Equipment

Console (Sound Board)

First you have to look at your budget and your style. Do you need a console? Do you need an effects board? You don’t need either of them, but some people prefer to work with them. That’s something you should examine before anything else. Having a console can be expensive, but it’s also very practical. With a console, you can set all your pans and fades, volumes, etc, before recording. You use a channel for every instrument (depending, of course, on the number of channels available to you).

I prefer to go directly to the computer and handle the engineering aspect from there. The point is that some people like to twist knobs, while others don’t care either way. Remember that whatever is available externally is also available through software. Therefore, the only thing a console will add is a tool certain people find easier to work with.

Effects

How do you prefer to work? This point is similar to the previous one. Do you want to handle all of your effects prior to recording, or do you want to add them after the recording is done? In my experience, I’ve found the second route to be much less time consuming. The only effects I will add prior to recording are distortion and wah. The wah I’ll do prior because of the control available while playing, and the distortion because it’s just easier to have it on while playing; you can really feel the sustain of the notes.

I add all other effects afterwards. I don’t even use an amplifier to record; I get the sound in “pure.” I find this saves a lot of time because you won’t always be sure ahead of time which effect will fit where. Most producers you’ll work with will be the same. You see, a song you play every night using a specific amount of chorus, reverb and flange might sound very different in the studio.

The best thing to do is to record your instruments direct, then listen to the overall sound of the song and add your effects from there. This also gives you a lot of versatility. You might discover that putting in a more discreet flange, adding reverb, and reducing chorus might work better for that specific song. If you’ve already recorded using effects, you’ll have to re-record. This means you might have to spend more time playing with your effects to get the right result.

Cables

This is an absolute rule: Spend a lot of money on cables, and keep your recording cables for recording only. Never use wireless systems. Buy cables that are more expensive and handle them with care: don’t step on them or twist them. A faulty cable will destroy all your work. Make sure the cables are of high quality. Don’t be afraid to ask a qualified technician at your music store for advice. Tell him or her you need cables for recording purposes. A ten-foot cable might cost you $30, but it will make a huge difference.

Electricity

Hums usually come from bad grounding. Test your sockets. Use a dedicated outlet for your computer and recording devices. Don’t play near a television set, or if you do, don’t turn it on. TVs can cause feedbacks with pick-ups. You can also get feedbacks with the radiation emitted by your computer monitor. Never play your instruments directly in front of your monitor.

Also, make sure you have the correct voltage for effect modules. Rolands tend to use 9.35 volts instead of 9. That’s why you get hums from a Boss pedal if you use a Radio Shack power cable instead of a Boss.

Computer

Recording on a home computer is safe and the quality is as good as a professional studio. Most studios now have computers in them. The old philosophy of the Mac being better than the PC for recording is wrong. Know what? It always has been. This is due to simple mathematics. Apple has about 5% of the computer market worldwide while 85% of computers used around the world are PCs. By having such a big share of the market, manufacturers produce more PC components than Mac components. Therefore, the quality is higher and cheaper for a PC.

Also, the Mac was built for video. Sound came as an afterthought. Most people who will tell you a Mac is better than a PC for sound are people who haven’t touched a PC in ten years. You can do it on a Mac, but it will be much more expensive. Yet, if you own a Mac, don’t go out and buy a PC unless you’re really planning on changing the computer.

Disk space

Recording takes up a lot of space on your hard drives. Be prepared for this. The best thing you can do is go out and buy a second hard drive (if you don’t already have one). Recording ten songs might take up to 10 GB of space on your hard drive depending on the amount of tracks you’ll be using. But remember to record in mono: it’s half the space of stereo files and stereo files don’t add anything. You’ll be thinking about stereo only when it comes to mixing.

Record your files on your first hard drive, then make copies of all of them on your second hard drive. Why? Because if your first hard drive blows up (and this does happen) you’ll have a copy of all your files on the second drive. Back up your files every day. More often if you can. Burning to CD is out of the question. It would take at least 10 CDs to back up your files every day; you won’t do it. Also, retrieving your files from a CD is just a lot more work and can lead to confusion.

Processors and RAM

Don’t worry too much over this aspect. I use a Celeron 366 with 64 Mb of RAM and have had no problems whatsoever. I can honestly say that 95% of the time, this is quite fast enough. The other 5% of the time usually poses no major problems. I’d say upgrade only if you would be upgrading anyway.

