I have started up rapping again. And when I record a verse it seems like there are times where I gotta do another take due to stumbling on words, going off beat, or just plain fuckin up in general. I just feel like im having a tough time capturing the sound I want. But I have seen studio videos of rappers recording and it seems like they get their shit down effortlessly in one take. is this something that just takes practice? Or are there any tips I could have?
practice is always key...some recordings use what is called a "punch in"...where they spit to a certain point, stop, and pick it up from that point...sometimes doubles can cover up the little mistakes, and when mixing the vocals, i can correct the gasps and breaths...but practice is always the most important, memorizing what you're about to record always helps... an engineer once told me, you do whatever it takes to make the song perfect...point-blank-period
I try to ensure I'm enunciating very well. Every sound that makes a word can be musical. Run through the song as many times as it takes to have it almost memorized, where the next line starts flowing right after the last, the lyrics just keep me on track. Aside from that, a few great plugins and working knowledge will bring your music back on track. Check out my website for a few examples of what I record, link below
I record my verse about 8-12 times and i go back and combine all of my them together with what i think sounds best. So instead of trying to knock it out in one take i purposely record multiple takes and take samples from each take to make one verse. Does that make sense?
thats called "turd polishing"....don't do this...you're doing basiclly backwerds punch-ins...but chopping up a verse and pasting things together is always a bad bad idea...
[quote name='"-13 Amp-"'] thats called "turd polishing"....don't do this...you're doing basiclly backwerds punch-ins...but chopping up a verse and pasting things together is always a bad bad idea...[/quote] Why is that a bad idea
Practice, practice, practice. And make sure you have that shit memorized before you start recording and can flow over your beat easy. I don't rap but I sing and I have found that memorization is key.
Why would recording 10 takes and then comping a 'best' take be sloppy? It's real easy in pro tools, you can just set it up so you can flip through multiple takes within a selection and can go through word by word if you like to get a take that probably couldn't be achieved without doing that.. I don't do it like this cause I'm lazy and can get what I want pretty quickly and if I don't like a section I just re-do it but honestly just doing a bunch of takes and then comping is the best way just time consuming, usually it's an assistant engineer doing those fun tedious bits.. Unless the guy was saying he was stacking a bunch of takes not comping, stacking is a pretty cool technique used correctly though.
[quote name='"kingdomofmauri"']Why would recording 10 takes and then comping a 'best' take be sloppy? It's real easy in pro tools, you can just set it up so you can flip through multiple takes within a selection and can go through word by word if you like to get a take that probably couldn't be achieved without doing that.. I don't do it like this cause I'm lazy and can get what I want pretty quickly and if I don't like a section I just re-do it but honestly just doing a bunch of takes and then comping is the best way just time consuming, usually it's an assistant engineer doing those fun tedious bits.. Unless the guy was saying he was stacking a bunch of takes not comping, stacking is a pretty cool technique used correctly though.[/quote] Yup thats exactly what i do in pro tools. And yea its me and my engineer, very time consuming. But its how we feel we get the best mix every time.