When I sat down to write this post, I intended on making it a quick update about where I was in the process of recording my next album “Headspace.” However, the muse took over and it turned into a huge exposition on how I make records. I hope you enjoy this and it helps you better understand my process for bringing my music to you the fans. I welcome any comments you might have.
When I record an album, I usually do it in phases. The first phase is that of writing and demoing. In a sense, a particular song or album gets recorded twice during the production process.
It all starts with the rough demo.
Usually, in the process of writing a song, I’ll sit down to the keyboard, roll disk, and record a rough bit of piano/vocal with the main idea. Every studio environment that I set up now has an SM 58 hanging over the keyboard so I can just sit down, run my recording software, and play and sing in real time, putting my idea into fixed form. I always play to a click, so the tempo of the song is established. This also allows me to later cut and paste piano or vocal parts around so that I don’t have to replay them. Remember. This is a demo. It’s not about the performance: it’s about getting the idea down. Next, I begin building the demo up with bass, drums, and some guitar tracks. I use software instruments that allow me to simulate the sound of these instruments with enough realism to communicate my ideas to the players that I will eventually hire for the project. Since others will soon be involved, it’s my job to really have a handle on what I am going for. In this way, I really spend some quality time trying many different kinds of arrangement ideas and articulations with the instruments until I really have a faximally of what I want. I record enough parts to establish the rhythm section, so that the drum, bass, and guitar players have a really good grasp on what I’m going for and can capture the spirit of my keyboard performances. I usually leave out auxiliary tracks such as strings, harmonies, or extra keyboard parts, because they are not necessary at this time. Save that bit of creativity for later. The demo gets a rough mix, and is sent via mp3 to the players. I try to send them in plenty of time before the session date to give everyone a chance to learn the songs, so that come recording time, we can just breeze on through the tunes. Remember. In the studio, time is money.
The real recording begins.
Now that I am satisfied with the demos, the tracks are prepared for incorporation into the master sessions. If the demos were created using the same software that the album will be recorded in, not much work needs to be done. I may need to go through and clean up any unnecessary tracks, rename some tracks so that they follow a naming convention that will be easy for the engineer to understand, and consolidate the sessions to get rid of any unused takes, cutting down on the overall size of the session. However, if I’m using something different from what the studio or engineer wants to use, I have a great deal of work ahead of me. In this case, I’ll need to create stems, or submixes of all the instruments for each song and organize them in folders with a naming convention that is easy to understand. This way, the engineer can import all the files for each song into their recording platform of choice. It is also important for me to note time signature and tempo in beats per minute, (bpm), so that the engineer can set up his session files with the appropriate parameters. In result, the instrumentalists will be able to play along with the demos that were originally created, allowing everyone to have guide tracks to help them maintain the feel and emotion of the tune. Usually, I’m recording one instrumentalist at a time, so I start with the drums. The drummer will play along with a song, hearing my demo performances of all the instruments and vocals minus the drums, laying the foundation for all the players to come. Next, I bring in the bass player, who plays along with the recently laid drum tracks, plus the demo guitars, keys and vocals. As each instrumentalist is brought in, demo tracks are removed. Once I’ve recorded all the rhythm section, I can strip away all of my demo tracks and begin rerecording my keyboard and vocal parts. In this way, I am now locking in with the new parts that have been recorded. This causes me to play and sing things differently to fit the newly created emotion of the song. This is now the time to get creative with auxiliary tracks such as strings, harmonies, electronic elements, etc. If I have an idea for a part, I can now just put it in and see what happens. I can also bring in other players for aux instruments such as percussion, wind instruments, etc. This allows for even more creativity to happen.
Going to mix.
Once I am fully satisfied with the album as a whole in regards to performance, arrangement, etc, it’s now time to mix. I take the master sessions to an engineer, who’s skilled in the art of mixing. He blends all of the tracks together applying compression, equalization, reverb, etc, painstakingly stirring and bringing to boil this musical stew. He can also use this time to add or subtract ingredients as needed to further improve the songs as a whole. With current technology, we can even move things around in time so that they lock in better with other parts. Or, we can just plain mangle something beyond recognition to add a completely different spice to the mix. Once the mixes are done, he bounces down all of the songs, combining all of the separate tracks into stereo files: 1 per song.
Now, to the mastering lab.
Once he and I are satisfied with the album as a whole, it is now time to send these stereo files to a mastering lab. The mastering engineer adds the finishing touch. He makes sure that all the songs of the album are of the same loudness and possess other characteristics that make it all sound like 1 contiguous body of work. Mastering is not one of my strong points of knowledge, so there are many facets of it that I don’t quite understand. I like to think of it like this. I’m the sculptor. I mold the clay into the piece of art. Next, the mix engineer adds the colors to it and throws it in the kiln to solidify my work. Finally, the mastering engineer bakes in the glaze so that my work is smooth to the touch.
Artwork and liner notes.
Now that the album has been mixed and mastered, it’s time to solidify the artwork and liner notes. Knowing me, I’ve waited till the last minute to think about this so now I begin to scramble to get it done. Hiring someone to do my graphics and layout is a very important process. The right person will be able to really create the visual component for the album that really expresses its overall feel. We talk about the album cover, hiring a photographer and artist if need be, and put it together. I really don’t have a process for liner notes. I write what I feel, give it to my layout people, and they make it happen.
Pressing and distribution.
Finally! The album is done, the artwork and layout have been solidified, and we’re on to the final phase. It’s time to submit all of the elements of the album including music, artwork, etc, to the pressing plant. Most companies now have an easy way for me to either upload my work or send it on physical media. If the layout was done properly, it should be easy for the folks at my pressing facility of choice to drop those elements into their layout systems, print the propper cards, press up the CD’s, assemble and shrinkwrap the cases, and send me a finished product. Some companies are linked in with physical and digital distributors so that I can quickly and easily make my work for sale both physically and digitally. Once the distribution is locked into place, such as links for iTunes, Amazon, etc, and the infrastructure to sell physical product is ready, be it Amazon, or my cd baby page, I am now ready to begin the arduous task of promotion. But that’s a whole other blog post.
Very interesting. I wish I still had the drive to do all that, or is it called insperation? Good job.
Keep Rockin dude!
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