Recording Rock Music

As industry insiders, we sometimes forget that when discussing the recording process, the rest of the world really has no idea what we are talking about. Hopefully this will provide an explanation of the song formation process in layman's terms so that there may be less disconnect between the professional and the consumer.

As with any creative process, there is no absolute hard and fast procedure that must be followed stringently, but there is a logical development that all recordings must go through, which includes:

Composition

Arrangement

Recording

Editing

Mixing

Mastering

That being said, this is an explanation of that general process and what takes place during each of these steps.

Composition

Composition is really where a song or piece is born. Preceding this step may be brainstorming and idea formation, but the song actually begins to take a real form and become an entity in itself during this stage.

This is what separates ideas and melodies floating around in the air from actual well-formed songs. There isn't a whole lot to be said concerning Composition, other than it consists of forming a melody (and often basic accompaniment) that flows chronologically from a start to a finish. Lyrics (if applicable) will also likely be written at this time.

Arrangement

Arranging is taking the Composition that has been created and determining what instruments will be used for the recording, writing the parts that those instruments will play, and the tempo (speed, beats per minute) that the song will be played in.

To best illustrate this point, think of the song "What a Wonderful World." The most famous version of this song is arguably the one sung by the great Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong. Compare this to the Ramones version of the same song. Both are based on the same Composition, but with entirely different results based on the fact that they are Arranged differently using very contrasting instrumentation and are at vastly different tempos. (You can use any number of examples to illustrate this principle; "Yesterday", "Happy Birthday", etc.). Arrangement, as with Composition, may range anywhere from informally assigning parts to instruments to drafting the parts using musical notation, all dependent on the preferences of the arranger and the formality of the project.

Recording

Now we start to get a little more technical.

The term Recording is often used to refer to this and the following three steps as a whole, but for simplicity's sake, the term Recording is used here to mean "putting performances to tape" (or as is the case now, a digital format). This is also referred to as Tracking, Cutting Tracks, etc.

Recording Studios have long been somewhat of a mystery to industry outsiders, but basically what takes place during Recording is microphones and various (expensive) sound altering equipment are used to capture a sound being produced in an acoustically tuned room or environment and storing that sound information onto some sort of media (be it magnetic tape, a computer hard drive, or, in the old days, acetate discs).

Generally, a process called Multi-Tracking is used for commercial recordings in which each microphone (and hence, each sound, be it vocals, guitar, or cello) is printed discretely to the storage media to be manipulated at a later time.

To simplify it a bit, the 'normal' stereo recording that a consumer would hear is comprised of two tracks or channels, the Right and the Left. During the Recording or Multi-Tracking stage, there are virtually innumerable quantities of tracks or channels that can each be controlled separately from the other tracks. For instance if you have recorded a vocal part on one track and a guitar part on another, because they were recorded discretely in a Multi-Track setting, the volume of the vocals can be increased or decreased without affecting the sound or volume of the guitar track whatsoever.

In a typical session, what you would be left with after completing the Recording stage is any number of discrete tracks each containing an instrument. An example of a track listing for a rock song might be:

Track 1: Kick Drum

Track 2: Snare Drum

Track 3: High Tom

Track 4: Low Tom

Track 5: Overhead Left

Track 6: Overhead Right

Track 7: Bass Guitar

Track 8: Electric Guitar

Track 9: Acoustic Guitar

Track 10: Keyboard Left

Track 11: Keyboard Right

Track 12: Lead Vocals

Track 13: Background Vocals

Meaning that each of these tracks had a microphone assigned to it for the specific purpose of recording the desired source. (Notice that tracks 1-6 are for various parts of a typical drum set).

Also (not to complicate things further, but...) these instruments need not be recorded at the same time. The bass guitar player could record his/her part on Thursday, and the vocalist might lay down tracks a week later. Basically, because they are on separate tracks, the musicians do not have to be playing at the same time or even in the same place to create a finished product that sounds like they were looking right at each other. This also enables a multi-instrumentalist to record all the instruments themselves and create their own 'virtual' band where they are the only member.

