First ever recording session, what an experience.

Volentry

Senior Member
I recorded with my band in a studio with professional equipment for the very first time. After recording each take, I thought I did okay. Until I heard the playback.

It was horrible. During the verses I rushed slightly, and my groove was sloppy. During the last part of the song where I put in a one bar fill I started way too early and missed the hits on the floor tom, too.

And I wasn't nervous of anything at all, I just played my heart out. No stress.

I feel absolutely horrible. I felt like I could play these with ease, I could play them at home with the song playing on iTunes. But it sounded so bad on the recording.

Now I realise recording is another thing altogether. I have newfound respect for drummers who play complicated and technical stuff in recordings. One that I've been taking note of particularly, is Thomas Pridgen during his Mars Volta days.

I thought to myself during the long train ride home, 'What separates young talents like John Bonham, Tony Royster Jr. and Thomas Pridgen from us? What makes them different from us? What makes them so special? Is it pure talent? Alot of dedicated practice?'.

I still don't understand.
 
..., 'What separates young talents like John Bonham, Tony Royster Jr. and Thomas Pridgen from us? What makes them different from us? What makes them so special? Is it pure talent? Alot of dedicated practice?'.

IMO: talent - 20%, dedicated practice - 80%.

We tend to be our own worst critics - so don't be too disheartened, especially based on the first experience. Now that you've been through it once - you know what to work on.

It is really helpful if you can find a way to record practice time (both yourself and the band together). even just a cheap, low-fi setup so you can listen to your playing and evaluate it objectively as you work on stuff. This also has the benefit of you getting more used to the recording environment so you can be even more relaxed and focused the next time you're in a studio.
 
I would also say that of the 80% practice part, half of it is challenging experience and good teaching. Pridgen went to Berkley, Royster Jr. is a longtime friend of Dennis Chambers, and I'm not too sure about Bonham, but I believe he studied snare very early on and played in show bands in his youth.

What is your experience? My most valuable experience was playing with a show band where the MD was a great drummer, he kicked my butt! The pressure was on me to be better than I was. I made so much progress in a year.
 
As drummers we tend to try to isolate the drum parts from the rest of the music. We notice subtle things that most people wouldn't while listening to the music as a whole. Do you play to a click? In the last year I have started playing to a click because my band uses pre-recorded keys on a few songs. This has improved my playing dramatically when I don't use the click.
 
what did your bandmates think ? was the performance ok with them ?

the Perfect Take is a thing of fiction. everyone uses the ¨best¨ or ¨most service-able¨ take and ¨fixes¨ it. overdub those missed hits.

a good book to read regarding studio processes is the Beatles´ engineer Geoff Emerick´s book Here There And Everywhere. if youŕe not much of a Beatle fan, iḿ sure there are others that will be helpful.

yes, there is a process to learn when making recordings (and in no way am i a master) but you may be being too hard on yourself. it will come.

just like one day i will be able to tune drums. maybe.
 
Personally I don't think it's ever a good idea to listen playbacks as soon as you record them. There's a kind of studio euphoria that sets in, and it affects both positively and negatively the way you think you sound. No joke.

I would walk away from the recordings for a few days then listen again with a new set of ears. I'm betting they're not nearly as bad as you believe.
 
As someone who can be very overly self-critical, I really agree with Matt here. I am never going to be happy with what I play, esp after I first hear it. But then after a few listens, I can come to like it, and have more respect for my playing.

It's always harder with a mic in the room, or doing the one take. It puts that critical button on and it can really interfere with your playing confidence.

As far as timing goes, there is no better substitute than playing with a metronome to set you up for the studio.
 
Personally I don't think it's ever a good idea to listen playbacks as soon as you record them. There's a kind of studio euphoria that sets in, and it affects both positively and negatively the way you think you sound. No joke.

I would walk away from the recordings for a few days then listen again with a new set of ears. I'm betting they're not nearly as bad as you believe.

absolutely agree.

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The microphones don't lie. I think most everyone has to have this reality check at some point. It's a good thing though! Before listening back you were oblivious, and now you know what you have to work on.

You have a first person perspective when playing and a third person perspective when listening back--the two perspectives are obviously different. Get a cheap little recorder so that you can listen back to your practices (personal and with band). The time studying the recording is more important than the time practicing. Start playing simple stuff at first and rebuild yourself making sounding good your highest priority (and always play to a click so that you're not practicing wrong the whole time).

Also, there is such thing as a perfect take where you listen back immediately and are satisfied, the more you record yourself and study the more you'll know how to achieve that result while you're playing.

So be encouraged, there is a conceptual element that you'll figure out from constantly playing and listening back such that you'll know how to play first person in a way that you know will sound pretty good third person!
 