Instruments

Guitars and basses should be brought into a shop for adjustments to bridges and necks. Strings must be brand new. If you normally change your strings every six weeks, go down to two or three weeks. As soon as you see a bit of wear on them, change them. Make sure all wiring is clean and dust free.

Drums should be tuned before recording. Pianos should also be properly tuned. Analog keyboards should be cleaned and dust free.

As for mics, I highly recommend that all voices be recorded in a professional studio. Your $200 microphone might sound great on stage but it just won’t cut it in the studio. Professional studios use mics that sell at about $2,000 each. Also, the rooms in which you record the voices will be properly built to absorb the sound of your voice rather than bounce it off the walls and create unnecessary echoes and feedbacks. They’re more expensive, but the results are so much better.

Preparation

The songs

It’s not all that important that lyrics be finalized before beginning the recording process. You still have time to finalize them as you record. I usually come up with a whole bunch of changes a few minutes before recording the vocals and sometimes during.

There are two ways to go about recording basic tracks. Remember that these tracks won’t be kept later on. If the song is one the whole band knows and plays regularly, then have the whole band play it and use that as your basic track. If not, then a melodic instrument (guitar or keyboard) should be the first instrument recorded. Make sure the person doing this knows the song ahead of time. All additional tracks will be reworked as you are recording anyway.

Make sure you know which songs you’ll be recording so you don’t spend endless hours recording songs that will be dropped. Most likely, you will drop and/or add songs as you go along, but try to limit the process as much as you can.

Sequence of musicians

You know the guys you’ll be working with. Make up a schedule. You can work on ten songs at a time. I even recommend it, as it keeps you from getting too involved in a song and losing sight of your objectives. Also, make sure people come in when it’s their time to do so. Some musicians don’t mind recording if there are other people in the room, others are uncomfortable with that. See how everybody feels.

Breaks

Schedule creative breaks: a few days where you’ll neither record nor listen to the material. Then listen to what you’ve done before recording again. This will work very well, inspiration-wise. There’s also the fact that immediately following a recording session you might feel you’ve done great work, but a few days later realize it’s not all that good. It’s hard to judge when you’re too much “into it.”

Patience

Recording is a long and arduous process. You will spend several hundred hours on each song. Things can and will go wrong. Arm yourself with patience and remember that you can’t predict the unpredictable.

Your article “Recording Part 1: Why do it?” was very helpful to me.. and I like overall site in general, it’s like opening up a copy of guitar player or something. I have a question for you, though. On sending out demos… I’ve read articles that say most major labels toss demos into a pile of trash with 1,000 others they are equally interested in.

Is there any sure way to avoid this without having to buy a book with a list of labels (major and independent) accepting demos, or better yet is there something on the web you know of perhaps? We’re so hopeful about this music it’s literally scaring the bejeezus out of us and we want to make sure we do it right. Thank you, reply if you can.

Answer

Unfortunately, there are no sure-fire ways of avoiding not being listened to or being “tableted” by the record company execs. One thing you could do, though, that would improve your chances is to find an agent. These people are usually better connected and have a better chance of getting your demo listened to by the right people.

Your best resource, in my opinion, would be a book store. They usually carry a yearly guide of who does what in the business. Go to a bookstore and ask a sales person exactly what you need and they should have that resource. Make sure you get the most recent edition, lots of people move or change places. People get fired and resigned. Execs don’t like receiving mail addressed to their predecessors.

I’ll write something more detailed about this particular part of the process in the upcoming weeks.

Hope this helps. If you’d like more help, don’t hesitate to write back.

For everyone interested in demos, how to record them and what to do with them check out our series of lessons on them starting with Recording Part 1: Why We Do It? and Recording Part 2: Building a Digital Studio. Songwriters and musicians can also look for more help and advice on our Songwriters Discussion Forum.

Stumbled across Guitar Noise and your response regarding how to get demos heard.

You are correct that there is no sure fire way, and there is a reason that you might try to explain to the young’uns in the music business.