Editing

Had this exercise been written 15 years ago, I would not have included Editing as its own section as it generally takes place during Recording and Mixing on an 'as needed' basis. But with the evolution and general industry acceptance of digital and non-linear recording formats, Editing has become a much more important and functional stage in the creation of a musical work.

Simply put, Editing consists of changing the original recording by way of altering the timing, pitch, or speed of an individual track, or tracks to change the performance. One such common practice is referred to as "comping." Comping is the idea of recording multiple takes of one instrument with the intent of compiling all of the takes into one cohesive take for the purpose of eliminating errors or creating a 'perfect' take.

For instance, a vocalist may sing the same part over and over again making mistakes in different parts on each take. Rather than continuing to search for a complete perfect take, or settling for the best take and having to live with the mistakes, the recording engineer (the guy turning all the knobs ?) will choose the best take and then after identifying each mistake within that take, pull the line, phrase, word, or even syllable from another take where the mistake did not occur and paste that into the correct spot on the best take essentially eliminating the mistake and making it sound like it was performed and recorded without it.

Digitally, this process is simple and can be completed with just a couple of mouse clicks. Using analog tape, it becomes much more cumbersome and requires a series of meticulous tasks to record to a third track while muting and un-muting the source tracks, or pulling out the old razor blade and slicing away.

This is just one example of the use and purpose of Editing. To go into the virtually infinite uses would be long and redundant as the editing limits in the digital domain are nearly limitless.

Mixing

The Mixing stage is necessitated by the differences in the format that is used in the Recording stage and the format that the end consumer is able to use. If you recall, when we finished the Recording stage, we were left with (for example) 13 different tracks, each with it's own instrument. Each of these tracks by now has been edited to contain the best possible performance during the Editing stage, but they are still individual tracks and not one cohesive song that a consumer can pop in the CD player. For argument's sake, we will only discuss Mixing down to stereo and not touch upon surround sound, 5.1, 7.1, 9.1, or any other format as stereo is currently the most generally accepted format (for now...). Mixing is the process of taking all of these individual tracks (in our example, 13) and by way of using sound altering effects, changing volumes, and manipulating perceived position Left and Right (panning), creating a stereo (two track) recording. Think of it in terms of a funnel. The individual tracks are the wide end, and they must be brought together to form two tracks (the narrow end).

Again, we will not go into the intricacies of Mixing in practice, but in order for all of the tracks to sound good together (play nice kids...), they must be twisted, manipulated, affected, squashed, and combed so that they sound just right and like they are all playing together in one space just for the listener instead of all separately and in padded booths like they actually were.

Once this is accomplished, we are left with a stereo (two track) recording with all the instruments sounding great together and the song is nearly finished.

Mastering

This is the final and most often overlooked step in the song creation process. In fact, if you were to ask a group of musicians what mastering is, chances are a good portion would not be able to tell you what it is and why it is so important.

Essentially, Mastering is preparing the final stereo recording for commercial consumption by pumping it up to a usable volume and making sure that the song will sound good on any sound system it plays on, from a home theater system that costs thousands of dollars, to your little tiny, terrible laptop speakers.

Mastering is most important if you have multiple songs and are creating an album or if you are preparing your recording for commercial release. This is because when the Mixing stage is complete, the stereo recordings you are left with were mixed to sound good on the speakers that they were mixed on regardless of how that sound translates to other spaces and speakers. Also, in the case of making an album, you don't want Song #1 to be a whole lot louder than Song #2 or even Song #15. Have you ever listened to a CD where you were constantly adjusting the volume just to maintain a consistent pleasant playback level? This is a CD that has not been mastered (or was mastered poorly). The same applies for making the songs sound like they belong together in that you don't want one song to sound 'tinny' (a.k.a. too much high end equalization) and another 'boomy' (a.k.a. too much low end).

So that explains why Mastering is important for album, but what about commercial releases? Imagine if your un-mastered song were on the radio between two wonderfully mastered songs. You would get swallowed up. Your song may be too quiet, or have too much low end and basically just sound unprofessional by comparison.

