Question about practice and recording covers

[pos69sum]

A question for those of you who like to record cover songs:

Does the process of recording a cover song from scratch usually go like

a. practice a new song until you have it down almost perfect, then record it quickly

or

b. practice a new song just enough to get a feel for it, then start recording it - and as you record it, you play either the whole song or individual parts over and over until you have recorded a version of the song that you like

I have tried to do a. - but by the time I have practiced a song enough so that I think I know it well enough to record, I am so sick of it I am not interested in recording it.

[billandgitana]

Well in my opinion that would all depend on the level of guitarist that you are..if you are just beginning then I would probably say to put about 5 songs in a list and try to get feel of the songs and try to learn parts and sections of each song or to start of with simple and the easier songs. (faster progress and less frustration)
an advanced level will pick up the songs quicker and the repetitiveness of going over material and learning wont take as long and the boredom wont set in as fast. I have found that the beginer levels tend to get frustrated and give up alot of times before they even learn a song.....(this is very true if they are lost looking at tablature)
So I would recommend doing songs that you truely enjoy and can listen to a number of times...as you learn them...the more you play and learn the easier the music will be to learn....
hope that was of some help....

as for recording a song in parts that is more difficult because the gain, volume, tuning and a number of other factors might be different for recording to recording and harder to peice together...
I usually get the percussion and the bass first then lay rhythm tracks then lead over that then mix down the individual tracks to get final product...then I add vocals last if I am going to slap some vocals in the product and that can take a few tracks also with background and harmony vocals...

[pos69sum]

Thanks, I feel like I can handle most songs, I'm just such a perfectionist that I can never consider anything 'good enough', which makes both practice and recording difficult, because I can never just decide to move on.

One related question: What is the average length of time to record a cover song using a backing track? I just want a ballpark average so that I can kind of guage how much time I'm taking to record a song, and whether I should drop the song because it is too difficult and try something simpler, or not.

Thanks.

[billandgitana]

Originally Posted by pos69sum

Thanks, I feel like I can handle most songs, I'm just such a perfectionist that I can never consider anything 'good enough', which makes both practice and recording difficult, because I can never just decide to move on.
One related question: What is the average length of time to record a cover song using a backing track? I just want a ballpark average so that I can kind of guage how much time I'm taking to record a song, and whether I should drop the song because it is too difficult and try something simpler, or not.
Thanks.

That all depends on the individual song....some songs have multiple guitar tracks and some are doubled for instance crazy train would take much longer than cumbersome just becuase of the number of guitar tracks and involvment.
I have done them in less than a day up to most of a month depending on the time I have to work on it and getting frustrated and or just not happy with the out come....
The time factor also depends on the familarity with the recording software you are using, which gets faster the more you learn the ins and out's of it...
so I never really put a time frame on it. I have a bunch of unfinished things that I was going to "get back" too also...