First CD

[Fliss]

My guitar teacher suggested I should think about recording a CD. I'd like to - but I'm not sure if I'm ready.

So, what I'd like to ask you is, based on the information I can give you about my situation, am I ready? If not, how far off am I and what would I need to do to get to the right level - would it be realistic to aim to get to that stage by the end of August, for example? I'd quite like to set that for myself as a goal, if it would be realistic.

I have around 12 songs that I've either written or co-written that I could put on the CD, and they're a reasonably varied mixture.

I have a reasonable degree of confidence now when it comes to getting up and performing at the folk club; I don't have the world's greatest natural singing voice, but I'm taking lessons and it's getting stronger all the time (I started learning to sing abour 3 and a half years ago); my guitar playing is at a level where I'm reasonably happy that I can accompany myself, but I don't know if it's good enough to record on a CD. I also play mandolin, so could add some backing with that.

However, I haven't learned how to do multi-tracking on my own basic recordings yet, so I haven't worked out arrangements for my songs other than just me and my guitar.

I could probably get a little help from a friend (who co-wrote two of the songs) on backing vocals, harmonies, and maybe adding an extra instrument or two.

I don't really know very much at all about what's involved in recording a CD or how much it would cost - although there is someone I know locally who I could ask, I'm just not sure if it's a silly question at the stage I'm at, because I don't really know where to start!

I'll welcome any advice!

Fliss

[mr. beaumont]

Do you have any recording equipment? You can do remarkable things at home now.

I've posted a bunch of home recordings here that I think have a good sound--and the total setup (recorder, microphones, and software) is probably about $800. I'm in the process of recording my own first CD of all original stuff--and while it's going to be a long process (I hope to be done sometime over the summer) I was shooting for GOOD and CHEAP on the GOOD/FAST/CHEAP (pick only two) business model!

So I guess my advice at this point is, if there's no rush, consider what you might be able to do in the comfort of your own home.

We should start a support group

[Fliss]

Thanks Jeff

No, I don't really have good enough recording equipment - I have a basic digital recorder, and I've downloaded Audacity, but it seems to record at a very low level and I can't get a decent sound, and don't understand how to work it to do multi-tracking as I'm not very technical. Also, my computer has really poor sound quality, there's a problem with it.

If I'm going to do this, I'd rather pay someone who has the right equipment and knows what they are doing! I don't really wnat to rush it, but I think setting a goal will help, as long as it's a realistic goal, and it would be cool if I can do it before my 50th birthday, which is why I'm thinking of that particular goal

Fliss

[enalnitram]

by all means record a cd. but do it one tune at a time. don't get overwhelmed by thinking you need to do 12 perfect tracks, and then, after that, you'll be done. getting your voice and playing on a recording is essential to your progress. the tape does not lie. but then after that, be selective about what you let get out there. it will be around forever.

but you are talking about a home-produced cd, right, not booking time at a studio and paying for mastering? that is a different beast altogether. home produced cds can be cheap, especially if you just burn them yourself.

but if you are talking about investing in mastering and duplication, then... it almost sounds harsh or 'unmusical' to put it this way. but then you might want to think of your musicmaking as a product. and you will need to make decisions about cost/benefit. think about whomever might hear the cd as consumers. is there a demand for your product? is there a way that you can do what businesses do, and "test" your market, so to speak? what do you hope to accomplish by creating this product?

I have a friend that once made a cd. it was a studio/mastering/duplication/pro artwork cd. he had pretty good little songs, and I think he made several thousand copies. or maybe it was just a thousand. once he had this cd, I think he hoped that people would see it and would want to buy it. but there was not a market for his product. no one knew who he was. he sold about 5, and gave away about a hundred. the rest are still at his apartment, 15 years later. and since then, he has gone on to make better stuff anyway.

don't do this!

he could've put the same energy into making a demo, getting gigs, and then making a product that fulfilled a market.

as you assess the cost, just figure out what you want the end result to be, how much you want to sink into it, and then just go for it.

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by Fliss

Thanks Jeff

No, I don't really have good enough recording equipment - I have a basic digital recorder, and I've downloaded Audacity, but it seems to record at a very low level and I can't get a decent sound, and don't understand how to work it to do multi-tracking as I'm not very technical. Also, my computer has really poor sound quality, there's a problem with it.

If I'm going to do this, I'd rather pay someone who has the right equipment and knows what they are doing! I don't really wnat to rush it, but I think setting a goal will help, as long as it's a realistic goal, and it would be cool if I can do it before my 50th birthday, which is why I'm thinking of that particular goal

Fliss

Too bad.

