Recording: A Day in the Life
Nov. 19th, 2008 11:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vinceconawayOver the next few weeks I will be recording my next Celtic CD, for which I've been seriously preparing since June. I've had the basic concept in mind for about two years, since I tend to think three CDs ahead, but it was in June that I started diving into learning new music beyond my regular slow-and-steady acquisition.
Over the past few months I've done much more rehearsing than ever before, since my historical attitude has been to road-test new music and get it solid in front of an audience. While I have been doing a lot of that, I've also been taking more time during the week to practice, and in a new twist I've been doing so with a metronome. I cannot begin to describe what a difference that has made, and a musician housemate of mine in Massachusetts said that I inspired him to work harder on off days.
I'm also breaking patterns (you'd think I'd have things down by the eleventh album) also in trying to space things out. Always before I've taken a really intense week and done all the recording, but that tends to burn me out really badly. This time I'm taking more breaks and setting a maximum limit of three songs per day. I've got the time over the next six weeks to do a thorough and leisurely job of it and I intend to take advantage of that! Using my own digital console also gives me some serious flexibility.
So this is what my recording schedule looks like on a daily basis. First I make sure the dulcimer is roughly in tune. Then I rehearse for about a half hour, mostly music I will be recording on other days, with only brief run-throughs of the tunes on the day's schedule. If I need more rehearsal for those tunes then they're not ready to be recorded, and if I rehearse them too much that day then I'll be bored with them before they go on tape (well, digitally speaking at least).
After rehearsing I do a fine-tuning of the dulcimer; it has to be as perfect as possible so that any mixing and overdubbing matches up. It helps that I've just been playing it, so it's accustomed to humidity, temperature, and vibration changes that tend to affect things. At that point I lay three good takes of a tune played entirely through, among which I'll edit and mix later to get the studio-quality performance I want. Usually I'll pick my favorite of the three and then edit short snippets of the other two in to cover anything that I don't like (which can be anything from a mistake to a dog barking in the background or overzealous birds chirping outside).
Then I take a break, come back later and lay three takes of another tune, and so on. It gets tedious very quickly, but I try to live a life separate from the studio so it doesn't weigh me down too much. A lot of my nervousness is also alleviated this time by the fact that I've been rehearsing so much that it all feels like just another run-through (it's usually very intimidating to play something you intend to immortalize on disc).
And that, my friends, is my process. It's always evolving, but I'm pretty happy with it so far!
Over the past few months I've done much more rehearsing than ever before, since my historical attitude has been to road-test new music and get it solid in front of an audience. While I have been doing a lot of that, I've also been taking more time during the week to practice, and in a new twist I've been doing so with a metronome. I cannot begin to describe what a difference that has made, and a musician housemate of mine in Massachusetts said that I inspired him to work harder on off days.
I'm also breaking patterns (you'd think I'd have things down by the eleventh album) also in trying to space things out. Always before I've taken a really intense week and done all the recording, but that tends to burn me out really badly. This time I'm taking more breaks and setting a maximum limit of three songs per day. I've got the time over the next six weeks to do a thorough and leisurely job of it and I intend to take advantage of that! Using my own digital console also gives me some serious flexibility.
So this is what my recording schedule looks like on a daily basis. First I make sure the dulcimer is roughly in tune. Then I rehearse for about a half hour, mostly music I will be recording on other days, with only brief run-throughs of the tunes on the day's schedule. If I need more rehearsal for those tunes then they're not ready to be recorded, and if I rehearse them too much that day then I'll be bored with them before they go on tape (well, digitally speaking at least).
After rehearsing I do a fine-tuning of the dulcimer; it has to be as perfect as possible so that any mixing and overdubbing matches up. It helps that I've just been playing it, so it's accustomed to humidity, temperature, and vibration changes that tend to affect things. At that point I lay three good takes of a tune played entirely through, among which I'll edit and mix later to get the studio-quality performance I want. Usually I'll pick my favorite of the three and then edit short snippets of the other two in to cover anything that I don't like (which can be anything from a mistake to a dog barking in the background or overzealous birds chirping outside).
Then I take a break, come back later and lay three takes of another tune, and so on. It gets tedious very quickly, but I try to live a life separate from the studio so it doesn't weigh me down too much. A lot of my nervousness is also alleviated this time by the fact that I've been rehearsing so much that it all feels like just another run-through (it's usually very intimidating to play something you intend to immortalize on disc).
And that, my friends, is my process. It's always evolving, but I'm pretty happy with it so far!
