For the singer-songwriters out there and anybody that records music live -- do you have any tips and techniques you'd share about working through live recording mental blocks, stage fright, and all that wonderful stuff?

I'm asking because I've noticed that even after recording a decent amount of live-played songs over the last few years, I still get a bit of a mental block that happens -- I can be playing/singing something well and with confidence, and the second I am recording it, I start to think about how I'd like it to come out well and it inevitably doesn't sound as good to me because I've lost the comfort of natural playing and my nerves make it hard to play as smoothly and all that.

It seems like even just leaving the recorder on for a long time and doing a bunch of takes doesn't make much of a difference. Maybe it's like quantum mechanics where the act of observing a thing inevitably changes it and there's no way around that! I need a blind recording done where someone follows me around and doesn't tell me when they've turned on the recorder, but in the interim, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Thanks!

honestly, i think the most boring answer has a lot of wisdom: just do it. exposure therapy. the more you record yourself, your takes, your instrument, you become desensitized to it.

and then know that you might have to do a lot of takes. start with just one take at a time until you get a decent take. listen back to it, and if there's a part you don't like, re-do just that one part. keep fixing every little part you don't like. in my experience, it all just becomes part of the process and it isn't so anxiety-inducing to have that little red light anymore.

the other thing is that you can always do another take. create a new audio track and record a whole new take on there. your energy might just be a little better this time. then you might decide you like the old one better, or you really nailed it on the new one.

i remember hearing one of your guitar & vocal songs and it was really lovely! it's possible that you may be the most critical of your own work. and it's all about your own creativity and expressing yourself that matters.

> I can be playing/singing something well and with confidence, and the second I am recording it, I start to think about how I'd like it to come out well and it inevitably doesn't sound as good

Yup. Try doing something with your hands, like beating the rhythm in the air or squeezing something or whatever and focus on your hands while you're singing. I thought people looked like dorks waving their hands around until I realized it helps me when I'm way in my head.

Also don't be hard on yourself, etc.

my main issue usually comes from the feeling "I have unlimited tries , I cld record it again, what if I can get a better take?"
so I trick myself into thinking that there will only be this one take I can do
what works best for me is to ask someone to be next to me and check out my performance. that way it's like performing for them instead of for the mic/recording.
obv has to be someone you're comfortable with performing in front of. but yea. that way I am more focused on my performance and I enjoy the end result more.

idk if this works for anyone else tho

Thanks to all! I should clarify I really like the songs I've shared on here that I've played live and don't mean to indicate otherwise, there's just always something different when I'm playing without that recording pressure, and I'd love to tap into that natural side just a little bit more, to express that much more authenticity, I guess, if only as a workflow improvement thing to get me closer to a take I like faster without needing to chop up into smaller pieces or any other kinds of tricks. This live energy isn't always what I'm going for, so this doesn't always apply. Anyway, I appreciate the comments, these are good ideas!

kinda feels weird giving advice since my music is SHITPOST CHAOS, but i have a trick that might even be useful for a normal musician

when i'm doing vox for a thing, i'm always recording. all the practice takes, the brainstorm mumbles, the adlib bullshit, and so on. unless i'm literally in the shower or car or something, that mic is on when my voice is on.

i'm optimizing for maximum unscripted jank, but this works for real music too. if you're practicing and you happen to totally nail the take, then you've already got it on record. good way to build up tolerance to recording too, like nicole mentioneded

(this might not scale if your recording setup is something fancier than "mic on stand next to desk", like real studio shit, but i dunno most of us are home musicians anyway, and it's worth a try if you can swing it)



ok i'm done breaking character. i'm gonna go press REC and fall down the stairs

Get on a discord call with your friends (the closer, the better) and play in front of them /w camera on. I've done this trick in the past, can help accustom you to the stage-fright feeling and help you better push past it.

IMO that's slightly different than what I'll call "recording paralysis". For my metal songs, I usually begin with a riff and them jam a few other riffs until I feel like I can close back around and loop. I spend a good amount of time just in that jam space (not recording), until I'm solid on a riff loop. From there, I'll go into FL and put down the bassline and then drums.

Point is, I find playing into the rest of the instrumentation instead of just a metronome very helpful; do the DAW only stuff first and THEN record, not the other way around. Put down extra elements if you need to, having that bed of sound to work yourself into eases it in my experience.

I struggle with stage fright + anxiety a lot too and I want to really buckle down and fight back against it this year with a dream of playing live. it's probably not that different from having fought it back on recording stuff and listening to my own vocal takes and performances. I do think exposure therapy is the way to go in all cases, like nicole already suggested.

