New Composition 29/11/09

Date: 29/11/09
Duration: 5hrs

New instrumental song created entirely inside Logic 8 (including 3rd party plugins). No external sound source was used in the composition of the song. Guitar and bass was plugged directly into the Line in of the Soundcard (MOTU 828 MK2) and using emulations/digital guitar amps.


Recording Guitar

I originally had few riffs I was playing around with which eventually I added more parts to it, turning into a song. But because I wasn't initially going to record a song, I didn't want to start miking up guitar cabinets and going through the whole process (plus noise issues). So I decided to play the guitar directly into the computer using simulations. I would normally reach for my Line 6 pod but unfortunately its on a loan to my friend so I had to settle for plugins.


Here are some of the plugins I used to record Guitar & Bass:


Guitar Rig 3 is a in-depth guitar FX and cabinet simulation. It allows me to combine loads of guitar fx such as reverb, delay, phaser etc along with my choice of Distortion. Cabinets can also be hand picked (they usually are loaded up with 'matching cabinets' but others can be combined. There are also options to change the miking position/s of the virtual cabinet (close, distant, angled miking etc) and therefore is very useful and adaptive to different projects I'm working on.
Unfortunately I only own the demo version which is a cut down version (and turns off automatically after 30mins) but offers great variety of sounds to work with.

Guitar Amp Pro is a in built plugin for the Logic 8 DAW system. It is no way as variable as the Guitar Rig 3 but has few decent settings. I used it to track overdubs for the guitar to thicken the up.
I also ran the Bass sound through it to add some dirty distortion on some parts of the song.












The simple 'Bass Amp' is also a onboard simulation with Logic 8. The sounds scope is limited and I usually will not use it unless I'm using clean bass sound (even then there are some distortion). I did however manage to obtain a good sound out of it eventually and I used it in conjunction with the guitar amp pro for some parts of the song.














Drums (Sequencing)

I used Ultrabeat found inside Logic 8 to create the drum parts in the song. I had ideas about the drum parts already in my head so it was just a case of entering the data into Sequencer/Piano Roll and adding to it. I added other embellishments after hearing the drums with the guitars (drum fills, odd half-time beat etc) to give it more interesting sound rather than sounding like a drum machine on a loop.
After making sure I had everything I wanted in place, I went about de-quantizing the drums (adding swing). This gives the illusion that the drums were played by a human being rather than a super accurate machine. When drums are too accurate, many people notices the clinical sound and instantly tell you it was a sequencer or a drum machine. Adding swing gives a slight human touch to the drums.


Finishing up

To finish, I listened back to the track many times and making sure nothing was out of place. I recorded overdubs mostly for the electric guitar and added extra snare drum to the existing drum just to add extra punch.
The track has only been briefly mixed so I will probably post another post going through the mixing of the track and possibly attempt at mastering