Don’t Demo to Death!
By doing a full-on demo, you may inadvertently expend precious creative energy that you may never get back once it’s time to do the real take.
By Dave Simons
Remember the adage, “A good song speaks for itself”? That same philosophy can be applied to the making of your demo. You’ve got a new tune, and maybe you can even hear the band parts in your head. And over there in the corner sits your digital multitracker, waiting for you to flesh out this new nugget.
Especially if you’re one of those versatile multi-instrumentalists who can work up an entire rhythm section with all the trimmings before lunch, one acoustic guitar and one boombox just isn’t going to do the trick.
Consider this: By doing a full-on demo, you may inadvertently expend precious creative energy that you may never get back once it’s time to do the real take.
As any experienced home-recording artist knows, those initial tracks often reveal some of the very best moments of inspiration. Like that great guitar line you suddenly stumble upon while tracking a casual lead. An accidental miscue that turns into a chord you never would have thought of otherwise. A brilliant vocal effect achieved by just jamming an SM-57 into a distortion pedal.
All these unplanned tracks may very well result in one amazing portrait of your new tune. But unless you can salvage enough of your slaved-over demo for the master, you’re then faced with the arduous task of re-creating all those pearls of inspiration. Only this time, you’ll have to hope that your lead guitar player can cop the exact feel you pulled out of your hat on your demo, or wonder why your engineer can’t get that same cool vocal sound through a different stomp box. And so on.
Years ago, I painstakingly assembled my new songs on an old Fostex X-15 four-track cassette recorder, making use of all possible overdubbing and reduction-mixing capability. The drum machine was programmed to the exact beat I’d heard in my head; the bass parts meticulously worked out, along with several acoustic and electric guitars tracked totally off-the-cuff (and yielding the occasional accidental sound or cool mistake). Partly because of the tightly packed cassette medium, the final mix would invariably have a dense, ethereal quality that gave the recording a noticeable (if amateurish) edge.
Though these tapes always had the “feel” I liked, they could never be considered for “release.” The problem was compounded by the fact that, no matter how I tried, I could never again capture that raw, “first-take energy” once I’d begun to attempt the “proper” take with the band later on.
My conclusion: Don’t demo to death. (This is not such a radical idea - some would prefer that you not demo at all.) But, you say, I’ve got this brand new Yamaha AW-16G recorder that lets me cut 144 virtual tracks with signal processing and tons of disc space!
That’s nice, but did the Beatles need 144 tracks to record “Revolution”? Actually, they made do with about eight, and that was the final take. You’re just doing a demo.
So we’re not about to start trashing our digital workstations and go running off to Walden Pond. But perhaps every other time you’ve got a new tune, go ahead and fire up the DAW, but limit the job to four basic tracks of acoustic guitar (or keyboard, or bass) with guide vocal. When your band comes over, roll your rough sketch, then let your bass player figure out an original part, ditto for the drummer, and so on. If it’s not what you’d heard in your head, so what - it might be even better.
For someone like John Hiatt, arriving virtually demo-less helped breathe fire into his late-‘80s classic Bring the Family album. Rather than waste time reviewing tapes, Hiatt merely pulled out his acoustic and performed embryonic versions of “Memphis in the Meantime,” “Thing Called Love” and all the others, then let sidemen Nick Lowe, Ry Cooder and Jim Keltner go to work.
“I’d made some demos on my own in Tennessee,” recalls Hiatt, “but we didn’t play them at all. I’d just sing the song once, and we’d be off. We got ‘Memphis in the Meantime’ on the third take, and the rest followed in short order. It was just one of those things. As I later found out, it turned out to be the best way to work.”
Rather than blueprinting an entire song in advance, by tapping into the creative energy of your own band, you could actually wind up with the same kind of song detours and cool musical accidents. “The more you offer your basic ideas to other musicians when you go in to record,” adds Hiatt, “the more opportunities you have for something great to happen. And that stuff doesn’t always grow on trees.”
Posted Oct 18, 2004
Member Comments
I agree completely. One of the best aspects of “Bring the Family” is that band feel. Sometimes, however, I need to hear the basic rhythmic feel in order to get the song written in the first place. Knowing what the drums might do will affect the phrasing of the vocal, which helps in the lyric writing.
<<Knowing what the drums might do will affect the phrasing of the vocal, which helps in the lyric writing.>>
Absolutely—it works both ways…
(thanks for the comment)—DS
Hmmm, this article is useful. I feel maybe I won’t knock myself out too much trying to duplicate everything I have in my head for the demo. Simpler might be better.
