How Do YOU Generally Go About Starting To Write/Record A Track?

[F0rte]

Not sure if this thread has been made before, if it has, sorry for making the thread! I search and didn't find anything, so I figured i'd go ahead and make it.

Just as the title says, how do you personally go about starting to write and record a new song?

Personally, i'll mess around with different ideas and come up with a riff that I think is catchy on the guitar, and then program a drum beat that I figure would go well under the riff.
One or the other ends up changing a bit in the end, but then I just keep adding on different ideas and layers.

That's my basic starting point.
What's yours?

 

[Winspear]

As of late;

-Come up with a main theme or melody on the guitar
-Tab it out, analyse it to write a chord progression
-Play with the voicings and inversions of the chord progression to get it flowing well
-Arrange the chord voices across whatever instruments I'm using
-Expand the song in either direction and work on structure
-Write drums
-Learn
-Record

 

[Larcher]

pretty much this^

and then for the recording part well:

drums first, then rythm guitars, then bass, then leads, then vox. I also mix inbetween sessions just because I like it

 

[Idontpersonally]

beer, smoke, riff,drums, lyrics, beer, smoke, record.

 

[Tones]

Come up with a general idea of what the song will sound like in your head
Record crummy quality guitar riffs
practice the riffs until you're set
structure the song properly and make sure it all sounds good together
bass
drums
record properly
???????
profit

 

[AliceLG]

In the subject of "starting to write a song" I can say I never stop. Whatever I play when I practice/jam/rehearse with the band is written down (paper, GP, note on phone, take your pic) and goes into my "riff bank". Once in a blue moon I'll go through it and revisit some riffs. When I have 2 or 3 riffs that could go well together I start playing the shit out of them, and changing them to try different approaches (tempo, scale, time signature, etc).

The recording part is pretty much the same by now:

jam, write guitars, jam some more, write more guitars, wirte drums, fire up Logic, import drums, track rhythm guitars, eq, track bass, eq, enter EZDrummer, eq, mix, record solos/fills/overdubs, eq, mix, master, soundcloud.

 

[Saieph]

I will usually jam and keep all the riffs in my head. Then, at some point some of them start to make sense flowing together. Then I spend some time playing with them, not a components, but as flowing sections. Once I get a I few of these loosely structured like this I will let it roll around inside my head for nights on end, usually just as I lay down to try to sleep...the carnival keeps playing until something works itself out. Then I try it out the next day. Either it works and I quick jot down the time signatures, changes and number of repetitions and such, OR I jam some more until the passages or links that I'm looking for start to materialize...then I repeat until I have the structure and such all taken down.

After that it's a matter of tempo mapping, recording the guitar, programming the drums, recording bass, adding extraneous instrumentation, effects, sounds, etc...

 

[goldsteinat0r]

beer, smoke, riff,drums, lyrics, beer, smoke, record.

Basically this with the addition of "snacks."

I'll just come up with a drum pattern I like then write a riff to go over it. If it sucks I keep going until I find something I like. Record it. Learn it. Double it. Add textural shit. Keep doing this for every section of the clip/idea/song. Then, record bass (usually one long take), bounce track down, jam, go to bed, wake up the next morning and hate it.

 

[ooidort]

Record. Listen. Record some more. Listen some more. Listen to the changes you've made while listening. Take a break. Get back from the break, delete most of the stuff you've recorded. Record more. Forget about the song. Get back to it a month later. Finish recording. Listen. Delete.

 

[blanco]

I sometimes try to imitate a riff by ear and then create my own progressions after it. I nearly always write my stuff out on guitar pro so that i can go back and edit things. It also allows me to export the track as a audio/wav track which i can then put in logic and add some drums to which makes it easier to record and get an idea of where the track is going to go.

 

[cGoEcYk]

Record. Listen. Record some more. Listen some more. Listen to the changes you've made while listening. Take a break. Get back from the break, delete most of the stuff you've recorded. Record more. Forget about the song. Get back to it a month later. Finish recording. Listen. Delete.

