it's an incredible thing, sounds like almost any amplifier. But a lot of
the software now that built in even the built in Garage Band and Logic
it's sounds pretty incredible and you can buy add ons from a lot of different
companies that sounds really, really good and come with all of the
different effects to explore and all of that. So when it comes to electric guitar
you kind of got an easier ride. Most of the software will be built in but you
can buy add ons if you want. For acoustic guitar you almost certainly want to get
yourself a microphone. Now there's one other thing that's actually really
important which is headphones. Whatever you do, don't try and use bluetooth
headphones. OK? Even if they're big over the ear thing or ear buds or whatever.
Don't get them if they're not connected because there's a latency which means
there's a delay in sound. So if you're trying to play along with the drums,
the drums get played, it takes a few milliseconds before it gets to your ear
and then you record and it goes in, it's always going to be late so when you
listen back it won't sound in time. You might have been playing perfectly
in time with the thing that went in your ears but by the time you listen
back to it it won't sound in time and that will be disappointing.
So get yourselves some headphones with a cable attachment, that's a really
good thing. If you can get a style called a closed back which means that when
you put the headphones on the sound doesn't bleed out very much. Now
usually when you're recording you put the headphones on, say you're doing
an acoustic guitar, you don't want to hear the click track or the drums or
anything like that in the microphone. You only want to hear the guitar.
That's why it's important to use headphone that are closed back so the sound
doesn't bleed out of the headphones into the microphones. This is mainly
because when you want to treat the microphones or adjust the volume with
it later you just want that guitar on it's own and not any other interference
from other instruments. There are a couple of other accessories which
you're gonna find pretty helpfull. One would be a microphone stand. Actually
it's probably more then might be helpfull. If you're gonna get a microphone you
need a microphone stand. I wouldn't buy the cheapest one. There's a great
saying Buy cheap, buy twice. Well with microphone stands that seems to be
the case. I really like a German brand called K&M but they're quite expensive
like definitely in the high end of the mic stand but I've never had one break
ever. All of the ones that I've bought, I've still got. Lost one I think. But I've
never had one get damage. There's cheaper ones I see get damage all the time on my
workshop. Legs bend up or they don't stand up properly anymore whatever. So I
wouldn't buy the cheapest stand. Same with the cable. I wouldn't buy the cheapest
cable. You don't need to go and buy the super duper oxygen free army thing
for 500 hundred quid. That would be a ridiculous waste of money. But don't
get the cheapest cable either. You know, I often think that the best approach
to looking for it is to buy the best you can afford and look after it. You know,
I think hat's a really good approach to buying stuff for the music.
And if you look after stuff you can always sell it again later. Maybe not cables but
most other stuff will retain it's value. And the last thing that you need which
is in some ways is the most important is knowledge of how to use that stuff.
Now there are lessons around. I've got a new production series on my website
hosted by my assistant Adam, I'm looking into doing some more things
as well. I have a beginner's guide to Garage Band as well already. There's
plenty of information around but a lot of it is just having some fun with
it at the early stages. It's literally figuring out how to record your guitar,
figuring out how to make a drum loop or how to make the drums go around
and then practicing playing with the drums. It's very satisfying just that
experience and learning from it. I'm I playing in time with the click I'm I
speeding up, I'm I slowing down, how does it work, how is my tone, how can
I improve my tone. There's notes ringing out they shouldn't be. All of those
things that you can start to work on. As you develop and you start going "Yah this
is cool I'm going to try programming some base now", you could usually
use drag and drop like use a mouse to create one or you might get a mini
keyboeard so you can actually play a little base line or play a keyboard pad
or whatever. There's a lot of this to learn here. It's almost like having
a new instrument to learn, you know. You're starting from the beginning of a
new journey. But it's one that can help you run your guitar journey so much,
you'll learn an awfull lot about lawyering about tracking, about your playing,
finding mistakes, dealing with pressure. There's so many benefits to learning
to record yourself. It's one of the things that I'm so glad I stubbled into as a
teenager as I got into these little things where I was playing on a few jingles and
stuff like that and playing on other people's record and it really focused
me on what I was playing and taught me more than I would have got If I'd
spent 10 years in my bedroom. So the sooner you get into recording yourself
and/or sharing it with other people, the better. I think it's a really
incredible experience. So over on the website I'm going to add a list of
my recommended devices at a budget, mid and high level. I'll put down the
stuff that I'm using on my day to day as well. Although again for beginners
I wouldn't go and buy the best stuff straight away. Often times it's got
more complicated things that will make it harder to use at the early stages.
You're better off buying stuff that is really simple and basic to begin with.
Learning what it is that you need and what things you would like and then stepping
up. You might loose a little bit along the way, if you one pre-amp and then you
sell it and you buy the next one up and each time you step you loose a little
money. But in a lot of ways it's better because you'll be upgrading to
the things that you need and that you like rather than trying to buy super expensive
stuff at the beginning. I've seen it a load of times more wealthy students
buying like a home studio and stuff that, you know, is 10 thousand
dollars worth of stuff and it's just a really bad idea. You're better off
starting with simple two in, two out interface, a decent microphone,
microphone stand, cable, headphones and then learning a whole heap from
that and then thinking about what stuff you want to upgrade as you go along.
As usual if you have any questions, always happy to try to answer as many as I can.
I really hope you enjoyed this lesson and that it inspires you to start recording
yourself. As always I really appreciate your suport hitting that subsccribe button
you'll get notified of course when I have new lessons I'm recording or lots
of other stuff coming up as well. Always appreciate you slapping that like and
let me know in the comments how you're going and if you do any recording what
gear have you loved and what have you not. I'll see you for plenty more lessons very
soon, You take care of yourself. Bye bye.