In this video, I'll show you how to overdub a guitar or any other instrument on top of
a pre-recorded track. That way you can add layers to your music even if you're just a solo musician.
But if you're new to this channel,
my name is Kyle. Learn audio production online at audiouniversityonline.com.
In order to record an overdub, you'll need existing recordings to use as a backing track.
You may be using tracks you've already recorded of you and your band playing or you may choose
to record a guitar solo over a backing track that you've downloaded. If you have an existing session
with the backing tracks in your DAW, open it up. If you don't yet have a backing track in
the session, just start a new session in your DAW and drag and drop the audio file into a new track.
When you press play, you should hear the backing track playing through your speakers or headphones.
If this is the first time you're using your audio interface, watch this video I made to
get the initial setup taken care of and then come back to watch the rest of this video.
The next step is to add a track for your guitar overdub. I'm going to change the input of this
new track to input 1. I could connect my electric guitar directly into the instrument
input of my interface, making sure that the line instrument switch is set to instrument.
You could even try connecting your guitar to your pedal board and then connecting your pedal board
to your interface. If you will be connecting your guitar directly into your audio interface,
you'll probably want to use some sort of amp modeling plug-in within your DAW.
There are a lot of great amp simulator bundles that give you access to dozens of emulations of
classic guitar amplifiers and cabinets. I'll add links to some of the most popular options to the
description of this video. On the other hand, you might choose to record your guitar amplifier with
a microphone. To do this, you'd simply connect your guitar or your pedal board to your amp as
you normally would and then place the microphone on the speaker cabinet. I like to start with the
microphone about halfway between the center of the speaker cone and the edge of the speaker.
You can try shining a flashlight into the grille of the cabinet if you're having
trouble finding where the speaker is. For more tips on microphone placement and how to get
the best recording of a guitar amplifier, watch this video I made a few weeks ago.
If you're getting value out of this video so far hit the "Like" button to help this
video reach more viewers and to help the Audio University channel grow. I really appreciate it.
You'll need to be able to hear both the backing track and your guitar in order to get the best
performance and recording possible. If you're plugging directly into the audio interface
you can probably listen through the speakers, especially if you're using a solid body guitar.
But if you're using a hollow body guitar or a microphone on your amp,
you'll want to use headphones and turn the speakers all the way down to avoid
a feedback loop. In order to hear your guitar, you need to choose one of the following options.
Option one is to monitor through your DAW. This is sometimes done simply by arming the guitar track.
If you don't hear your guitar after arming the guitar track, you may need to click the
input monitor button on the guitar track also. The problem is that this option sometimes adds
excessive delay or latency to the signal, which can make it difficult to stay on time while
performing. Option two uses the direct monitoring feature of your audio interface, which allows you
to listen to the signal with very little latency. If you're using the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2,
this is called Direct Monitor. You'll still want to arm the guitar track in the DAW.
However, if you're using the direct monitoring feature you should also
mute the guitar track or turn off input monitoring on the guitar track to avoid an echo. Once you've
armed the guitar track, you should start to see the level meters jump when you play the guitar.
Increase the preamp gain knob until the meter peaks at about -12 dBFS.
Now that you've got your backing track imported into your session,
your guitar connected to your audio interface, and the appropriate levels, it's time to press record.
The backing track will start to play and you should be able to hear your guitar as you play.
Once you're finished recording, listen back to the tracks by turning off the
record arm on the guitar track and pressing play.
If you're using an amp simulator you can make adjustments to the sound after the recording.
If you liked this video watch the video that's on your screen
next or visit audiouniversityonline.com.