How to record voices for a piece?

(A video tutorial, in French, is available here)

ChorusPlay allows you to record easily the different parts of a piece, voice per voice. Up to you to sing, or play with an instrument. We recommend in all cases to use an headset, or earphone, to improve the comfort for those using the records. Two possibilities:

• record voices “above” a reference record
• record voices “from scratch”, above ChorusPlay metronome

Note: “expert preparators” will be able to use some advanced functionalities presented in an article to come. Good news: you can record all bars of the part, or only some (the difficult ones by example). And you do not have to record the piece in one single shot. You can start, and stop, and restart, and correct later the bars you are not satisfied with. ChorusPlay is more flexible than any tool you may have use before!

First case: record a voice “above” a reference recording

You wish to record “above” a reference recording. You have already associated and sequenced it (see this article) : you are ready to record the first voice.

Open ChorusPlay, click on “I prepare my scores”, and enable “I am preparator” switch at the top right of the screen. Click on “Prepare a score”, select the music work and the voice you want to record, and press “Sequence/record”. Then, read the “First voice recording” paragraph.

Second case: above the ChorusPlay metronome

ChorusPlay allows you to choose a tempo for the whole piece, or different ones for pieces parts or even bars by bars.

Open ChorusPlay, click on “I prepare my scores”, and enable “I am preparator” switch at the top right of the screen. Click on “Prepare a score”, select the music work and the voice you want to record, press “Sequence/record” and choose “Record with metronome” when asked.

Do a long press on the first bar, and choose the tempo you want (for example 80). This tempo is for all following bars. If you want a different tempo from a certain bar, just make a long press on it, and enter the new tempo to apply. Do it again while necessary, and save. Sequencing is like this automatically generated.

First voice recording

Open the bottom right steps list and select “Voice recording” if it’s not selected yet. (Preliminary : at your first recording, ChorusPlay asks for the configuration of the microphone. This is a quick operation, and done once for all. You just need to be in a quiet environment, unplug the headsets from your device, and turn up the volume.)

Remark: for best quality, plug and use an headset or earphones, so the micro will record only your voice. Without headset, go to the audio mixer,  and reduce the level the most possible for you to hear.

Select the bar you wish to start the recording with (by default, will be the first bar). If you choose a bar other than the first one, play will start a few seconds before, on order that you have some time to get prepared.

Start recording by selecting the button : the micro is colored in red . Your voice, or instrument, will be recorded from the selected bar. In this example, we wish to start at bar 11. We select bar 11 and then press .

In order to get prepared, listening starts at bar 9. Bar 11 is colored in a light red to indicate the recording will actually start at this bar. While we’re not at the 11th bar, the on going bar is colored in blue. As soon as we reach the bar 11, recording starts and on going bar is colored in a neater red.

When you want, select  in order to stop the recording: the recording will be stopped at the end of the previous bar. For example, if you wish to record from bars 11 to 13 included, select bar 11, press , sing or play, then select  when bar 14 is lighted. Listen to your recording by selecting . You will see a new column in the audio mixer, corresponding to the recorded voice:

You can turn the volume up or down, mute it () or listen to it individually (). Then you can record on new bars (e.g. bar 14 in our example).

If you are not satisfied with your recording on some bars, you can easily correct those, and only those. For example, if you wish to correct bar 12, select 12 as starting bar, record , and then  when bar 13 is lighted. Like this, your record will replace the previous one only on bar 12!

When whole recording of the part is OK for you, save it (button ).

Warning : it is not possible today to change the recording of the voice when you have left the “Preparator” mode. You would have to redo it fully and replace it. So, be sure you are satisfied with the selected voice/instrument recording before leaving the mode.

Recording the other voices

When the first voice has been recorded (Soprano as an example) and you left the “Sequence/record” screen, you can open another voice of the same music work. You will see the first voice (here, “Soprano”), available on the audio mixer. Use the same process to record the other voices.