Record one song (audio or video), or import a recording you already have, and keep it with the song. Your band can then trim it, even out the volume, make it the song's preferred audio, or put it on an album.
Recording for yourself, not a band? See Recording songs in your profile. Recording a whole gig or rehearsal? See Recording sets.
Who can record: by default the Principal, Core and Member roles can record, import and delete recordings. Trimming, normalizing, choosing the preferred audio, adding to song links and adding to albums need the Core or Principal role.
Start recording
The quickest way is the Record Your Version panel on the band song page:
- Open the song from your repertoire.
- Click Record Audio or Record Video.
- Allow microphone (and camera) access when your browser asks.
Recording starts as soon as access is granted. A recording panel shows the timer, with Stop and Cancel. For video, a flip button switches cameras on phones and tablets.
You can also start from Record in the top menu (Quick Record):
- Pick your band. This is skipped if you only have one, if you're on a band's page, or if you have a favourite band.
- Choose Record a Song.
- Pick the song. If it isn't in your repertoire yet, use Record new song to add it by title and artist.
You land on the band song page, ready to click Record Audio or Record Video.
Stay on the page while you record. Leaving or closing the page stops the recording. Audio can run up to 4 hours and video up to 2 hours.
When you stop
Click Stop. The recording uploads straight away (with a progress bar) and opens on its own recording page. Long recordings take a little longer to process before the page opens.
Browser video is saved as WebM. The recording page offers Save disk space, which converts it to MP4 at roughly a quarter of the size. Trimming waits until the conversion is done.
Import a recording
Already have a take? Click Import Recording on the band song page. You can:
- Upload a file: an audio or video file up to 500 MB.
- Import from a link: paste a direct link to the audio or video file, up to 500 MB. A link to a preview web page (like an iCloud Drive page) won't work.
Either way, confirm you have the right to upload it.
Find your recordings
See Recordings on the band song page lists every recording of the song. The band song page also shows them further down, under Recordings and Videos.
The recording page
Each recording has a player, its details (length, format, size, who made it) and a pencil to rename it. Depending on your role, the Actions panel has:
- Make preferred audio: plays this take for the song in the setlist Audio Playlist and Practice page.
- Add to Album: adds the take to an existing album or a new one. See Making albums. Works for audio originals.
- Trim Recording: drag on the waveform to choose the part to keep, drag the edges to adjust, and zoom in for precision. Trimming makes a new Trimmed version; the original isn't changed. From a trimmed version, Re-trim from Original starts over.
- Normalize Audio: makes a new Normalized version with even, consistent volume. The original isn't changed. Each original can have one normalized version.
- Amplify: makes a louder or quieter copy.
- Delete This Version removes a trimmed, normalized or amplified copy. Delete Recording removes the original; only the person who recorded it can do that.
New versions are listed under Derived versions on the original's page.
Add a take to the song's links
The Add to song panel's Add to song links button adds the recording as a link on the library song. For a public song, that makes it visible to every band that plays the song and on the song's public page. For a private song, only your band sees it. Whoever recorded it can take it back off with Remove from song.
This is different from Make preferred audio, which only affects your band's players.
Tips
- Record in a quiet room, and do a short test take to check levels.
- Normalize, then trim, for clean playback.
- Make your best take the preferred audio so the whole band practices with it.