Studio time is a big investment, and it really puts the pressure on. Got any friends with recording equipment? Is there a local college where you could post a flyer for a young recording engineering student to get some experience? Maybe your teacher knows somebody?

The demo's a good idea, if it's gigs you want to get. If it's just documentation of some work, just start small, and don't plan on conquering a whole CD in one block of studio time.

Heck, if you lived in Chicago I'd record you this summer at my house for the price of beer and letting me jam on a couple of your tunes!

[Fliss]

Thanks very much, guys, lots of good advice. Jeff, if I lived near you I would very gladly take you up on that offer

I'm not really looking to get gigs. and I know someone who knows what they're doing and who has a good home studio, so I'm hoping I can arrange to work with him on this for something less than the cost of a full professional studio, but a much better result than anything I can do on my own! I'm not looking to market this in any professional way, I'm just looking at it as a way of sharing the music. Around where I live, there is a thriving acoustic music community, and lots of people I know through the local folk clubs and open mics have recoded CDs on this basis - and indeed if I've enjoyed their music, I've bought their CDs. So - assuming the outlay can be affordable - I'm seeing that as the cost of creating something I want to create and any money I get back on selling any copies of the CD would be a bonus!

I like the idea of trying to do it a track or two at a time and build it slowly. I wonder how much better the twelvth track would be than the first!

Fliss

[wthurman]

I would either look at duplication on CD-R or downloadable content. You can still get silk-screened labels and it's a lot cheaper than a glass master for CD.

You can even do them yourself, but there are some issues with stick-on labels in certain players.

One thing you can do to reduce cost at a pro studio is pay for a block amount rather than by the hour. These economic times you're kind of in luck as to what's available to do.

In any case, good luck and I really want to hear what you come up with!

[Fliss]

Originally Posted by wthurman

I would either look at duplication on CD-R or downloadable content. You can still get silk-screened labels and it's a lot cheaper than a glass master for CD.

Wade, it's a sorry reflection on the extent of my ignorance that, even though I understand what each of the words means, I have no real idea what you just said!

Originally Posted by wthurman

In any case, good luck and I really want to hear what you come up with!

Thanks very much, I'm quite keen to hear it myself

Fliss

[markt]

Fliss,
I'd agree with a lot of the advice given already, and certainly do the recording in bite sized pieces over a period of time.

I'm happy to mess along at home with my own setup currently, and can get reasonable quality, but sitting in a real studio can be fun.

I've used a very nicely equipped studio locally in the past which was surprisingly reasonable pricewise, at just over a tenner an hour, and managed to record 6 decent quality tracks over the course of two half days.

Have a look around and see what facilities are local, you might find one that is reasonable and with an engineer that you click with.

You've got plenty of time to figure out exactly what you want to do with the tracks in terms of replication later.

[fingerpickerguy]

Fliss - Definitely do it. The most important thing is to have fun with it and maintain levity. I understand that you don't take yourself too seriously and that is great. Capturing your songs is very important so go for it.

I too have been "working" on one for a while. For me, the struggle has been getting the tunes to an acceptable quality level. I don't sing. I just play instrumental acoustic solos. I have written a bunch of them, but not really recorded (other than demos) any of them. They were all mostly flawed at one point or another. I have gone through them all to clean them up. Now I am just trying to get to where I can comfortably play all of them error free. I plan to go to a real studio and don't want to waste time and money with my poor performances.

Another stop gap between having nothing and a CD is YouTube. I like the YouTube thing a good bit because it is easy, you can share your tunes to get feedback and, and this is the best part, you can remove them once you realize that they suck . I removed 4 or 5 a couple of weeks ago. Gonna record a few more later this week that hopefully will suck less.

Best of luck and keep us informed on your progress. i am sure that I will want a copy. Only if you play your Manson parlor, of course.

Chris

[Chicago Sandy]

Definitely agree that posting .mp3s as downloads for your listservs or on your web page(s) is the way to go these days if you're not looking for gigs or radio play. CD-Rs might not play in everyone's players (some of which are older and sensitive to different dyes) and paper labels can jam. For those few who lack the ability to download, you can burn them one-off CD-Rs.

[Allman_Fan]

What is your purpose for this endeavor?

[jseth]

Fliss - DEFINITELY record a CD!!!! I kept waiting... waiting to be good enough, until I had enough money to make a record (LOL, shows how old I am!), until my playing/singing was good enough, until the songs I had were good enough, etc etc etc, ad hoc ad nauseaum... if you let that "waiting until..." thing get you, you may never do it! As it was, I finally made a cd in the late 90's - and it turned out very good. Left me wondering why in the heck I waited that long!

