writing/recording a demo

[eargazm]

I've been writing material for my demo for quite some time now. I think I'm going on a month or two, and I only have one complete song and a few fragments of other songs. I feel like the process is taking too long, but at the same time I don't want to compromise anything and have it all sound good.

How long (song wise) should a demo be? Three-four songs?

Is it a good or a bad idea to run a line into my MacBook (1/4-1/8" adapter), can this be done without ruining the soundcard? this would save me money on buying a pod, or some other kind of recording equipment, I could also record my vocals easily this way, too.

The only thing that I'm gonna have a pain in the ass doing is programming the drums, as DFH is on rapid share, and is going to take forever in a day to download, I'm inexperienced with it, never used it at ALL.



So realistically, recording from the comfort of my own home, how much do you think I am going to end up having to spend on recording equipment to get the demo sounding good? I don't want it to sound like every other garage band splitting a mic between three people, you know what I mean. All mudded up and sounding like shit, no clarity. I'm not aiming for pristine sound quality either. It's down and dirty thrash metal with a splash of death in it. I hope to have at least one or two songs recorded fairly soon. Eargazm will see the light of day at one point, people!

[Big Mike]

realalisticly 3-4 of your best songs you feel are what represent you and your band.

[eargazm]

Well one song I have written I wrote entirely on guitar, and it's just a fun song to play. The other songs I'm gonna have to record into sections (I have to wear finger picks to play some of the parts since I can't wrist pick all of it since I wrote a lot of it on bass- my strong point in music), so it's going to be a bit of a cut and paste project unless I can find someone to record it for me on guitar, which probably won't happen.

[UNGODLIKE]

being in a band was the highlight of my life...untill my rhythm guitarist became my replacement and the rest of the band continued to profit off material that was 80% of my intellectual property. needless to say, they never made it into the recording studio before breaking up and i walked in on one of their rehersals w/a stolen street sign and found my replacement trying to teach his replacement my riffs in the most jacked up way(i hope i didn't teach him to play my shit like that)

"oh, you don't have to worry about picking all the notes in that part as long as you get this much..."

[UNGODLIKE]

being in a band was the highlight of my life...untill my rhythm guitarist became my replacement and the rest of the band continued to profit off material that was 80% of my intellectual property. needless to say, they never made it into the recording studio before breaking up and i walked in on one of their rehersals w/a stolen street sign and found my replacement trying to teach his replacement my riffs in the most jacked up way(i hope i didn't teach him to play my shit like that)

"oh, you don't have to worry about picking all the notes in that part as long as you get this much..."

[eargazm]

oh, okay. that answers all the questions and concerns in my original post.

[Acid Flashbakc]

hahah i wouldn't worry about it being a cut and paste project as long as your not planning on playing any shows in the near future. i would aim for 3-4 songs, and as long as its a home recording, don't wait until everythings done to record, so that you can hear back everything you've written as much as you want without worrying about playing it.

you could get a cheap M-audio M-box or whatever theyre called for the guitars, because I can assure you that doing something line-in through a mic jack will not sound good at all.

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pr ... sku=241710

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pr ... sku=703606

as for the drums, i would go the DFH route. I know it can be a pain and it's not the easiest software to get used to, but in my opinion they sound way better then any leafdrums/others that are around.

what i would do is try to make a 3-4 really shitty songs with riffs that you don't like just to get used to DFH and mic-ing and just the whole process. this way, when you want to record the real shit, the only problem you'll have is playing the riffs, and not all the added BS

[BassPhemy]

You just have to practice recording and mixing and fiddling with everything. The first demo I recorded for my band sounded like absolute garbage. But with reading and experimenting I managed to record some good quality stuff with the exact same equipment. 10 dollar microphone, cheap cables and a multitrack recorder.

[eargazm]

i was thinking about buying a small recorder so i could have a click track to record to, as well.

a drum machine has crossed my mind as I doubt I'll be able to configure DFH on this mac, plus the time it's gonna take to download, i might as well just drop the few hundred bucks on an actual drum machine.

[7Dime7MetalMassacre]

oh, okay. that answers all the questions and concerns in my original post.

LOLZ

[Cock Rocket Blast Off]

I am the king of leafdrums. It's honestly not that hard to get them to sound like actual drums if you put some time into playing with it.

[eargazm]

I am the king of leafdrums. It's honestly not that hard to get them to sound like actual drums if you put some time into playing with it.

do you have any recordings of original material?

[Cock Rocket Blast Off]

Here's something I recorded with the original leafdrums when I was 15. I'm better with it now but I think the drums in the first song are passable for shitty metal songs.

http://www.myspace.com/morozko

I lost the password to the account years ago.


I'll put a little demo together tonight and upload it.

[eargazm]

Here's something I recorded with the original leafdrums when I was 15. I'm better with it now but I think the drums in the first song are passable for shitty metal songs.

http://www.myspace.com/morozko

I lost the password to the account years ago.


I'll put a little demo together tonight and upload it.

yeah I'm listening to the first track and it's pretty well put together. The drum sound is really thin, but with better samples I think it could've passed for a real drummer.

are all of these done with leaf drums?

[Cock Rocket Blast Off]

Here's something I recorded with the original leafdrums when I was 15. I'm better with it now but I think the drums in the first song are passable for shitty metal songs.

http://www.myspace.com/morozko

I lost the password to the account years ago.


I'll put a little demo together tonight and upload it.

yeah I'm listening to the first track and it's pretty well put together. The drum sound is really thin, but with better samples I think it could've passed for a real drummer.

are all of these done with leaf drums?

Yes, but I have a completely different selection of samples now from various drum kits. That were recorded 5 years ago, and the other two might be even older, they sound like shit.

[eargazm]

didn't you say you were posting more clips tonight?

[Cock Rocket Blast Off]

I went out tonight and didn't make anything. No leafdrums demo, no lullaby, niggas make mistakes but they ridin' my sack all night

[croninburg]

For sending to labels, promoters etc there's not much point in having more than 2 songs on a demo.