As mentioned before, Mastering will also make sure the final product sounds good no matter where it is played or what system it is played on. When making a presentation of your final product to a client, record label, or even friend, you don't want to say, "Sorry, I can only play this through Yamaha NS-10 speakers." And you certainly don't want to be taken by surprise and find out that it sounds bad everywhere but in the studio.

So there you have it. The real deal on how a song is created from Composition to Mastering and now the final product. No more mystery and technical jargon. So now that the cat is out of the bag, everyone can do it all on his/her own right? Wrong. Just knowing an automobile works on an internal combustion engine doesn't mean you can start building your own cars. Audio professionals have spent years learning what to listen for and how to make things sound 'right.' Not information that can be gained in a four-page discourse. Contact your local audio professional to get your project started, but at least now, you'll know what you're in for.

Touring Tips For Your Band

"Hello, er, um..." (pause and look down at set list) "Flint, Michigan! Are you ready to rock?!"

Well, it sounds like you've done it. You've taken that giant leap of faith, piled in a van with your band mates and hit the road. You're all so excited and everything is going perfectly...except for your drummer's BO...and your singer's insistence on singing the falsetto portion of "Bohemian Rhapsody" in your cramped, non-resonant living quarters ad nauseam...and your keyboardist's musings on the musical legitimacy of 80's synch-pop...and your guitarist, drooling on your shoulder. Though becoming touring road warriors is not a perfect science, there are things that everyone can do in order to live together in a less stressful environment. The following are tips on how to co-exist with your band of brothers and how to bring about a little Kum Ba Yah on the road.

1) If your band can't agree on what to listen to, then prepare to bring your iPod. And if you can all agree, still bring your iPod.

It sounds like such a small issue really. But let's consider this in the context of other work environments. How happy are corporate workers whose cubicle neighbors hum songs that they find annoying, or whistle, or talk too loudly on the phone? Essentially, a van is a smaller, more confining cubicle environment, where 4-6 people intimately co-habitate, on wheels. Does that make questionable musical tastes any less so? Definitely not. So if you cannot stand to listen to your bassist's Michael Bolton indulgence, prepare for this ahead of time and bring your own supply of tunes. Besides, people's tolerance for song repetition varies greatly so you can't go wrong bringing your own favorites.

2) Don't play any instrument consisting solely of air and flailing appendages.

Unless you are also hoping to gain a substantial following as a wicked karaoke band, air guitar on the road is a huge no-no. For one, it's annoying after about 30 seconds. For another, there is not nearly enough space in the van which means that you will ultimately end up maiming one of your fellow passengers and you don't have money to fix them up if you accidentally deck them during the solo in "November Rain", do you? This tip also applies to drummers whose "portable drum kits" consist of anything that doesn't move and some things that do.

3) Don't assume anyone else with bring anything useful.

Rechargeable batteries for the iPod? Check. Extra guy liner for that bad club lighting? Yup. A spare tire when the van gets a flat? Um, no, that was removed because it took up too much space and no one could fit the inflatable stage blow-up doll inside the van, so one of them had to go. Essentially, if you need it, assume that no one else will ever consider bringing it along. So before going on the road, make a list of all the things you personally will need, then a list of all the extras you'll need for your gear. Now add "first-aid kit", "extra cell phone battery", "phone card", "duct tape", "emergency credit card", "aspirin" and "frequent shoppers' cards" to your list. Now add everything that you know everybody else will need but will neglect to bring, starting with the items they always bug you for at your gigs because they forgot theirs (gum, picks, set lists).

4) Don't drink.

Alcohol is rarely known to bring out the best in people. Inebriation coupled with an infinitesimally tiny living space can ignite anyone's temper. And though it's hard to throw punches in a van, other damage can occur and name calling, drunken grudges and personal insults tend to not bode well for a band's long-term stability.

5) Eat well.

