On a personal level - when do you decide that you have a song down well enough to record and share it? (Let’s assume share in one of the “Covers” threads here.)
Your skills are always progressing. There is always room to refine a song and get it down better. If you wait until everything is perfect, you’ll never start recording. If you only want to share the best version you can manage, you’ll never share anything.
Especially for those of us who are newer musicians where our skills are improving rapidly, but getting feedback will only help that.
So how do you decide when a song or a cover is good enough to record and share?
I am just going through this (again) myself. I recorded two nice compositions of my own last year and released them (on YouTube), but now, after an extra year of quite intense practicing, AND a new tune I just finished with input by an experienced musician, I feel I want to go back and re-record at least parts of the two one-year old tunes.
And indeed, what keeps me from doing the same thing again next year?
In fact, this is true not just for music, but many other creative outputs - books, articles, … In research, what usually gets an article finished (and thus making it “good enough to share”) is some sort of deadline. So, you could set yourself a deadline, by which your song - by definition - is now ready to be released to the world. That deadline does wonders to your work ethics and decisiveness
On the other hand, many seasoned musicians go back to older songs every now and then and re-visit them or re-interpret them, and re-record them. There is joy and beauty in that also.
Finally, use “peer review”, i.e., release a pretty solid version (in your own opinion) and get feedback from peers. This could be in the appropriate threads in this forum. Then use that feedback to tweak your recording, or your mix etc and prepare a “better” version. Do the same peer review again (if you wish) or call it a day and release it into the wild.
It’s tough letting go (knowing there is ALWAYS something else to tweak more)
That’s a good question which I had asked myself too.
And that’s why I decided to make 3 recordings of each song, speaking of the 50 songs in 100 weeks challenge for example.
The general intention of these recordings is, to document your current state and skills and see how you progressed through the weeks, months, years.
So, when the challenge basically gives you a time frame of 2 weeks for each song, I’m recording a first time after a few playthroughs, a second time after 1 week, and a third time after those 2 weeks.
When the third recording is like 80% precise, it’s good enough to move on and develop more / other skills.
Because, as you already said, there is always room for improvements, or other sounds, or experimentally different note length or completely different (own) version of the song, etc., it’s barely possible to play something 100% accurate.
And don’t forget: music made by humans is kind of never 100% accurate. That’s what makes it sound good, or human. 100% accurate recordings often just sound mechanical precise, like out of a computer. And that’s what it actually is most of the time, if it sounds like that.
So long story short, my advice would be: Find your clear “why”, why are you recording your covers. And then work towards this.
Hmmm, that’s a tough question, since you have a lot of factors in it. Did you tab it out yourself, is the tab accurate enough?
Personally for me, it’s when I’m sure that the tab is as accurate as possible, when I’m able to play it note for note, and not cheat in sections. And when it sounds passable in my ears; ie timing, technique etc.
I’m fairly critical of my own work, due to insecurities, but I’ve learned to turn that into a strength.
For me generally it’s when I feel comfortable with it, I can play it through pretty naturally without big flubs and it’s starting to feel somewhat second nature.
I can still be aware that there’s loads to improve, but like you say -that’s going to take years to iron out.
I do like to wait until I’m not still making too obvious mistakes though. I know others like to just do a once through and capture it, whatever happens, but I like to try it and get it as good as my ability level will let me.
To complicate my original question further - I’m developing a part for “Seven Nation Army”.
There’s no bass in the original. Our guitarist is pitch shifting his guitar to play the original part. So I am developing my own original bass part to compliment what’s there.
I keep making small changes and trying out different ideas and variations (especially in the second verse). So I’m not sure when the part I’m working on is “done enough” to record and share.
I don’t worry about this too much. I figure a recording is just the way the artist happened to play it in that moment. Or that it was even pieced together from multiple takes. Every live performance or alternate recording is a little bit different.
Ah, I might have misinterpreted your question… I thought it was mainly for original songs, composed (and performed) by you.
If it is mainly for covers, then your (real) question is perhaps “do I have to play it exactly like on record X??” We have some discussions along those lines elsewhere…
(Super short answer here: “no, as long as what you play serves the song!”)
Good question. I think people strive for perfection while it’s the spontaneous performance that is better. If you listen to Roxanne, at the start of the song, Sting bumps into a piano, flubs a chord, and laughs. Total mistake, but it’s the version they kept. I am sure they had a clean version.
Someone said you know beauty by it’s imperfections.
When I can play it without tabs and have played it through with 3 or fewer critical mistakes 3 times. That’s my general rule. I’ve fudged it a time or two.
This is the key…find the reason e.g. some do covers as a series to be like a record of improvement, while some might be just trying to recreate a fav studio recording by playing the part themselves
they would have different workflows and different ideas of what ‘finished’ looks like, so there is no single answer even for the covers thread
The other thing you mentioned @BeerBaron is getting the feedback…I have found actual critical feedback (the real valuable stuff) is very hard to get when posting material(covers or original)…even on production sites you mostly get ‘well done’ or ‘cool tune’ kind of comments from other students/peers which are nice but don’t really tell you what need improvement/refinement, or even worse someone will say something vaguely negative like ‘needs work’ or ‘sounds a bit weird in places’ without actually being specific enough to be valuable
But since paying pros to listen and give you feedback is not practical for most, yes go for the free feedback but don’t get your hopes too high (and be grateful if someone pulls out a great insight)
For me, the playing and recording is not the time consuming part, that goes fast - it’s the production aspect. I will tweak a mix, sounds and effects forever unless I stop myself. There’s always just one little way to improve things and it will just take me a sec… boom three hours gone.
You have to develop a sense for when something is “done” or good enough, and after that you’re just rearranging minor stuff that no one will notice in the top 5% of your ability. Then call it a wrap and export the song.
If you’ll allow for advice from a bass newbie but an experienced artist/creator, get your first one out as soon as you can. Then the second and third - if your intention is to release stuff, build a channel or just document your progress, you could have several pieces under your belt within the time you’ll spend deciding if the time is right.
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Agree 100%.
but don’t get your hopes too high (and be grateful if someone pulls out a great insight)