In our industry, over the years we have developed a series of filters or hurdles which aspiring musicians are expected to surmount as they prove to the world they are in fact…good. Okay, maybe just marketable. Without these filters, we would be inundated with even more crap music than we already are. Just because some guy got up one day and touched a guitar does not make him marketable, or even mediocre. In other words, harsh as it may seem, he is not worthy of the world’s attention. You simply have to have a means of testing before putting anything on the market. That’s just good business.

Now the Big 5 are very important for one big reason. Ask yourself who in their right minds would loan a musician a dime based on his job being…. a musician. Well that’s exactly that the majors do. They invest in unproven, speculative acts in the hopes that the act will go big time. 9 out of 10 times, it tanks. That leaves the one star act to generate the revenues to keep the whole thing running, and to recoup the losses of the other 9. THAT’S why the record companies are perceived as greedy. Imagine if, like as with a student loan, you actually had to pay back all that money when your career didn’t actually happen. ….I didn’t think you would like that idea. Consider it one of the few gifts in life.

I will admit that the Big 5 do have some less than savory habits in doing business, at least by normal standards, but we musicians ain’t exactly normal are we? If you could work in the corp. side of the industry, and I mean in NYC, for say, 20 years, you would catch on to the fact that there is a HUGE team of professionals who try to make an act viable. The losses are beyond comprehension when a big artist screws up his career by fiddling when he should have been singing and dancing. Entire departments close suddenly. That’s people out of work, and all because some star believed his own hype.

So its a complex issue, to get your demo heard. The easiest way is to be really good, get a following in your region to prove it, and build a fan site on the net for sure, and with an independent hit meter at least to prove some activity.

A few do nots:

• Do not release any of your work as anything more than 30 second clips.
• Do not cop the attitude that you are good, you are not, until the contracts are signed and you have a check…cashed.
• And the biggest one… Do not believe your own hype! You are only human. Get a grip!

Once you get your “act together” and can prove it, the industry will actually find you in the most interesting ways. You can help that process by being professional. Do a press kit with a proper demo. (No, not long versions of all your songs or else it will end up in the trash for sure) Pictures must be pro and be exciting! Bios on members of the band should be short but interesting from a listener’s perspective, not your own. Oh yeah, real important. BE REALLY GOOD AT YOUR CRAFT AND BE READY TO GO WITH YOUR ACT.

A dear friend of mine who was Pres of a major once said to me, “The industry doesn’t sell talented musicians, it sells entertainment.” Remember that…

For all of that to happen, get a good personal manager, entertainment lawyer, business agent, oops…. there we are back in the filter stage again. Yeah, you really do have to spend money on yourself. If you don’t have the faith in you, how the heck do you expect anyone else to.

Anyway, that’s reality. Who am I to say all this with such apparent authority? Lets just say I’m one in the business who cares.

Please feel free to publish this, and my Email address. I welcome any serious career minded people to pump my brain (such as it is). There are changes going down in the industry that could make music “bigger than Elvis” for lots of people who would never have gotten a shot.

Although there are other methods of recording, we’ll be looking at the track by track method, the most commonly used method of recording as it’s the one which produces the best results. Also, we’ll assume that you’re not rich, so you’ll be doing most of the work on a home computer.

The Track by Track Method

What’s great about this method is that the other musicians don’t even need to know the song beforehand. And that’s one of the main reason it’s so widespread. Generally, the guy who wrote the song goes into the studio first and does a quick recording. It won’t be kept, but it will serve as a guide.

In today’s world, you can do this, or at least most of it, in the comfort of your living room. Using a computer and a multi-track software such as Cakewalk or Cubase, you can achieve the same results as any studio (most studios today use these softwares). But it’s a lot of work…

Obviously, if you’re doing it yourself, you don’t have a large budget. Believe me, if you did, you’d be in someone else’s studio with a producer and a sound engineer letting them do all the work. I’ve recorded a lot of demos in my time, but this is my first experience at recording an album; it’s not the same thing at all. I never could have imagined this was so much work!

In an effort to help you avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made, here are a few helpful hints. This is by no means the end-all and be-all of album recording, perhaps you have had similar experiences and have come up with different solutions. If so, by all means, write in and share them with us.

A lot of this is psychological. So in order to avoid a psychosis, be well-prepared.

Sked-jule, or was it Shed-yule?

