How I Record My Songs --> Chapter 4: Cool Edit, importing Mp3 and recording your guitars Options

[Juan M. Valero]

CHAPTER 4. COOL EDIT:
Importing Mp3 and recording your guitars !!!


In this chapter I will explain how to work with your Cool edit program. Remember that in last chapter we obtain all the tracks from our song. It means that we have for instance one bass-track, another snare-track, another ride-track etc. So we can work with lot of tracks (I think I always work with almost 20 tracks XD).

Well, I like to say that first of all I work with a fast-mixed-BT of the song. So I get only 1 track that I use like a guide to record my guitars. I say that it's ONLY A GUIDE. When I finish the guitar recording I mute this track and I use all the individual tracks to get perfect control of the mix.

But now let's go... ARE YOU READY??!!! (hehehe)

In next example those are all the tracks that I'm gonna use. As you can see they are a lot of Mp3 files:



Now please open your COOL EDIT =)





Now I'm gonna select the files that I did in last chapter, so take a look, those are the files:

Then click on the files and put them directly into the desired track, in my example in track 25:




You can do this step a lot of times. In my usual backing tracks I use a lot of tracks, every one with one instrument, see that example, I really put lot of tracks here



Now I'd like to explain some tricks to make your mixing easy. I'm talking about an easier way to modify the volume and the panning.

Look the blue and green lines and the white squares. (If you cannot see them just click on the menu in the place were I put the yellow arrow).
You ca click on the white squares and modify the pan or volumen of the selected track without altering the original Mp3. That's great if you want some "fade in" or "fade out" effect for instance.






Well, now we are already to record our guitars, so what may we do?? just select the track and click REC



I like to divided my tracks to put all in order so I use 2 tracks for the Right Rithm guitar (panning 100% right), 2 for the Left Rythm Guitar (panning 100% left), and same for harmonized melodies. For my it works and I feel more safe using this procedure.
See this example:



OK, now it's time to save the session, it's really important so try to save it every 20 minutes or less... or for instance if you recorded a great solo !!!
to do that just go to FILE and save the session (I hope no pictures are necesary )

Ok, when I recorded all the guitars and I put all the tracks in the mix with the correct paning and volume I do a a mix, let's go:




Now this is the file with all the tracks mixed :



That's all, we finally obtain our song. Now we can do some mastering but I will explain it in other lesson, now it's time to save our song and take a breath, hehehe, the hardest job is still finished !!!





Ok, thanks to all, see you !!!!!

[Juan M. Valero]

Nobody likes this chapter ???

[Slammer]

Hey thanks man.

I use Cool Edit Pro 2.0

But I didn't think anyone else on here used it.

Thanks for the info, it really helps.

[Muris Varajic]

Slam is so kind

Yeah,I guess most of community use Reaper,Auducity or even Cubase,Logic etc.

[Juan M. Valero]

Yeah, thanks for your coments !!! I think this chapter would be useful to everybody who uses another multitrack mixer/recorder... the procedure is very similar.

[Muris Varajic]

Absolutely,thanks for bringing it in Juan!

[Juan M. Valero]

Don't mention Muris, it's really a pleasure

[preownedguitar]

Nice, I might have to give this program a try, I usually use Reaper but still not familiar with mixing and etc. Thanks Juan

[Juan M. Valero]

Don't mention preownedguitar Thank you for your coment

[Chris Evans]

Juan, I`ve had cooledit for a while now, but not really explored it too much till I discovered your thread.

One thing I wanted to know, well a couple of things actually, you can set a pre determined punch in on the tracks which is fine but is there a key on the keyboard to manually punch in? I`m sure there is but I cant find it

Also, when I`ve tried the pre set punch in I lose everything that I`ve recorded up to the point of punch in, which is pretty frustrating, so I`ve been recording say for example a guitar track on my 8 track and importing it into cooledit as an mp3 (I can punch in and out with my 8 track using a footpedal), which works great but of course lose some quality, have you had this problem at all? I`ve got around it by starting the recording at a pre determined point on a different track, but end up with several different tracks for one guitar part that way and makes it an editing nightmare.

Currently trying two types of software at the moment Reaper and Cooledit to record, I find cooledit to be a little more user friendly as a whole for me.

Sorry if this is in the wrong thread

This post has been edited by Smells: Dec 7 2007, 12:44 PM

[Paul Coutts]

How do you compress and eq your guitars? If you do at all
Cheers

[AdvancedCorpseTu...]

Thank you soo much man this was very useful to me and to i bet alot of other people!THANK YOU!Muchas gracias!tienes planes de acer un capitulo 5?excuse my spanish its a bit rusty

[Juan M. Valero]

sorry guys I miss this post !!!! well now I'm using Adobe Audition, but it's almost the same. The Syntrillus team was absorbed by Adobe and they change some things in the program, so then Adobe Audition is the evolution of the Cool Edit Pro.

Well, I'm not sure, but it's possible that I'll do some more topics about recording, but it will we when I get more time

[Enucleation]

This may be a dumb question but, you mention you make 2 tracks for each guitar part. Do you do this for leads too?

[Juan M. Valero]

mmm I usually use 2 tracks for lead guitars, one with the main melody and other with the 3th. (or sometimes both playing exactly the same). I often use another track for another main melody but played an 8va low.