From work tape, to demo, to final album version

[SongwriterFan]

I posted this elsewhere (as a reply to another thread), but I thought it was interesting enough to post a slightly revised version here in this sub-forum, as well.

This is the story of going from a simple guitar/vocal work tape (sung into an iPhone without a mixer or anything except my voice, the guitar, and phone), and how that went to a Nashville studio to record a demo, and how that got changed up and used for my upcoming album.

The band leader (in my case, it was the bass player on the sessions and one of the studio owners) had a Zoom meeting with me about a week before the scheduled session. He listened to my work tape, we talked about any changes we wanted (add a solo section, expand the intro, etc) and what key the demo vocalist wanted to record it in. He then later wrote out the chart.

On the day of the recording session, he handed out the chart to the musicians (I had a seven-piece band: drums, bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, keyboards, pedal steel guitar, and fiddle . . . some were multi-instrumentalists, so we'd add a banjo or dobro or mandolin on some songs). Then the babd listened to my work tape, we ttalked about how I wanted it to sound or any other info I could give them on what I was thinking), and off they went. That took about 5 minutes. In the remaining 25 minutes, they worked out the arrangement of the song as I sat there singing scratch vocals. That's it . . . in 30 minutes they were DONE (including any solos they come up with). It's amazing to watch and be a part of.

The demo vocalist was added later, and took about an hour (including any harmonies). Then an hour or two of final mixing/etc, and it was done.
Here's an example:

This is the work tape I sent them:


Here's the demo that the studio came up with (with a couple of changes to the lyrics I came up with before the recording session):


And finally the version that's going on the album (my vocals, and a few more changes to the lyrics, and a few "fun" things we added like a whip at my local studio just north of Dallas, TX):


I asked for "whimsical" playing during the demo, and mentioned that (in spite of the name), that this song really belonged to the electric guitar player (a bit "rocked up"). They nailed it! There were no solo parts written out for anybody . . this was all pure improvisation!

[Brent Hahn]

Sounds like a record!

[Howard Emerson]

John Sebastian wasn't kidding when he wrote Nashville Cats.

HE

[SongwriterFan]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

Sounds like a record!

Thanks! I hope so, because it's going on my new album.

Originally Posted by Howard Emerson

John Sebastian wasn't kidding when he wrote Nashville Cats.

No, he was not kidding! I just replied to your PM.

[Howard Emerson]

Originally Posted by SongwriterFan

Thanks! I hope so, because it's going on my new album.



No, he was not kidding! I just replied to your PM.

And I to yours, thanks!

HE

[SongwriterFan]

Originally Posted by Howard Emerson

And I to yours, thanks!

And back at ya (see new reply)!

You should definitely give it a shot. Here's a link to a Playlist of all 14 songs that I had demos made of (so far . . I suspect I'll be doing more . . already written two new songs since the last demo session I had done there).

https://soundcloud.com/user-99202317...ashville-demos

[Chipotle]

Sounds great! I am always amazed at these studio musicians who can come in, look over a totally new piece of music, and walk out 30 minutes later having made an amazing recording. It must be gratifying to hear your song "come to life" like that.

I'm curious why you decided to take that approach, rather than attempt to do at least parts of it yourself. I'm not knocking you at all, BTW--going into a studio and using musicians there is a time-honored way to create great songs. But this is the recording forum, after all, where most of us DIY it to the extent that we can. So just wondering what your rationale was for using a studio rather than DIY.

[rick-slo]

Sounds great. Much respect to the facility and the studio musicians.

[SongwriterFan]

Originally Posted by Chipotle

I'm curious why you decided to take that approach, rather than attempt to do at least parts of it yourself.

The bottom line (as I tell my wife) is this:

1) I am a terrible guitar player
2) I am, at best, an average vocalist
3) I like to think I'm a better than average lyricist (when you exclude all those who do it for a living)

I play just well enough to get my songs heard . . I play only in the shape of G (G, C, D, Em, Am7, the occasional Amajor) and am almost always capo'd at 3, 4, or 5. I hate barre chords (to me they are smoke and mirrors ). I only have a few strumming and picking patterns that I can play while trying to sing at the same time. I can't imagine myself trying to play to a click track.

This is a recording of me playing and singing (into an iPhone) a song that's on the new album. I also recorded the song this way in the studio (with one mic pointed at my guitar, the other set to record my voice, and a third to record both at the same time). It sounds fairly similar to this (just recorded with better mics, and some EQ and reverb added). No auto-tune, etc. It's full of timing issues, buzzing frets, etc . . . just the way you'd hear it if I sat across the room and played it for you. That's the way I wanted this acoustic version of the song to be on the album. Imperfect as I am.

[SongwriterFan]

Originally Posted by Chipotle

I'm curious why you decided to take that approach, rather than attempt to do at least parts of it yourself.

I started writing songs almost three years ago. The first one I wrote was to a friend of mine after she passed away under very tragic circumstances. She was also a songwriter. Her death literally turned me into a singer/songwriter.

At the time, I had only written that ONE song, and I got a friend of mine to help me record it as his home studio. He played all the parts (guitar, steel, bass) and he recorded my vocals. This is the version I put on YouTube (before I'd ever written another song or knew that I'd one day end up writing another 20 songs . . that was completely unexpected).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIeIk_VPlYA


I then started writing songs, and decided that I wanted to put them on an album. I enlisted the help of a local studio (the guy who runs it is friends with many singer/songwriters that I know) to put that album together.

Here's the fully-produced version of that same song that went on the album.
I hired the musicians to do this, and a friend of mine is singing harmony on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6uFJnMx8ao


I also put an acoustic version of it on the album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u2SxSkTud0


I also had a demo of this song done in Nashville (with a demo singer) because I wanted to pitch it to a publisher. We recorded it with a full band, but I decided I wanted the engineer to strip it down to a more basic version:

[SongwriterFan]

Originally Posted by Chipotle

It must be gratifying to hear your song "come to life" like that.

Yes, it is. When I take the CD I burned of the 14 demos I had done in Nashville and play it in the car, I think to myself that if I heard those songs on the radio in the 90s, they would not have sounded at all out of place.

[Ten]

This is a super cool post, thanks for sharing. Loved hearing the different versions.

[SongwriterFan]

Originally Posted by Ten

This is a super cool post, thanks for sharing. Loved hearing the different versions.

Thanks . . . one part that I forgot: the inspiration for the song.

A friend of mine (he's written songs that people who only need ONE name have recorded: Wynonna, Reba, etc) has an album called "Country and Western". It came out before I had become a songwriter.

Last year, while listening to him perform, I noticed the album name and that there wasn't a song on there with that title. So I figured I should write a song with that name . . . and the "Bob's Country Bunker scene" (we got both kinds, country AND western) immediately came to mind.

Strange where song ideas can come from.

[j3ffr0]

Thanks for sharing. That project came out really nice. What a great country & western tune too!