Recording a track and vocal at same time

[anandmaloo]

Hi,

I am trying to record a song and since its a long piece, i want to take out only the vocals and do some processing in audacity.  Is it possible in Genos given the following scenarios

1) I will be playing and singing at the same time, for the recording. Its not that I will play the piece only and then sing while it play backs on the keyboard. It is a very long piece of almost 40 minutes with improvisations on the go, so it is not possible for me to play it first and then record my vocals over it.

2) I want to be able to get two separate tracks from what I sing and play in the Genos simultaneously. I want a separate audio file for the background score that I play on the keyboard and a separate audio file for what I sing in the keyboard while playing.

3) It can be an audio or midi recording, does not matter to me.

Is it possible in Genos? I did look at the manual but could not find any way to get two such separate files

Regards

Anand Kr Maloo
India

[DerekA]

I do not think this is possible using the Genos alone.

You can only record either a MIDI or Audio at the same time.

Although Audio supports two tracks, they can only record one at a time.

[Lee Batchelor]

You're best to use a DAW for this project. Do you have a fast computer with at least 4GB of RAM?

If so, you can use a free DAW. Set up the input and output audio busses, arm two tracks for recording and then play your song. Wow, 40 minutes! I'm from Canada and one of our legendary artists, Gord Lightfoot, recorded the Canadian Railroad Trilogy back in 1967. It was 7 minutes long and considered one of the longest songs of our time. At 7 minutes, you're just getting started ! Good luck with your project, Anand.

[anandmaloo]

Thanks Derek and Lee for your responses.

I now understand that it is not possible on Genos. So, I have now recorded the song in a single take using the internal microphone reverb and echo. And it came out 36 minutes long !  It is actually a medley of Bhajans (devotional songs)

@Lee I just play for myself and family and friends, totally amateur thing. So not getting into that DAW thing for now. May be with this lock down continuing, will be tempted to look into it.  (There is a complete lockdown back here in India till 15th April.)


Regards

Anand

[Lee Batchelor]

Good for you, Anand. Recording wave files to a DAW is fairly straight forward. It's when you need to record MIDI is when it gets complicated. Fortunately, I have FINALLY figured it out, no thanks to Yamaha.

If you decide to record with a DAW, on the Genos, set the Master EQ and Compression to Flat and None. In the Mixer section, remove all reverb, chorus, and effects, except if the style you use has an effect specific to Indian music not available in your DAW. The reason for all that is because you have far greater flexibility in adding effects, EQ, and compression through a DAW. Even the most basic DAW comes with a few nice plugins. There are lots of free plugins on the internet, as well.

The fact you're doing this for your family is wonderful. I'm doing the same thing during this quarantine period. My grandfather was an artist and I have several of his original works hanging in my house - including a mint condition ink drawing he made during the Battle of Passchendaele. I will pass these down to my kids and grandchildren someday. I'm a terrible artist but a pretty good musician. Instead of passing artwork to my kids and grandkids, I'm leaving behind my music - hence my desire to learn all about recording. So, don't stop at one song, even a very long one !

Stay well...

- Lee