Mixing songs

[drdoof]

I am new at this so plz bare with me. i havent really gotten into the mixing phase, but I have laid down some riffs to make the song.
I used the drummer intro->bridge->chorus.
My question is after laying guitar over each, how do I make each section blend together.
It sounds like 3 seperate drum/guitar tracks smashed together.
Help!

[cwight]

It shouldn't do, so a few simple checks first. Are you sure you have all the riff tempos set to the same bpm? Also, if you are new it's always best to use different drum parts from the same drum ID. You can mix drum IDs but it can take some extra effort at times. Try moving your riffs up to the songline and mute all the parts you have recorded, do the drums sound seamless as they move from riff to riff? If they do then it's a problem with what you have recorded. Why not cast it so we can hear what's going on? Hope this helps.

[EvanBerard]

As in section do you mean layers?

If so the best thing to start out with is to set the pan for each individual layer to give your song some space. Play around with the left and right pan of each track until you get what sounds good to you. Play with the gain too but try to stay out of the red. Don't make anything too quiet though or else the other tracks will take over.

[ThrobbyRobby]

Welcome drdoof. There are a few techniques to help smooth transitions from one riff to another in the song bar. If you use Riff 1 as the lead in (select lead in button on the left side of screen) to Riff 2 you can record right through the transition from Riff 1 to 2. I learned a lot by logging into Rifflink, opening songs just to study how they were put together,and being careful not to make any changes to the song. This is the easiest recording software available but it didn't make me a better composer, I still have a lot of work in that area!

[drdoof]

Well, what I meant was the individual drum and guitar riffs not sections.
I guess it is probably due to what I recorderd. Meaning that I play the guitar untill the end of the drum riff. So, if I record each guitar riff over each drum riff, how can I make sure my guitar parts flow together at the correct time.
Can I some how record the guitar while listening to the song "as a whole?"

[Blaydrnnnr]

Good question..... ( Noob here too... I'll be watching for the answers...)

[cwight]

I thought you meant riffs anyway. Have you tried what I suggested? And yes you can record over teh song as a whole it's called the songlayer. Click the big button called songlayer to the left of the songline....

[drdoof]

Not following you.... The layers button will show me each layer that is created while that particular segment (example chorus) loops.
Unless I am not seeing the button I should be hittting.

[drdoof]

Oh I see it now. never hit that button. I will try it when i get home

[fooks]

hi drdoof and blaydrnnnrk,

i think i see what you want to do.

1 way is to just play guitar and let the layers pile up.
make sure you have "auto-mute layers" activated.

2, then you can duplicate the riff and un-mute a sucsessive layer in each riff.
that means you will have, riff1 with layer1 and riff1(1) with layer2. put them up into song line and check it out.

3, you now can change drummers for each riff. BUT you can't change the tempo.

4, once you get the hang of that, there are other ways to bridge 2 separate riffs besides the song layer.

[sddrdoof]

Thanks for all the input. Help me out by checking out the Riffcast I put up so you can see what I mean