Make up a realistic schedule for recording your album. And stick to it. You shouldn’t spend more than three or four months on it. More than that and it starts to seem like a chore. And as you’re not seeing the end of it, you put less and less energy into it.

Three to four months is a comfortable maximum. If everybody in the band works full-time, well there go the weekends!

Of course, this is assuming that most of the people in the band have full-time jobs. If that’s not the case, you can easily cut this to three or four weeks.

Who’s Producing?

Production usually ends up being done by one person in the band, usually the person who knows the most about sounds, electronics, computers, etc. Or the guy who owns the computer. Or it could be the one who doesn’t have a full-time job. This poor sod’s life is going to be a miserable one for a while.

But you should decide in advance who will be the Producer. Better to choose one person rather than make it a band thing. Remember in school how it was with team assignments? Usually, one person ended up doing most of the work. The same goes here. A twosome can work, provided both people can work well together, but the best way to go is with one person only.

You’ll have to trust this person’s judgement. He’ll be sitting in on all the recording sessions. He’ll be pressing “stop” in the recording software if he doesn’t like what’s being played. He’s the one who will say “OK, this take is good”.

Of course, if you’re it, don’t be a tyrant. If the drummer says he doesn’t like his take, let him do it over. But make sure you like it too.

The Producer will also have to decide if more tracks are needed and will have to convince the others to record them. So he also has to be a diplomat…

And an administrator…

Clerical work

So the task has fallen on you. Great! How good is your memory? Figure that most recording software can take up to 256 tracks. Although you won’t be using that many, you’ll likely end up with anywhere between 16 an 40 tracks per song.

How will you remember every detail of every track? Suppose the rhythm guitar uses multiple effects at different times? Then you’ll use a different track for each effect (example: track one has the rhythm guitar with reverb, chorus and flange, track two has the rhythm guitar sections without the flanger). You’ll also want to double the rhythm guitar. Imagine the main rhythm guitar playing to the right, the second rhythm guitar should be less loud and to the left.

Also, anything with distortion on it should be recorded on a different track. Solos should also be on a different track (but all solos and leads on the same track). You will end up with five to eight guitar tracks (at least) per song.

Then there’s bass, drums, keyboards and whatever else you might decide to throw in. Have a good memory? Don’t count on it.

Suppose that in a certain song you wish to add a picking guitar using a different guitar. Can you be absolutely sure which guitar you used for the other tracks? I know it sounds obvious, your guitars don’t sound alike. But once you’ve added effects, it’s not always obvious.

The Notebook

Spend a few dollars on a spiral notebook. Preferably one with at least 200 pages in it. You’ll identify the cover page first of all (you’d be surprised how often one doesn’t think of doing this). Make sure you add contact information. Suppose you’re heading to another studio and you drop the notebook in the subway? You’ll be very happy if someone finds it and gives you a ring.

Page 1: Give your project a working title. This is like an album title, only it’s not definite (that’s why it’s called a “working” title). It doesn’t matter whether or not the album will end up with this title, it’s psychologically sound to say you’re working on “Voyage of Mercy” rather than working “on an album”. If, somewhere down the line you decide you’d rather call the album “Voyage of the Damned”, don’t change the working title. It should remain the same until the album is mixed.

Write down the name of the software you’re using, where you’re doing the recording, which software you’ll be using for effects, etc. Think of it as archival information. Something to refer to ten years from now. Could be useful if your second album happens only in five or six years. You just might not remember all the details and it’s good to have them.

Write down all relevant information: Song titles, production, engineering and mixing credits. Anything you can think of that might be useful. Leave yourself several blank pages for things to add on later down the road.

Split the rest of the book into as many equal sections as the number of songs you plan to record. For example, if you plan to record 10 songs, you should leave about 10 pages for the overall section at the beginning and leave 19 pages per song. Much better to have too many than not enough.

Use some method for separating the sections so they’re easy to find. Then, for each section, on the first page, write the title of the song, in big easily-readable letters. Then write the name of the songwriter(s).

Once you start recording, you should put in all pertinent information relative to the base track (the one that you’ll be deleting down the line). You should also note all tempo changes and time changes. If you’re starting at a tempo of 105, in 4/4, then switching, at measure 17, to a tempo of 110 in a 3/4, it’s important to note this. You can easily make a mistake somewhere down the line which will change the tempo and key settings. If you have them noted down already, it’s easy to set them back again to what they should be.