They say you body is your temple and when your temple starts to look like a dilapidated relic, fast food on the road is often to blame. A good rule of thumb is this - if a restaurant's main menu options consist primarily of fried foods, stay far, far away. Not only is this type of grub fattening, but it leaves you feeling sluggish and because of the lack of actual nutrients, you'll be hungry again a few hours later. Subway, Quiznos and other options with healthier fare are a better value for your money and will keep you fitting in those skinny jeans.

6) Be on time

6:30, 6:45, 7:05. At 7:22, Band Member X decides to finally show up for your 7:30 gig, armed with excuses ("Traffic was so bad, I've had a really bad day, I just lost track of time,") and none of the equipment he needs ("Oh, dude, does anyone have an extra cable? And a pick? Oh, man, and I forgot to replace my E string!"). Not only is this disrespectful to the other band members, but club owners and promoters don't relish this type of behavior. It's unprofessional, so don't expect to be on their short list of groups to have back at their club.

And bands, if this point refers to someone in the group who is not you, tell them to arrive 30-45 minutes earlier than when they're actually needed. For example, if load-in is at 5:30, tell them 5:00. This works both for arriving at a venue, and picking up people whose sense of time is entirely their own. And if you are responsible for picking up a procrastinator and this first trick doesn't work - leave without them. You will be amazed at how quickly they move when they realize you've left and they're not with you. Repeating this a second time is usually not necessary.

7) Throw away your trash.

There should be absolutely no explanation necessary for this one. If it's a box, bag, or carton with nothing in it, get rid of it. Don't stow it under the seat, toss it in the back or put it in someone else's bag - just throw it away. Why in the world are you keeping it anyway? What good is it possibly going to do you? And do you really like your van smelling of stale, week-old pizza and McDonald's?

And finally:

8) Respect your band mates' personal space, however small it may be. Nothing is more irritating than finding sweaty clothing, reeking shoes, and nasty garbage all around where you rest your head at night, particularly when it's not yours.

Hopefully, these useful tips can ward off fights over common issues. After all, if you're doing it right, being on the road is not only fun, it's also work. Bands need to be at their best to continually give consistent, meaningful first-impressions to crowds, promoters and venue owners. So, bands, good luck and remember, if all else fails, take a deep breath, count to ten and just say "Kum Ba Yah."

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Don't Fight The Law

If you ask anyone who has been or still is in a band, the'll instantly tell you how much fun it is. I record as a solo artist and play all intruments (vocals included) These days I do it because I have to. I find writing, recording and producing exhilarating. A 'conventional' band on the other hand pose a totaly different set of variables into the equation. What musicians need to know is that the band business is full of potential legal liability. Very few people see it that way, but they should. A band usually travels, it owns heavy electricity based gear and lights; much of which is very expensive. The band relies on as many people as possible coming to one place to see them if they want to succeed. A lot of the places that bands hang out serve alcohol and people are there to let loose, party,and have a good time.


The fun, rewarding parts as well as the potentials for legal disaster if your band manager does not take the proper steps pretty-well nulify each other. The potential disaster scenarios are present regardless of whether you are a small startup band playing in the bottom tier clubs or parties or have gained some popularity and are playing larger venues or the big stage.


There are many disaster scenarios. This is where band managers step in. They should have multiple 'escape plans' in place on the likelihood of pretty-well anything going pear-shaped for your band. Here is just one such disaster scenario that I think everyone who has ever played in a band will realize is not at all far-fetched. There are many others, but here is one.


Here's the disaster scenario:


You have worked hard to put your band together. Over the past few years, you have had several changes in lineup. First you replaced the drummer that was late on every fill and had the personality of Gumby. Then you vocalists' wife was jealous and you ended up replacing him. The lead guitarist had a huge ego and was messing up the vibe. This story of building a band are common. We have all been there.


Now, finally, you have a cookin' band. Your summer is looking great: all festival dates, even a couple of big backup dates. The band is cookin'. You have hit your stride. Success is coming, you can feel it.

