Audio advice and discussions with audiophiles and professionals. Free discussion forums, open to all and frequented by industry experts. Ask questions and get advice on stereos, speakers, hi-end amplifiers, pre-amps, home theater, tube hi-fi, turntables, vinyl, tweaks, music, films, video, DVDs and more.
One Musician, Many Instruments, One Beautiful Music
I have seen many music in social media where the music is done by just one person. The finished music is like there were so many people playing different instruments, but actually there is only one musician using many instruments. How do they make such music?
Re: One Musician, Many Instruments, One Beautiful Music
Overdubbing and Synchronized Multi-Track Recordings: A recording is made with a single instrument or small number of instruments. Then that recording is played while other instruments or voices are added to create a second recording. This is done as often as required to get the total sound. Usually, performers make lots of recordings and then edit them after the fact, mixing in varying amounts of each one to come up with the final sound. When magnetic tape was used, each recording was often called a "track" because each was on it's own individual section of the tape. The sections had specific locations on the tape. For example, cassette tapes have four tracks, two for right and left going one direction and two for right and left going the other. You may have also heard of eight-track tapes, which had four L/R pairs. Studios often used 10-track, 16-track or even 24-track recorders. Overdubbing on magnetic tape was limited by the media. As the number of recorded tracks and/or overdubs was increased, the tape can be physically worn. Additonally, if most of the tracks are already used, the performer may start to re-use tracks, by combining the playback of one with the recording of another. In this case, instead of making each track unique and seperate - with performers using headphones to ensure the already-reecorded material isn't re-recorded on the current track - the target track contains both the new material and a reproduction of the original, summing the two. Then the old track can be re-used. But when this is done, the hiss from the playback track is recorded right along with the desired music content. So hiss increases with each successive overdub. Even if the sound-on-sound overdubbing technique isn't used, the final mixed copy will still have tape hiss from all the tracks as well as the final mix. Now days, digital recordings are made instead of analog recordings on tape. It's easier for two reasons - For one thing, you don't add hiss with each successive generation and for another, you aren't limited by the number of tracks. A digital workstation usually has more tracks available and some have an unlimited number of tracks.
Thanks a lot for that info. I have a small amount of understanding of how this work and with that information, my knowledge increased. A follow-up question though. Do they create or play a set of musical pieces much like in the orchestra where each musical instrument has a different piece to play?
Sometimes. Depends on the sound they want. A performer or group is only limited by their imagination!
We need dedication, a lot of time, and talent to pull off creating even just one music. I only have the time factor so I will only listen to the music creation of others.
Many artists on YouTube are doing this kind of solo show. A few even do it in an a capella setting. They don't always have a formal education on the music and technical details, but they can produce such a complicated composition. I have huge respect for those artists.