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How to record a PPOT song

There are of course lots of different ways to approach record a PPOT song. Here is one way used by Jesper to create the Star Paws tune. For the CD "RUN/STOP RESTORE" we decided to let each band member choose one tune each for which that member could totally decide how it should be made---including who should play what and how. Jesper chose to do Rob Hubbard's Star Paws in a heavy metal style much inspired by bands like Anthrax and Slayer.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to record a PPOT tune

Step 1: Learn how to play the music

First you have to learn the music. Skilled musicians can use their ear to learn all the chords, leads, themes and bass lines, but for the less skilled a good trick is to export the original SID to midi in order to get the notes easily (please do not just use these midi data for your song! We definitely think a SID re-mix should be done by playing the stuff on real instruments yourself).

One way to do this is to use the tool Sid2Midi to generate midi tracks. Not every SID gets converted to midi in a usable way, though. Especially the use of arpeggios (notes switching very fast in one channel to simulate a full chord) and pitch slides often confuses Sid2Midi. Anyhow, it is a valuable tool which can be quite handy---especially for the really fast passages of some tunes.


Using SID2MIDI you can get some great help in learning the tune.

Step 2: Set up a multi track project with the SID as cue

To make it easier to know where you are in your recording, you can have the SID present in your multi track recorder program (we use Sonar from CakeWalk). This can either be done my using the output from SID2Midi or by exporting the individual tracks as wav-files from SidPlay


Using SIDPLAY you can export the individual SID tracks to wav and use them in your project as cue.

The advantage of having real wav-files is that is quite easy at this stage to rearrange the SID if you want. Often some passages of the SID can be impossible to play or perhaps you want to repeat a theme or simply make a break. For this a wav-file can quite easily be edited to reflect new ideas. We usually make a "sid_mp3" for all the tunes we play which reflects the arrangement we want to play (like for example Hypa-ball vs. Mission AD).

Often a SID will be slightly out of pitch so you might have to pitch shift it a bit by ear in your favorite sound tool. Now the wav-files can be imported in your multi track project.

Step 3: Find the exact BPM of the SID

You need to know the exact BPM (beat pr. minute) for the wav file in order to take full advantage of the editing facilities of your multi track recorder (to make sure that periods hit the right measure-marks and so on).

When exporting wav-files from SidPlay remember to use version 1 and also to skip the first 10-20 seconds as these often are flaky in regards to keeping a steady beat.

This is found by using your favorite sound tool: Load the sample, zoom in on exactly the start of a new measure, zoom out, step forward in time about 64 to 128 measures to keep a safe margin and zoom in on the same again and set the marker exactly at the end of the last beat. Your sound tool needs to be able to tell you the exact time of each marker and using this together with you own count of how many beats there are between the two markers will give you the exact BPM. This may very well be a floating point figure.


By importing the original SID as wav-files in Sonar and setting the correct BMP you can have a useful guide as to what to record at a particular point in the tune.

Step 4: Make the drums

There are many different ways to make drums. The obvious way is to record them yourself :) This of course requires a drum kit and a whole lot of microphones, know-how on how to mix the drums, and so on. An easier approach can be to use an electric drum kit like we do live (we use the Roland TD-5) as this just outputs the drum track in stereo. This, however, also means that it is impossible to alter the levels between the individual drums after the recording have been made. Also, the TD-5 does show it's age and the drum sounds are not that great. For RUN/STOP RESTORE we have therefore almost exclusively used the sample drum kit Drum kit From Hell by Toontrack. This features state- of-the-art drum samples which can easily be integrated in Sonar. (What PPOT's drummer Søren have done is then to program the drums almost as he would play them himself). Each drum sample exists in a version recorded close to the drum and another recorded a couple of meters away. Mixed together this make up for a really authentic drum sound.