One night, you are playing one of the old clubs that you started out in, more or less for nostalgia but certainly not for the money. A couple of the members decide to make a party of it. These are old friends there and they keep buying drinks for the band. By the end of the night, a couple of the members are pretty lit up. After the gig, the lead singer (We'll call him Charlie), gets in his car to drive to an after bar party. On the way there he swerves into the coming lane and runs head on into another vehicle. He has no insurance. Charlie has no assets. His only income comes from the band. The other car involved files a lawsuit. Who are they going to sue?


If you have not organized your band through an official corporate or LLC entity, every member in the band is likely to be sued. The law is likely to deem you to be a partnership. Every partner is jointly and severally liable for all damages caused by other partners. That means everyone is potentially responsible for the full extent of the damages.


Now let's say the drummer, let's call him Adam, has a great job. He has amassed a ton of money in the bank and investments. He owns a million dollar home where the band rehearses in his plush rehearsal room. He owns multiple businesses. He is set.


The lawsuit comes up and finds that the singer was responsible for causing the accident. 100 % responsible. Each member of the band is joined as a party because there was no legal entity formed for the band. The band members filed a motion to dismiss early on in the lawsuit claiming that the singer was not acting within the scope of the business of the band. The court rules that he was acting within the scope of band business at the time of the accident. He was leaving a band show.


Damages come down at $5,000,000. Each partner is liable for the full $5,000,000 under joint and several liability principles. There is no insurance. Everyone except Jim is poor. Adam is worth $10,000,000. Who do you suppose is going to pay the damages? Adam, who drank water all night.


The next thing that happens is that Adam gets summons to appear at a supplemental collections hearing where the other side asks him questions, under penalty of perjury, about what he owns, what he is worth, where his assets are etc.

The next thing you know, Adams house is attached. His wages are garnished. Someone comes and gets his boat. All sorts of things start happening in Jim's life. All because he played in the band where the singer, who no-one knew was battling alcoholism, got drunk and swerved in the oncoming lane on the way home from the gig. The guy is plainly more of an alcoholic than he is a rock star like Eric Clapton.


A lot of bands are pretty apathetic about their business structure. They go to gigs, collect cash and split it up at the end of the night. They give very little thought of legal liability or protection of assets.


So the lesson here is, if you are in a band do not assume that you are immune from possible liability just because you have not yet "made it" or you are just doing it on the side. The band business is filled with possible legal issues, regardless of the size or success of the band. You need to take the appropriate legal steps to protect yourself and your assets from exposure to these risks.

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Stay True To Yourself

Ever since The Beatles were launched onto the world stage, the music industry has been obsessed with overnight success. The reality is, you have to work on building careers long-term. It's a lifelong process to become an artist with the stature and longevity. Eric Clapton is a classic example. Overnight success is a great way of destroying a band.


Instill a sense of pride in your band. Build some character within the band. Make them believe they are a great band and fans love their shows.  You have to instil the belief that if nobody comes to see you play, it's because they are not performing to their fullest potential. It's not the fault of the promoter, manager, record label and so forth.


Don't live the rock'n'roll lifestyle. It's a surefire way to end up on the scrapheap (or in rehab). It is, however, an easy 'trap' to fall into. There you are on stage waving your hands in one direction or screaming out one line from a chorus and instantly 20,000 people are mimicking you. From personal experience, this sort of reaction is a rush. Fortunately I didn't take the 'power' side of it at all seriously after the show was over.

If you have a manager and he tells you that a show was rubbish, take it on-board. It's his job to make these comments. He's not doing it to irritate you. He's doing it  because he knows how good you are. 


Receiving a professional and objective critique is all to often misinterpreted by some musicians/bands as a 'criticism.' To the musician who really cares about their career, these critiques give them a sense of value. If they're great, you tell them. If they suck, you tell them. Most bands will take it to heart. If it does't, then it's time for them to quit.


As a musician, conduct yourself in 'real-life' as you wish to be portrayed because you never know who that guy in the suit drinking coffee across from you may be.


Take responsibility for your actions, on-stage and off.