Record a song from a phone to a finished mix

• A recorder. A phone voice memo is enough to check your timing. To layer parts you need a multitrack app. Free ones are Audacity (Windows, Mac, Linux), GarageBand (Apple) and BandLab (browser and phone). The steps below work in all of them, and the menu names differ only a little.
• Wired headphones. You will hear a click while you play, and a click played through speakers leaks into the microphone. Bluetooth headphones add a delay that makes everything sound late.
• A quiet room. Switch off fans, and close the window if there is traffic. A microphone hears all of it.
• Optional: a USB audio interface and a microphone, or a guitar cable and an interface for an electric guitar. They sound better, but you do not need them to learn the process.

1. Pick three or four chords. G D Em C works in a verse and a chorus.
2. Write the structure as bars: Intro 4 · Verse 8 · Chorus 8 · Verse 8 · Chorus 8 · End 1. That is about a minute and a half at 90 BPM.
3. Write the chart in numbers (see Read a chord chart).
4. Choose the tempo and write it down. Slower than you think: 80 to 95 BPM.
5. Decide how each section sounds, using the table on Dynamics: verse quiet, chorus big.

1. Make a new project. Set the tempo to your number and the time signature to 4/4.
2. Turn on the click (the metronome), and turn on a count-in of one bar. In Audacity, make a click track with Generate → Rhythm Track. In GarageBand and BandLab, it is the metronome button.
3. Place the microphone. For an acoustic guitar, point it at the place where the neck meets the body, about 20 to 30 cm (8 to 12 inches) away. The soundhole itself is boomy. For a phone, lay the phone there with its microphone facing the guitar, and keep it in the same place for every take. For an electric guitar, put the microphone about 5 cm from the speaker, or plug straight into an interface.
4. Set the level. Strum the loudest chord you will play, as hard as you will play it. Watch the meter. The loudest peaks should reach about −12 to −6 dB and must never reach the top (0 dB, usually red), because that distorts and cannot be repaired. Lower the input gain or move away from the microphone if it is too hot. If it is too quiet, move closer or raise the gain a little.
5. If you can, record at 44.1 or 48 kHz and 24-bit.

1. Press record. The bar will count you in. Play the whole song through in one pass, start to finish. Do not stop and record each chord separately. A song played in one pass has one feel, and pieces stuck together do not.
2. Do three full takes, even if the first was fine. Name them Take 1, 2 and 3.
3. Listen to all three with your eyes closed. Pick the one that feels best, not the one with the fewest mistakes. A small mistake in a good feel is much better than a perfect part with no life in it.
4. If a section of the best take is bad, fix only that section. Put the cursor four bars before the bad section, record from there (a “punch-in”) and stop at the end of the section. The four bars give you the feel before the bad part begins.
5. Check the time. Zoom in on the waveform with the beat grid showing. Each strum should start close to a grid line. If a whole section drifts, record it again. The time-feel page explains what you are looking for.

1. Make a second track. Record the same part again, the same strumming pattern and the same stroke directions, as closely as you can.
2. Pan the two tracks: the first fully left, the second fully right. Two takes of the same part are never exactly alike. The small differences make the sound wide.
3. If the doubled part sounds sloppy instead of wide, one of the takes is too loose. Record the weaker one again.
4. For a different second part, record a capo-5 part or an offbeat skank, as set out on Two guitars, and pan it a little off-centre instead of hard to one side.

1. Record the voice last, with the guitar in the headphones. If your headphones leak, put one ear off.
2. Stay about a hand-width from the microphone and keep the distance the same each take. Sing the loud parts a little further back.
3. Record three takes of each section and keep the best, as with the guitar.
4. The voice goes in the middle of the mix, and it should be the loudest thing.

1. Levels. Pull every fader down. Bring up the voice (or the main guitar) first, until it sits comfortably. Add each other track until you can just hear it, then stop.
2. Pan. Voice in the middle. Doubled guitars hard left and right. A second guitar part just off to one side.
3. Cut the low end. Put a high-pass filter on each guitar at about 80 to 100 Hz. This removes rumble that you cannot hear but that eats the space a bass and kick drum would use. If the guitars still sound muddy, cut a little around 200 to 400 Hz.
4. Check on other speakers. Listen on headphones, on your phone speaker and on a laptop, or in a car. If the voice disappears on the phone, turn it up. If the guitars vanish on headphones, turn them up.

Leave out compression, reverb and the rest for now. A clean recording with good levels beats a cluttered one with effects.

1. Keep the peaks below about −1 dB so the export does not clip.
2. Export a WAV file and keep it. This is your master copy.
3. For sharing, export an MP3 at 192 kbps or higher.

Play the finished song once with nothing to do except listen, and then play it again, answering these:

• Does it start together, without a stumble on the first bar?
• Does the tempo hold from the start to the end? Does it speed up in the chorus?
• Are the chord changes on the beat, or a hair late?
• Is every strum about as loud as the one before it, apart from the accents you meant?
• Is there any part where you play too much?
• Do the verse and the chorus sound different in volume?

Write down one thing to fix. Put a copy of this recording in a folder with today’s date. In a month, record the same song again and compare the two. The difference is the best measure of progress you will get.

Problem	What to do
The click is late in my headphones, or my playing sounds delayed	Use wired headphones. In the app’s audio settings, lower the buffer size (128 samples or less) while recording. With an interface, switch on its direct monitoring.
The recording crackles or is distorted	The level is too hot. Lower the input gain and record again. A recording that has clipped cannot be fixed afterwards.
I can hear the click on the recording	It is leaking from your headphones or speakers. Turn it down, use closed-back headphones, or move the microphone away.
The guitar sounds boomy	Move the microphone away from the soundhole toward the 12th fret and further from the body.
It sounds thin and small	Move closer, or double the part so the two takes fill each other out.
There is a hum or hiss	Switch off fans and lights near the microphone. For an electric guitar, move away from screens and amps.

Move on when you have:

• A finished recording of one song, with at least a doubled rhythm part, and your best take chosen by feel.
• Peaks below 0 dB and no clipping on any track.
• Listened on three kinds of speaker and fixed what you heard.
• A written note of the one thing you will fix in the next recording.