Something like this for me. I am still figuring out my guitar tones through various amps/cabs since I am new to guitar (bass is another matter since I'm a bassist, I can dial that right in). I spend a ton of time on the front end with every aspect of tone and each iteration of recording/listening gets me a little closer. The less mix treatment it needs the better. I've sold/added speakers and cabs during my recording/writing process.

 

[jmeezle]

I carry riff ideas/chord progressions/rhythmic patterns in my head for a couple days. When it's time to track I'll try a couple different BPM's until I find one that works, double track guitars, single track bass, program drums by hand. Sometimes I'll sit and noodle and something will come from that on the spot. I have a "template" in Logic that I've been working with for the mix, but I usually end up adjusting something before the track is complete.

Finish, bounce, listen, take a break and revisit a day later. Try to be as objective as possible and not fall in love with it because it's new and fresh.

 

[Datura]

Get my recording gear/musical equipment nicely set up, make myself comfortable, get up to get a drink, make myself comfortable again, get excited, get up and jump onto my bed. Get up to get another drink. Make myself comfortable, start shaking from too much caffeine and then go back into my bed. Then at some random point in the future (could be minutes, days, weeks) I actually start playing, create a riff out of no-where, and slowly expand on it, constantly adding lines to it until it is extremely intricate and dense, don't do much with it for a long time until again, out of the blue I find out where it is supposed to go.
My music can literally take years sometimes.

 

[IdentityDevice]

this was a very entertaining thread to read lol I can sit a write riffs/parts a lot of the time. It's the putting them together part or making them flow smoothly part that frustrates the sh*t outta me. I mean sometimes obviously (like anyone else i'm sure) certain parts will flow with no problem but then most of the time when I try to revisit an idea that already has 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 ideas it's hard to hear the whole song. Or how or what the missing parts need to be. anyone else have this problem? haha i've got a TON of ideas on my laptop. So much that it's almost overwhelming and instead of trying to write new parts i'm trying to see which parts will fit together but then my stuff ends up sounding too "part-y) i'm working on just trying to ride on a riff for a while and minimize songs into fewer and more meaningful parts instead of being all over the place but it's a work in progress! awesome thread!

 

[Narrillnezzurh]

For writing riffs, I'll usually think of something out of the blue and go record a scratch track. Then I'll loop it and start adding track after track after track after track until my CPU maxes out. Then I'll move on to the next riff. Sometimes these "riffs" are just a few measures, sometimes they're several minutes long, but it doesn't matter. What's important is that I get the idea in its entirety into a recording and explore the limits of what the idea can handle in terms of arrangement.

For writing songs I like to start with a concept. I usually spend some time getting the concept down on paper and coming up with drafts for the structure of the song before I write a single note. Once I've got the concept down cold I'll start assembling the song using riffs from my collection. If I don't have a enough riffs to complete the song, or if the riffs that I have don't fit nicely into the song's structure/concept, I step away from the song and start writing more riffs.

When I finish composing the song I'll open up a new project file and start assembling all the tracks totally from scratch, no presets or anything. Once all the tracks/buses/routing are good to go, I track everything. I'll usually reuse MIDI files from the old project file, but I always retrack the audio, making sure each take is perfect and doing any necessary processing as I go. I'll do basic leveling as I track, but I don't touch automations until tracking is entirely finished (tempo is the obvious exception). Then I'll mix it and master it and it's good to go

 

[goldsteinat0r]

I'd be curious to hear the specifics of how everyone writes more complex/non-reptitve sections and keeps everything organized/notated/whatever. A lot of the music we all love is really inconsistent in structure. I've heard of jamming with a metronome and then laying out the drums after the fact to match the guitar. I've also heard of writing rhythms separately and then overlaying the notes after that. I haven't really landed on a method yet...what do you guys do?

 

[mili9152]

I actually write everything in Guitar Pro first. Then once the tab is basically complete and decent sounding with all instruments, I'll record it. I wish I could write while jamming/practicing but it almost never works out.