In August 2016 I recorded 5 of my original songs (acoustic tracks only including guitar and vocals) in PRR-Time Studio in Long Island, New York (Black, 2016). For this project, I had hired a guitarist and 2 sound engineers. The studio rate was 300 $ for 6 hours including recording time, mastering, mixing and editing). I had only had a single one-hour practice session with the guitarist the previous week (I had found him at the last moment to replace the guitar player who was supposed to be recording the guitar parts in United Kingdom and send them over to me for studio usage, but got caught up in family affairs), so the outcome was bound to be rather improvisational.
Firstly, the guitarist played about 3 takes of each song to the click track. He was very professional, punctual and added some nice touches and stylistic impressions to the notes of my songs, so I was very happy with his input in general.
Secondly, we chose the best recordings and edited some of the tempos of the songs as I had dictated the click track tempos to him before the session, but not accurately (I used the metronome to try to figure out the best speed, but as this was my first time ever using such a method and did not have my guitar with me in America, I was unable predict what the guitar part would sound like by just singing to them).
Thirdly, after the guitarist left, it was my turn to sing. I tried to start off with “Please, Stay, My Love”, but kept over-pushing my voice, so I decided to try something a little bit less emotionally difficult to sing until I would relax enough to sing this first song I had ever written on a guitar. “If I Don’t Know Everything”, “Childhood Glow” and “Back to the Past” were done in 3 takes for each and I felt quite confident and started to enjoy the process. My only dilemma was to figure out how much I should improvise, as I like to go with the flow of the emotion, but at the same time the song structure needed to remain recognizable and easy to remember since “pop songs balance repetition and new musical ideas” (Simms, 2015).
Eventually I just trusted my instincts and added a few changes here and there that sounded fitting. Especially “If I Don’t Know Everything” suddenly lighted up thanks to some higher notes I added to the chorus and “Back to the Past” had a whole new texture and mood to it thanks to the guitarist having added some Spanish guitar strumming patterns to it (his own favorite style), whereas originally it had been a song rooted in rock music.
After finishing these three and listening to them back on the big speakers in the editing room, we tried to record “Come on, Rain” – vocally the most challenging one out of these five as well, but I was struggling to reach the highest note in the chorus.
To fix this, I did a 5-minute warm-up for my voice, while the engineers worked on the tracks. I tried my best to let go of all the tension in my body, as this song was not only the first one I had ever written in GarageBand, it had a very special meaning to myself as well, which again, made me strain my voice by trying too hard.
Following this short break, I started to sing with a smile on my face whenever there was a hard part, which helped to record the song. We ended with recording “Please, Stay, My Love” in which I tried to maintain soft, talkative manner of singing with not too much creaking effect on it.
Last, but not least, we chose the best versions of each song and then the sound engineers edited them as best as they could in the last remaining hour. Overall, I was happy with the result taking into account that this was my first recording session with my own acoustic songs and a hired guitarist. On a negative note, as I was paying per hour, the whole process was a little rushed and the mixing and mastering was done using the same settings on all the tracks rather than on individual guitar and vocal parts. This meant that the uniqueness of the sound colours was not amplified by the production and the tracks were only polished to a smooth-and-even-sounding standard. Also, a few wrong guitar notes remained in the recording as well as parts where I could have done a better job with the singing if I had had the proper time to listen to the whole recordings between the takes.
As a conclusion, I would say that whenever possible, the more studio time there is, the better results can be achieved. Also, the bigger the budget, the better sound engineers and producers can be hired, but based on my experience calling various recording studios around Long Island, smaller scale studios tend to often work harder (as they are trying to build a client base and a great reputation) and treat the customers nicer (the sound engineers in this studio were a delight to work with: very polite, friendly and accommodating). This session was a good value for money in my opinion and this experience was very useful to my musicianship in more ways than just providing me with material to promote myself with, it taught me the skills of co-working with other music industry professionals and self-evaluate and to take responsibility over my own results.
References:
Annely Black (2016) Come on rain [download]. 5 minutes 23 seconds. Childhood Glow. New York: PRR Recording Studio. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IOWmo7Ew7Q&list=PLI7VfbCY_SXIu514aGut_wA7bNj2W7EdF [accessed 21 December 2016].
Sara Simms (2015) 8 Tips for Writing Pop Songs [blog]. 21 August. Available from https://ask.audio/articles/8-tips-for-writing-pop-songs [accessed 21 December 2016].