Is there anything quite like recording ...

[RocknRollDave]

....for making you feel crap about your playing?!

Done two sessions lately as part of my band's plan on finally getting a useable set of polished-sounding demos done for prospective clients/ agents etc...and both sessions had more than their fair share of THESE BASTARD THINGS ARE GOING ON eBAY IN THE MORNING moments.

When you listen back to a recording, it highlights every little timing issue, that little bit where you hung back a wee bit too far behind the beat, or that part where you're just running away with yourself and getting ahead of the drums...Arrrrgh.

Peeled off a very satisfying one-take guitar solo for Land of a Thousand Dances...when I thought I was just running through it for the engineer to get an idea of levels etc and i didn't know he was recording! ...but also managed to make the most basic three note arpeggio sound like Abu Hamza was playing it after eating a particularly greasy kebab.

Maybe I'm just ...not very good!

[DynamiteKid]

Urgh I agree completely. It's hateful to just hear your playing, unadorned.

The thing is, I'm very much a 'FUCK IT ALL ONE TAKE AND GO' kind of guy, and I've made some good stuff that way. Often mistakes on recordings are what makes me love them more.

But there's mistakes, and mistakes. Some add character, some mistakes just fuck everything up.

[Red Rabbit]

Listening to things straight after recording doesn't help either as you know what mistakes you're listening for.

I recently listened to some band recordings that we did about a year ago and was pleasantly surprised how much better they sound now I can't remember exactly where the mistakes are.

[thereformant]

Tell me about it, there's nothing quite like the pleasure of playing the same thing over and over to get a tight quad track of a particularly fast rhythm part.

[Danny1969]

Often here it's the drummers I feel for. Even some of em with 20 years of live playing can fall apart when trying to play to a click track .... And if it's a drums first then bass, guitars and vox approach like a lot of bands like to record then nobody can do much UNTIL he \ she has nailed a good take

[digitalscream]

Yup, we're recording our album at the moment, and the early sessions were hellish. Fortunately, we've refined our recording techniques (mic placement, gear selection etc) since then, so we just deleted all the original takes wholesale and started again.

Last week, I definitely had one of those moments, trying to record an absolute bitch of a solo I'd written. It's one of those which seems easy when you've got the adrenaline of a live show running through you, but when you're sat down trying to get it right...there's an awful lot of swearing on a few takes.

[BucketheadRules]

The solo at the end of this track took so, so many takes, but I'm quite happy with it.

http://soundcloud.com/connorf/wrath-of-the-crucifier

Just do what I do, slather it in reverb and place it relatively low in the mix!

[digitalscream]

Just do what I do, slather it in reverb and place it relatively low in the mix!

Heh...the guys won't let me get away with that, unfortunately. After I'd done the aforementioned monstrously difficult solo, they came out with this little gem: "You know what that fast bit needs? HARMONIES!".

[Danny1969]

I see a lot of solo's being comp'ed these days. Make a playlist of 5 or 6 takes, create a new comp track under it and copy and past the best bits from the playlist to the comp track below. Crossfade the joints and bingo ..... a perfect solo

[richardhomer]

I see a lot of solo's being comp'ed these days. Make a playlist of 5 or 6 takes, create a new comp track under it and copy and past the best bits from the playlist to the comp track below. Crossfade the joints and bingo ..... a perfect solo

I agree with this.

The listener has no idea how the finished article was created. What matters is that it is as good as it can be - it should be the definitive version.

Most of David Gilmour's classic solos were comp'd. If its good enough for him...