I actually really like cranman's advice of "just always be recording". if I don't assign any special designation to when I'm recording or not recording, I can kinda just forget it's happening, and I don't even have to listen back to (or keep) something unless I have reason to, but it's there if it was good. I usually do vocal takes that way, I just keep going with full take after full take until I get one that feels "mostly good"; and I usually leave a marker after something that felt good or cool or unique. I like to clap or tap my mic or something to leave a literal visual waveform indicator that I should revisit that part of the recording.

and honestly? a lot of my takes suck! it's humbling in a way to listen back to what felt like a decent take and be like, wow I was way more pitchy on this than I expected, or such-and-such timing was off, etc. I just take that as a sign to focus more and really dial it in, and generally feel like that gets me closer and closer every time until I can get most of it put down comfortably. and then, also as nicole said, it's a matter of replacing the remaining little bits with better takes. I'm weirdly exacting about doing "whole takes" until it stops making sense to, because I like the """authentic""" feeling of one line leading into the next organically. but honestly it's not necessary and you can splice that shit up as much as you want to get an end result you're happy with. I remember watching a documentary about Kenny G where at one point you can see him in the studio recording individual micro-licks and creating one giant spliced monster of tiny takes to create his final product. totally normal way to do it tbh!

I’m realizing that one thing that automatically puts me into getting-in-my-head-mode is when I throw on headphones in order to hear a metronome without it bleeding into the recording. Ditching the metronome often feels good and I often keep time pretty well without it anyway. The only catch being it may not be quite precise enough to add a drum track or something. Maybe I’ll try out a visual metronome or something as an alternative there.

aim for "good enough" instead of "perfect". also aim for having fun over having an amazing final product. fuck shit up on purpose

i know it's easier said than done, but often the best way to get over any sort of mental block while recording is to just send it, overthinking is the most common culprit of making your recordings sound worse. i've been in your boat too, and really just forcing myself to sound confident rather than actually being confident definitely helped me not only sound better but also actually be confident. placebo effect sorta deal lol

if you can manage it, try to avoid thinking about the final product too much and just record stuff to record it. obviously, exposing yourself to recording and singing/playing at the same time will help with this, but it's really just a matter of pushing through that blockade. best of luck!

i do feel the recording pressure but for me the biggest trap is "ok i mostly have that part down, time to record, we can fix it in post" - which i think is a time-wasteful way to work, it's better if i actually get the part down 100% before trying to record it, unless i'm just trying to lay down a reference/memo track. if i only get the part 80% down then it'll be more like 60% after paying the pressure penalty. i know there are cases like album takes being practice sessions that the engineer secretly started rolling tape for (so to speak, thinking of big thief "two hands" here maybe?) but i think that only works if you're a seasoned performer with rock-solid fundamentals (or a group of seasoned performers with rock-solid fundamentals who have been playing together for a long time)

Don't forget to breathe. This was honestly the biggest thing for me!

I find sometimes when I'm locked in on a project I hold my breath while recording (unless I'm playing a wind instrument lol), but you gotta keep your breath steady and relax. It can help to stop and just take a few deep breaths between takes too. Make sure you don't have a death grip on your instrument and you're not making a scrunched up face, that's just unnecessary muscles you don't need to be using right now.

And drink water too! Maybe this all seems obvious but it's amazing the difference being loose can make.

might be a bit late to this thread but hey maybe i can provide too, despite only having singin related input!!

when i have to record vocals, i sometimes get paralysed and am unable to even start, or i get really bummed out about not being able to get something to sound good. so i assign myself 30 minutes to an hour of karaoke with all ur fav songs (obv when no one's home LOL) in which i have to stand up and move around and be goofy and dramatic ..!! it helps my voice warm up and also sends that sign of "you're safe here" to my body... oh yeah dont overdo it tho, the body is important and it will remember to loosen up and support you, as long as u are willing to teach it and work within its limits. plus dont forget warm food and room temp water :3

also side note, idk abt u but my brain is full of fictional characters so sometimes i would just tell myself "yeah im absolutely filled with the essence of cheetahmen rn" and itd strangely help me get the sound i want. idk man, i dont make the rules but i can sure bend em

Seconding Mioh, whenever I have a vocal OHB coming up or I just want to get in the zone to write for a major I also warm up by playing through some of my guitar repertoire.

I'm keeping this thread in my back pocket. Absolute gold right here. I've always wanted to combine non-chip liveplay with chiptune, but have been too afraid of it sounding bad.