Experiences with recording instruments into beats

R

radio_vamorda

New member
Hi all,

I am doing my own beats and I would like to put some instruments info them. I have many friends playing:

- Sax,
- Violin,
- Guitar,
- Trumpet,
- Flute

And I would like to come up easily with preparing sheets with melodies I would like them to play for me (in chorus or outro). Could you tell me how you come up with ideas for melodies, maybe you have same readinga on arrangement / composition or even better: your own beats with live recordings of instruments and maybe MIDI or note sheets of the recorded parts? Any advice on the topic would help me a lot to move on.
 
If you would like to use your musician friends as resources, but don't feel confident as a composer/arranger at this point, I wouldn't force it by trying to use skills a little beyond your reach right now.

What I would do instead, to help you learn some of these things, but to integrate your friend resources into your productions now, is to let them listen to some of your work, then let them improvise some parts that work for their instruments and for their level of ability. You could let them track whole takes, and then just mix-out/edit the parts you don't want, cut & paste to different sections, etc... OR, you could give them the tempo and key, and just let them improvise very short fragments and use them as samples for you to mess about with adding to your beats or starting fresh with the samples or loops as the basis for new productions.

Just a thought. Then you would each be working in your comfort zones, but still maximizing your musical resources.

GJ
 
I think you are right that I should adapt the workflow to my current skills, I also thought about using for example parts of guitar riffs from songs my colleagues know how to play, which have the same key. I guess I will give this once again a chance then.

Regards the comfort zone, let's say I would like to leave it and develop my resources as well what would you focus on? Improvisation, copying from others, maybe literature? If I would be able to create melodies/chords as well as know which instrument fits best to a track and then be able to translate it to sheets, It would be much fun for me.
 
Yes, and those are a whole lot of time and investment-required skills you just mentioned; there is no quick-fix tutorial, you have to study, practice, and put in the time.

If you've never recorded live instruments before, I'd start with some books and videos on basic close miking and recording technique for things like acoustic and electric guitar, piano, drums, and various wind and string instruments, as well as stereo techniques such as coincident pair, XY, ORTF, Blumlein, Decca Tree, etc. Just the tracking strategies require skill sets and ears that take time to develop.

GJ
 
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