If you have the luxury of being able to come back to it whenever you feel like it, then sure, take a couple of days off and listen to it when you feel emotionally ready. I'd like to be able to put off making judgments about my recordings until I have forgotten what it was I was trying to do, which can take months. If you don't have unlimited studio time, though, you'll have to decide on the spot whether you've gotten a take that is at least acceptable. I don't know how you do that except to listen, or maybe let somebody else decide. Usually if something seems wrong to you, it probably is.

Unless they're very exposed in the mix, the subtly annoying things about your performance will probably not be noticeable when the other instruments are added. And sometimes your slop can interact with the other musicians' slop in a way that communicates looseness rather than suckiness- you just have to get lucky and have a good engineer. Obviously if you're going for something pristine-sounding, that's not going to work.

If you get another shot at it, I would try not playing your heart out. Just place the notes in the correct rhythm. Often accuracy communicates better than emotional intensity.
 
another thought is Ear Fatigue. the ears tend to go after two hours. one doesn´t hear things accurately after 2-3 hours. a guitarist may think heś playing out of tune, yet everyone tells him that itś fine.

the next day heś like ...¨Oh...itś okay¨.

: )
 
Yeah it's definitely a good idea to step away from the recording for a day or two and then listen to it again. By then you will be listening to it closer the average person would since you might not remember ever single "mistake" you made.

Personally for me, I was also disappointed with the first recording session I did with a band. I often do Youtube covers and it's an excellent way to "practice" being recorded and knowing what's wrong, how to approach it and how to fix different aspects.

I suggest you find a way to record yourself every now and then.
 
Thank you everyone for your helpful posts. I really appreciate it.

I do practice with a metronome while practicing licks and such at home. When I play a song though, I play with the song with iTunes. I have never played with a click track during jamming sessions.

I remembered we seemed to play fine while playing, they didn't give me any weird looks or anything. But when we listened to the playback, all of us were just shocked at the last chorus of the song. We rushed like mad. Not to mention it was really sloppy.

Yeah I think I shouldn't. Thinking back, I realised I was really 'into it'. Like as if I was putting on a show or something. That energy might have made me speed up.

And about the not listening to the playback immediately is true. The sloppyness doesn't seem all that bad now, but the obvious mistakes are still obvious though. A problem I had while playing was that I had some problems playing fast fills that go to the floor tom.
 
For a newbie, a recording studio can be a very bewildering place, and playing in it can be even more confusing. When I was a broadcasting major in college, musician friends used to ask me to tag along to help them get through their sessions. This became one of my stepping stones to eventually becoming a producer, and one of my strengths has been working with uninitiated musicians. My strategy is to calm people down, explain the processes and technologies, help them concentrate, point out strengths and weaknesses of their takes, and coordinate with the engineer. So if you don't have a producer, next time try bringing along a friend who you (and your band) trust musically, has at least some experience in a studio, and who knows your music.
 
There was also one thing about the recording session I had to point out, we only had 30mins. And due to the technical difficulties, we only had 3 full takes. Our last take was the worst one, which unfortunately, the studio guys thought it was the best and put only that track into the CD.
 
Great comments.

Volentry, what does it sound like to you when you listen to the song like a normal listener, focusing on the vocals? Does the song's general groove - everyone together, not just you - feel ok?

Have you played it to non musicians who like your style? Do they notice anything wrong? As others have said, it may not be as bad as you think, even if things didn't meet your expectations this time.

It helps to simplify when recording. Some things that work well live sound messy when recording. Also, if you're not a pro then a recording studio is a foreign environment so it helps to leave yourself some extra headroom. It's a big ask to go into a very different situation and just nail it like you do when you're in your comfort zone.

Agree with Bill. Thanks to what you've learnt from this, chances are that next time will be better.
 
I feel absolutely horrible. I felt like I could play these with ease, I could play them at home with the song playing on iTunes.
This is an illusion I believe. Have you ever recorded yourself at home? If you haven't I guess you just think you'd play better at home.

And here comes the famous advice: Develop your ear! If listening to a performace of yours is and utterly shocking surprise, a reason could be that you don't hear yourself very accurately while playing. In your head you may sound fantastic, but in reality there are things your ears aren't able to grasp. So start to record yourself at home regularly! Doesn't have to be a fancy way of recording, you just have to hear what you're doing.
 
There was also one thing about the recording session I had to point out, we only had 30mins. And due to the technical difficulties, we only had 3 full takes. Our last take was the worst one, which unfortunately, the studio guys thought it was the best and put only that track into the CD.

Man, no offense but you can't get anything done in 30 minutes. You shouldn't even try to record unless you have a reasonable time frame. The fact that you got 3 takes was a miracle. When I've recorded I've never had the engineer get all the lights turned on in 30 minutes.

That wasn't a session, it was a wave. Give yourself a fighting chance. Save the proper amount of money and do your music justice.

Not a criticism, just my opinion.
 
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