More Zep - Good Times, Bad Times

[Brett]

Kind of getting on a roll cranking these out. It’s been fun actually.

Enjoy!

[Simon Ribeiro]

Cool stuff, man!

Those were some nice & precise solos you did there, Brett.

Kudos!!

[Dave not David]

Great work Bret, especially on those leads!

How do you record your guitars? Do you do any post-production work before syncing it to the video and uploading it?

[Brett]

Great work Bret, especially on those leads!

How do you record your guitars? Do you do any post-production work before syncing it to the video and uploading it?

So I do the audio and the video on separate tracks. I record my guitar right into my audio interface. I don’t video every single audio track I record because some I know I’m not going to show when I put the video together. Like usually when I double a guitar or something, I don’t show the second guitar part unless it’s necessary.

It usually takes me 2-3 takes to get a good rhythm track done without mistakes. Once in a while it might take me a little more. Usually you can tell if a song has taken me a lot of takes to do because I’m a lot less animated after doing it the sixth time.

Then I go into Logic and mix the guitar parts with the backing track. I’ll fade the track out, eq, set panning, levels, effects, etc. I’ll also mess with Guitar Rig a little bit to get the tone closer to what I want.

Last part is I go into iMovie to put the video together. I sync the guitar tracks with the video which is the hardest part. I have to match up the live sound coming from my camera’s microphone to the recorded track. It takes a little bit of practice to do it correctly, but I’ve done enough now that it’s not a big deal. Then I just mute the camera’s audio and that’s it.

So that’s the process.

[Get The Show On The Road]

So I do the audio and the video on separate tracks. I record my guitar right into my audio interface. I don’t video every single audio track I record because some I know I’m not going to show when I put the video together. Like usually when I double a guitar or something, I don’t show the second guitar part unless it’s necessary.

It usually takes me 2-3 takes to get a good rhythm track done without mistakes. Once in a while it might take me a little more. Usually you can tell if a song has taken me a lot of takes to do because I’m a lot less animated after doing it the sixth time.

Then I go into Logic and mix the guitar parts with the backing track. I’ll fade the track out, eq, set panning, levels, effects, etc. I’ll also mess with Guitar Rig a little bit to get the tone closer to what I want.

Last part is I go into iMovie to put the video together. I sync the guitar tracks with the video which is the hardest part. I have to match up the live sound coming from my camera’s microphone to the recorded track. It takes a little bit of practice to do it correctly, but I’ve done enough now that it’s not a big deal. Then I just mute the camera’s audio and that’s it.

So that’s the process.

How long does this process usually take?

[Brett]

I think the longest part is probably recording and mixing the song. I can usually can do a song in three or four hours completely. Then I like to listen to it for a night and see if I still like the way it sounds in the morning. I’ll live with it a day or so. Sometimes I listen to it for a couple days before I decide to do the video part of it. There have been times I’ve gone back and reworked the mix several times.

Assuming that it’s all good, I then put the video together and I can do that pretty quick. That probably takes me 30 to 40 minutes tops. Then I just have to render the file to an MP4 for YouTube, and that’s another 10 to 15 minutes. Then I just upload the file to YouTube and I’m done.

I have a lot of pre-created artwork that I just keep using over and over like my end screen, intro graphic, titles, stuff like that. That’s been an ongoing process to get a collection of those going that I like. So there is just a lot of cutting and pasting which is quick.

[Dave not David]

So I do the audio and the video on separate tracks. I record my guitar right into my audio interface. I don’t video every single audio track I record because some I know I’m not going to show when I put the video together. Like usually when I double a guitar or something, I don’t show the second guitar part unless it’s necessary.

It usually takes me 2-3 takes to get a good rhythm track done without mistakes. Once in a while it might take me a little more. Usually you can tell if a song has taken me a lot of takes to do because I’m a lot less animated after doing it the sixth time.

Then I go into Logic and mix the guitar parts with the backing track. I’ll fade the track out, eq, set panning, levels, effects, etc. I’ll also mess with Guitar Rig a little bit to get the tone closer to what I want.

Last part is I go into iMovie to put the video together. I sync the guitar tracks with the video which is the hardest part. I have to match up the live sound coming from my camera’s microphone to the recorded track. It takes a little bit of practice to do it correctly, but I’ve done enough now that it’s not a big deal. Then I just mute the camera’s audio and that’s it.

So that’s the process.

Cool! Thanks for the response. I have a Helix rack/helix native, if you ever need anything re-amped to get a different tone, or are just curious about the Helix stuff, reach out and I'd be pleased to help! I'd love to take a DI track and see what I can do with it for ya

[Brett]

Cool! Thanks for the response. I have a Helix rack/helix native, if you ever need anything re-amped to get a different tone, or are just curious about the Helix stuff, reach out and I'd be pleased to help! I'd love to take a DI track and see what I can do with it for ya

Cool dude I may take you up on that offer sometime! Thanks!

[Brett]

The hardest songs I’ve done are usually the Iron Maiden songs because they have a lot of different lead parts and I usually like to show them all because they’re awesome. And even sometimes it’s necessary to show both of the rhythm tracks because the guys may play stuff that’s a little different from each other.

Putting the video together with so many parts that I want to show, that takes a little more time than just a “standard” video like the Zeppelin ones. Or even the VH ones.

I’ll probably sit down soon and do some more VH stuff. I guess I just got burned out on Van Halen stuff after so many years playing it. Plus a lot of the good backing tracks are the same old same old songs I don’t want to do like ATBL and Panama.

[Dave's Dreidel]

That's a quality backing track too, not all of them are really good, but that singer does a pretty good job.

[Dave's Dreidel]

The hardest songs I’ve done are usually the Iron Maiden songs because they have a lot of different lead parts and I usually like to show them all because they’re awesome. And even sometimes it’s necessary to show both of the rhythm tracks because the guys may play stuff that’s a little different from each other.

Putting the video together with so many parts that I want to show, that takes a little more time than just a “standard” video like the Zeppelin ones. Or even the VH ones.

I’ll probably sit down soon and do some more VH stuff. I guess I just got burned out on Van Halen stuff after so many years playing it. Plus a lot of the good backing tracks are the same old same old songs I don’t want to do like ATBL and Panama.

Karaoke-version recently expanded the number of VH songs they have backing tracks for. They currently have 24 of them.

Would love to hear you rip through Stay Frosty.

[Brett]

That's a quality backing track too, not all of them are really good, but that singer does a pretty good job.

Most of the Zep ones are actually pretty good.

[Dave's Dreidel]

Most of the Zep ones are actually pretty good.

Probably has to do with hacks like me not being good enough to play Led Zep, they have to get the better players and singers to do those.

[BlindtotheWorld]

Awesome! One of favorite Zep tunes.