Once you start recording the actual tracks, start by the date (it gives you an easy method of seeing the changes the song may have gone through.

Then note anything of importance; settings used on the amp, on the guitar itself, on the pedal effects, etc. Take a note of everything. If, for some reason, you should accidentally delete a track at some point, you’ll have all the settings already to redo it.

Don’t bother with things like the amount of takes necessary. This could be embarrassing to the guy who got his part right on the fiftieth try. Some musicians are like that. I know I am. I can play the same part flawlessly twenty times in a row, but once you press “record”, I start making stupid mistakes. Many musicians are this way, don’t be too hard on them.

Every time you make changes, even if it’s just adjusting track volume or panning, make a note of it. This spiral notebook will be your bible during the project.

It Took How Long?

Another important thing to take note of is the time spent on the project. Write down your hours. You should reserve a page for each track just to write down your hours. As most freelancers will tell you, hours should be split in 30 minute segments. From 0 to 30 minutes becomes 30 and 31 minutes to 60 is rounded off to the hour. If you’ve worked on a track for 3 hours and 12 minutes, you should right down 3.5 and 2 hours and 47 minutes should be 3 hours. But don’t start making sure you work 2 minutes over the hour every time. Try to be fair.

Now, it is extremely important to know how much time you spent on the project. Software like Cakewalk will tell you (in the properties submenu), but these numbers are not accurate. They only count from the time you press record to the final save. There’s work to be done before you press record and after you save.

Why is it so important to have accurate timing? If you sell your album to a label, you need an advance. The advance will be set upon the amount it cost you (or should have cost you as you’re not charging for your time) to record the album.

Suppose you finish with a total of 836 hours spent on the project. You multiply this by a reasonable hourly rate, say $25. 836 x $25 = $20,900. To this you add actual costs: CD’s (for backups, etc), tapes if you use them. Actual studio costs if you’ve used the services of another studio. If your recording the album on a home PC, you’ll have a problem with drums and vocals if you’re living in an apartment. Let’s just say that the neighbours might not appreciate. And you won’t get good sound results anyway. Better to pay for time in an actual studio.

Let’s say you have spent 26 hours for vocals and 17 for drums and the studio cost you $30 an hour (with the services of an engineer). That’s (26 hour + 17 hours) x $30 = $1,290. So $20,900 + $1,290 = $22,190. Round it off at $23,000 for incidentals and that’s what you should be charging a label if they want to sign you. And that’s not excessive. Major label advances are usually of the order of $150,000 (they consider that you have to pay things like rent and food to live on while you’re making the album and before it gets released).

Producer’s Cut

If you’re producing the album, it’s only natural that you should get paid. This is where it gets a bit tricky with the other band members. The standard rate for a producer is 4% of the final sale price of an album (if the album is sold for $23.99, the producer gets $0.96 per copy sold). This is standard for any producer for any album. And the 4% comes out of the band’s cut. That’s also standard. Look at the amount of extra work you’re doing. You should get paid for it, it’s only fair. Try and get the point across to anyone in the band who is reluctant to yield. Offer them to produce the next one. Or tell them to get someone else. Although all producers make 4%, any producer you call will ask for an advance. Once the reluctant parties see that they can’t pay it, they should yield to the 4%.

Anyway, if you sign with a label, they’ll automatically make the checks out to the person who’s credited for producing the album.

Overall, producing is a tremendous amount of work. At times you’ll hate it. It will seem like the project’s going nowhere and that there’s no end in sight. But it’s also a lot of fun and a great learning experience.

Keep a written record of everything that happens. Don’t go overboard. It’s easy, when you have so many tracks to work with to start adding 40 guitar tracks, 3 solos at the same time, etc. My advice is keep it simple. Record the basic tracks first: Rhythm guitar, lead guitar, main keyboard track, bass, vocals and drums. Then add only what’s needed. If you end up with only 8 tracks on a song and it sounds great, then don’t touch it.

Always record drums last. It sounds backwards, but it the best way to go. You’ll get your timing from the software’s metronome. This way the drummer has a better idea of when to add his punches so that he doesn’t bury the voice, but instead supports it.

And have fun! Remember that if it’s not fun, might as well go work for the government…