Members Ryan. Posted August 6, 2010 Members Share Posted August 6, 2010 So just curious... my band is about to head into hibernation for a while to try writing a complete album. This is something we haven't done before. Basically, we write while playing live and just add new songs to the set list as we're out. In this case though we'd like to actually spend some time writing songs that flow from one to the next, and have a nice balanced sound. ANYWAY... getting off topic here... When you guys are writing new stuff and you've got it all completed and you are happy with it do you test the reaction to your material with friends and close fans or do you just say this is it, record the CD and start touring with it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BlueStrat Posted August 6, 2010 Members Share Posted August 6, 2010 I do the latter, but....Almost all the songs I record have been played live in front of audiences for upwards of a year before they get recorded to see what kind of response they get. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ryan. Posted August 6, 2010 Author Members Share Posted August 6, 2010 I do the latter, but....Almost all the songs I record have been played live in front of audiences for upwards of a year before they get recorded to see what kind of response they get. See that is the interesting thing to me! When a band is a national act... they record a CD, then tour with it. When you're not famous I guess the opposite is true. You write songs, find out which ones the people like, then record them. But is this a good business model? I guess people still want to hear them on CD even after they've been to a few shows where you've played them... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members backtoblue Posted August 6, 2010 Members Share Posted August 6, 2010 The opposite is not necessarily true. Signed acts road-test new tunes as well. That's done to develop the songs as much as it is (or more so than) to gauge fan reaction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kmart Posted August 6, 2010 Members Share Posted August 6, 2010 But is this a good business model? Absolutely NOTHING about writing and recording original music is a 'good business model'.Read that again. Are you seriously trying to logic this out to make the most sense?Stop doing that. If you've decided that you want to spend your time/effort/money on original music, then simply do so, and make the decisions on how you go about doing that based on what you and the rest of the band thinks makes most sense to you; there is no 'smarter' way to do it than what works for you, and since the music industry is not a factor anymore, there is no 'golden path' to follow to success any more anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ryan. Posted August 6, 2010 Author Members Share Posted August 6, 2010 Meh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Big Al Posted August 6, 2010 Members Share Posted August 6, 2010 I don't know your situation, but you may find it's much easier to record a song you've been playing live for a while. If you're paying by the hour to record, you don't want to spend that time arranging or figuring out new parts. On the other hand, if you're recording it yourself and time is unlimited, it can be great composing new parts as you record. You'll come up with stuff you'd never try in a live situation, and you might find the song goes in new and better directions. When I record a song before it's been road-tested, I usually find all kinds of embellishments and clever arrangements, but it takes a long time, so I would not want to do it on the clock. When I record an established song, it goes much quicker because I already know all of the parts. One more thing to mention: if you go wild in the studio, you might find the songs are hard to execute live. My buddy recorded all of his songs in a studio with him playing all of the instruments. We're a 3-piece, so now he's having a tough time doing a few of them live because the songs have keyboards and several important guitar parts. If they had been live songs first, they would be more streamlined. Streamlined is good for live, but you don't want to do anything to inhibit a song's creative growth. So I guess it depends on what you're after and how your studio time is billed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ZombieCat Posted August 6, 2010 Members Share Posted August 6, 2010 The band I am in is driven by a single creator, he writes the stuff we play it. We do get input on somethings but for the most part he goes "Here it is." He is constantly working on new material and a lot of that material is tried out live before it is recorded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tim_7string Posted August 6, 2010 Members Share Posted August 6, 2010 One more thing to mention: if you go wild in the studio, you might find the songs are hard to execute live. My buddy recorded all of his songs in a studio with him playing all of the instruments. We're a 3-piece, so now he's having a tough time doing a few of them live because the songs have keyboards and several important guitar parts. If they had been live songs first, they would be more streamlined. Streamlined is good for live, but you don't want to do anything to inhibit a song's creative growth. So I guess it depends on what you're after and how your studio time is billed. This is a good point. I am like your buddy in that I envision my songs, come up with all the parts (except the drums, but I re-edit those from royalty-free backing tracks) and then have to figure out how to perform them to simulate the recording. Most bands do it more like early Van Halen and The Beatles, where they essentially write as they perform, then record the songs live in the studio. Either approach is valid, but it is a lot simpler to "bang 'em out" live as a group, then just capture what you have worked out than to plan out everything then wonder who will play what part...I can't actually play some of the songs I've written because I want to hear them the way they are on the recording and it's simply difficult to find musicians who can sing great harmony vocals around here (a must on my songs) and a keyboardist that would enjoy playing in a guitar-oriented rock band. Not to mention factoring in those personalities and keeping everyone happy too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members outk4st Posted August 6, 2010 Members Share Posted August 6, 2010 Check out this new Canadian trio Happenstance performing a hit original song called Queen of 2nd Street http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYPIRgAYsY0 tell us what you think! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bassred Posted August 7, 2010 Members Share Posted August 7, 2010 My band has been a cover band for a while. We are playing just a few gigs here and there while we work out our own original tunes. We have tested out two tunes at gigs, and got a pretty good response to both. With that, I feel pretty comfortable laying down more songs with no testing. Not every song is a radio-friendly hit style tune.. Please let me know what you think about some of the tunes that we have so far..... http://www.reverbnation.com/nastyhabitslv Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BlueStrat Posted August 7, 2010 Members Share Posted August 7, 2010 Check out this new Canadian trio Happenstance performing a hit original song called Queen of 2nd Street http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYPIRgAYsY0 tell us what you think! Crossposting the same topics on the forum is not cool, and is a breach of etiquette. Crossposting band spam is just cheesy. By the way, if that's a "hit song", why are you spamming it here? Oh, and the music stands make this 'band' look like a bunch of noobs. Fail all the way around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dogtownmax Posted August 7, 2010 Members Share Posted August 7, 2010 Check out this new Canadian trio whocares performing a hit original song called Queen of 2nd Street bull{censored}e.... tell us what you think! you need to brush up on your reading skills and post a relevant contribution to the conversation. as it is, you might as well be spamming for a mortgage refi company or something. back on topic, i have only recorded a few times, but almost all the songs were played live many times to develop them before they were recorded. there is nothing more illuminating than playing material in a live setting and giving yourself time and making the changes to make it worth recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JailTime Posted August 10, 2010 Members Share Posted August 10, 2010 We've only bee fortunate enough to have one ep done and an lp almost done. In both cases, we recorded songs that had been road tested, and songs that were brand new. For some reason, the newest song is always our favorite. So, if we know we've had some good response from some of the older tunes, we would arrange/reccord them, and spice the session up with a few new numbers that allow us to write during the arrangement process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lee Flier Posted August 10, 2010 Members Share Posted August 10, 2010 We prefer to spend a decent amount of time writing and arranging our songs, then try them out at local gigs for awhile, then record them. Playing them out tends to cue us to any issues that might exist with the arrangement, and ways to improve on it. Then again there are some songs that really aren't meant to be played live; they're more meant to be studio creations and have a lot of extra instrumentation and such that we don't have. In that case we might hire the musicians who played on the CD to play at the release party, but that might be the only time we play the song out. This doesn't happen too often, though. It's true that most major acts complete an album and then tour behind it, having never played the new songs out live, but I think this is more out of business necessity than because it's the best thing for the songs. In fact, I think this is why a lot of bands have a great first album, get signed, and then their next album sucks: the first album has songs that have been weeded out and honed over possibly years of playing out in clubs; then the next one has songs that have probably not been played out at all, and may not be very mature yet. Some artists do throw in some new songs that haven't been recorded yet, even when touring behind a current album. It really just depends what works for you and produces the best songs and arrangements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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