I was on a limited budget, but still had some idea of what I wanted to do, why I wanted to make the record and what I hoped to accomplish by making it. I heartily recommend spending the time to "map" it all out.

In the mid-90's, home recording equipment was marginally viable, but I opted for a "real" studio - I chose one that a friend of mine had used, bought a block of hours there; after some research, I figured I could get it all complete with about 70 hours time, which didn't include mastering.

I perform live, just vocal and guitar (6 and 12 string acoustic). Although I do play electric guitar and love it, I decided to make the record sound more like I sound when I play out, except with a great drummer and bassist. Started out to be an acoustic trio record, all my songs; I planned on going back over the recording to add second guitar parts and some harmony vocals, but...

As the project began, I started getting offers from a lot of friends who wanted to do whatever they could, whatever I needed them to do... 2 ladies with whom I had taken vocal classes offered to do any harmonies I needed; a great reed player offered saxophone where ever needed; and to top it off, my cousin Andrew (who ran Berklee's synth dept., and had played with Dizzy Gillespie), had just gotten off a tour with Mariah Carey and he offered to play piano on the recording - the studio had an 1885 Steinway that was GORGEOUS! - he used his own frequent flier miles and came out from NYC, and we ended up using both the Steinway and an old Hammond B-3 w/ a Leslie cabinet on all but 3 tunes...

It was definitely a learning process, and a labour of love as well... we recorded on tape - and a knowledgeable friend had told me "if you listen back to something and you don't throw up, KEEP IT!"; I'm very grateful for that advice, as I used a take from the first day on the final product.

I would have loved to do the whole thing "live", but my budget didn't allow for that. In order to keep the record from sounding "tracked to death" and overproduced, I made it a point to NOT let anyone re-do any parts, unless they were obviously screwed up! In the end, all those first takes give the record more humanity, more space, a little more "organic" a sound, if that makes sense.

What I found was, in the recording studio environment, I was looking at EVERY piece under a microscope, really scrutinizing it carefully... that's a trap to avoid - even if all you can do is walk outside and take a few breaths, let your ears clear out a bit.

I rehearsed the bassist and drummer before the session with them; enough that they knew what I wanted, as far as a feel for each tune, and they had a chance to familiarize themselves with the material. They added some wonderful ideas for endings and grooves. We cut all the rhythm tracks in one 8 hour session, nearly all of them first takes. I then went back into the studio on specified dates, to add vocals, guitar, sax and the keyboards.

In the final analysis, I KNOW I can play better than I did on the record, and that I can sing better, too... but a record is just a snapshot of one moment in time, one period where I committed these songs to tape... of course, I'd do some things differently now - hell, I'd have done 'em differently directly after the recording! - but, after over 10 years, I'm still able to listen to the record without cringing (much!), it still sounds good. THAT is the test...

I wish you all the success with your project - if there's anything you need to talk about, feel free to pm me and I'll help if I can...

cheers,

John Seth Sherman

ps. Oh, yeah - I made a personal decision, early on, that I was making this record FOR ME, not for any record producer/disc jockey, etc... I wanted it to be something I was proud of, as I didn't know if I'd do another one. Also, at the time, it was very cost effective to make 1,000 copies for my first run - like 1/10 the cost of making a hundred... so I made a thousand; I think I have about 200 left.

pps. Another GREAT piece of advice was to begin the artwork/cd design before the record itself... you don't want to have to wait to finish the artwork before you can manufacture the discs... In the final analysis, I made 1,000 copies, with artwork for another 1,000, for under $9,000 all costs included...

[rdm321]

Hi Fliss:

I too encourage you do do the recording project. By all means work with your friend who has a studio - an experienced hand at the controls is very valuable.

I also encourage you do some preliminary recording on your own. I find that it helps me a lot in working out arrangements if I can hear a playback of the entire piece. I make arrangement adjustments like "..put the bridge between verses 2 & 3, not 3 & 4..." It is also useful for working out intros and endings.
To do this, you may need additional gear such as a good-quality microphone, interface and headphones. You might also try Reaper rather than Audacity.

Most importantly, enjoy it!

Originally Posted by jseth

I was making this record FOR ME, not for any record producer/disc jockey, etc...

John - thank you for the detailed post. You made some very good points, not least of which is the above.

[runamuck]

Go and record one track of one song. If you like it you'll naturally want to do more and your question will answer itself.


Jim McCarthy