Good stuff ALL ... it’s not home many instruments but how GREAT they sound, some great recordings have only one vocal and one accompanying instrument. If you’re marketing the song to another artist ... say via a producer ... they would rather here SPARSE QUALITY and inspiration ... rather than your production ideas. Are you PITCHIN you, your musicianship, your production ... or THE SONG? Figure this out before you get to hung up jammin in a jillion tracks. Just an opinion!
Mason
I’ll show my age here, but I just listened to Joan Baez’s first album. That voice, wow! But I’m thinking of porduction/recording values. I’m an old folkie with lots of origianal songs I’ve had for years as well as still continuing to write new ones.
I want to record a demo and wonder should I record a demo “live” with my guitar vocal and occacional harp, or should I add in “packaged” muscians for drums, bass, etc to fill out the sound? Should I record one track at a time. The Baez album sounded like it was live as many of the 1960’s folk albums do. Would this simple approach be recommended when it comes to making a singer-songwriter demo?
I’m planning on using Apple’s GarageBand2 for this project which I still have to learn. Fortunately, I don’t have to learn the songs.
You could always try it both ways—a solo acoustic demo to start, followed by a slightly more gussied-up version, just for comparison’s sake. If you want to take the example of Baez (why the hell not), listen to her version of “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You,” then put on Led Zep’s version…about as night/day as you can get, but it does show you what a producer with real imagination (Page) is capable of doing with a basic acoustic framework. For your purposes, though, I’d keep the fleshed-out version as simple as possible, a la Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car”—a little meat, but not too much.
IMO
-ds
Thanks ds, I’m inclined to believe you. I’ve been a performing “folkie” for a long time and listen more critically to other’s recording. The basic guitar, vocal and in my case, an occasional harp, ala, Dylan, Young, Guy Clark, John Prine and so many others seems to be the best approach for me.
Sometimes when writing, I’ll hear other instruments, thinking that if I were to add this and that, without over doing it, it would lend a certain feel to the song. I suppose I can always add these later if wanted with the “packaged” musicians.
Thanks again,
Joshua Brande
I agree with this article. In the past I have spent too much energy working on demos as if they were the final product. As a result I ended up showing too many skills that detracted from the song. Thanks to this article I will approach future demos as a songwriter and not a producer/multi instrumentalist.
Thank you Dave!
I’m a little confused here Dave. In your article Demos That Deliver: Part 1, you state “...But for the most part, A&R people prefer to have it served to them on a platter.” “Great sound is one thing, but, as always, a good demo should also include every important vocal nuance, guitar fill, keyboard phrase or just about anything else that defines your song and makes it more salable.”
It’s been my experience that you only get one shot - that first impression thingy and all. Should I not try and nail it best as possible in order to attempt to get the listener to believe in it? Please clarify if you get some time…Thanks for all you do!! ?Dothan Hill
I think you have to have faith in what you’re trying to do with the song.You can kill the magic by over-doing it.Focus on the hook and let the music breath.Step away when needed to keep fresh ears.If its a good song or idea worth pursuing have confidence in developing the best style and sound to paint the picture.Leave some room for the muse to add on later too.
We write everything with an acoustic and a single vocal, and if it’s good that way then we don’t worry about all the rest. It’ll all fall into place if the song is good, already.
I record into a radio shack microphone and a memorex karaoke recorder with a usb card playing guitar and singing on the same track. I use a freeware audio program to take out the buzz and boost the bass. The recordings are done in my living room and I have to start over alot because the dogs start barking at the cats fighting with my wires. maybe somebody will feel sorry for me, buy one of my dam songs so I can afford some real equipment. just listen to this crap:
This is helpful to me, as I am now writing, receiving inspiration like crazy. On a few songs I started to go all out, but I see now that I really need to just keep it simple with the main parts that I usually hear, the bass and the melody. I am of the school that likes the bass to be a counter melody and not just a chord marker. I am a sax and percussion player, jazz/fusion genre a la Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock. Many say my music sounds a lot like Spira Gyra although I have not listeded to much by them. At any rate, I will revisit the songs and prepare them with maybe a written bass, my congas and my saxes.
One question, should I copyright before I send out? I am scared to death of playing my songs anywhere because they are not copyrighted. What saith the distinguished panel?
This makes so much sense! Just focus on the voice and the actual song!
Yes and no :-) But I am guilty of getting locked into over complicating the demo…I’ve recently just began to force myself to keeping it simple…