In Sonar you can use the DXi software sampler. Then all you need is to program a midi track of drums and then feed this into the Dxi sampler. Another possibility (which we have not yet tried out) is to record the midi output from the TD-5 and then feed that into the software sampler. That way you could get good sounding drums played by yourself. (We're actually looking into doing this live also).


Using the Drum kit From Hell in a software sampler in Sonar makes it easy to get good sounding drum sounds. This also gives a lot of flexibility to experiment with different drum parts later on.

Step 5: Recording guitar, bass and other stuff

When the drums are ready we can start recording the different real instruments playing along to the drums (or a metronome if that is preferred by the player). For Star Paws rhythm guitars, lead guitars, and bass were added along the way and the exact arrangement came from experimenting with different approaches. This is the cool thing about digital recording--- it is quite easy to experiment and try out something new. Another really useful feature about digital recording is the ability to correct mistakes. We are not trying to kid anyone by claiming to be the most professional musicians around. Instead of spending months trying to learn each passage and getting the perfect recording we try our best and afterwards correct the small mistakes. This way we can record a CD in our spare time while still keeping up with full time jobs, studying, family, and so on.


Recording digitally makes it easier to get somewhere fast by correcting small mistakes and recording small bits at the time.

In order to get a really fat sound on the guitar the rythm guitar is actually recorded twice with different guitar sounds (one very crisp and noisy with lots of treble and another which is more warm and smooth). These are then panned a bit out---one a bit to the left and the other a bit to the right. This makes the rythm guitars sound "bigger" (and is actually a trick we use a lot on many songs).

The lead guitar is not recorded several times with different sounds. But, many of the themes are recorded twice played at different position on the guitar---often one octave apart (like from 0:30-0:40). This also makes the sound "bigger". For effects some pick-sliding were also added (1:00) as well as some artificial feedback using an E-bow (0:40-0:50 and 3:05).

For this heavy metal style the bass sound used had some distortion, but most noticeably in the break at 2:04-2:13 where the bass part is almost solo-like

To record real instruments we use a Hoontech DSP2000 C- PORT which features 8 in/out channels. Jesper does, however, own a Line6 POD XT which features direct recording of guitar via USB. The POD XT is basically a digital guitar amplifier simulator, so the idea is, that when the guitar sound signal have been AD converted once it makes sense to you run it further on into the computer via USB without the need of any more AD/DA conversion. This works really well and makes Jesper capable of recording a lot of stuff at home with the wife and kid :)


Jesper's computer corner (fully inflated). Includes everything needed to make a PPOT tune: Guitar, POD XT, Sonar software running, a couple of late night beers, and of course the compulsory Underberg.

Step 6: Polish the recorded material

After recording the raw material a lot of work needs to be done in regard to making sure that no obvious mistakes are left in and that all instruments play nice and tight. Also, here a rough mixing can be done by trying to set the volume of each channel approximately correct.


When recording a difficult passage in several parts, the trick is to zoom in on the end of each sample and make sure that the old sample is faded out and the new sample is faded in. Even though this happens in a fraction of a second and cannot be heard, it does eliminate annoying "clicks" which can otherwise appear.

Step 7: Do the final mix

The final (and really difficult part) is to do THE MASTERING. At this stage you have to set the volumes of each channel right, add effects like reverb and delay, and equalize each instrument in order to get a nice overall sound. If you haven't already guessed this is the part where skill and experience really start to count! This is where Søren steps in as PPOT's master mixer guru :) At this point Søren usually gets the entire project from Sonar and works on it at his place where he have bought some great speakers to do the mastering on.

The really difficult part is to try and make a mix that sounds good on good stereos and not-like-crap on cheap stereos. (or - if you want to mix "commercially": a mix that sounds good on cheap stereos and not-like-crap on good stereos). The only way to try to do this is by experimenting and listening to several mixes on several stereos. This is quite a time consuming and annoying task but obviously a very important final step.

And that's it. It's all in a days work for a Commodore 64 revival band :)