A peek inside my acoustic album being recorded - wish I could get this tone at home

[Addisonbrady]

Wonderful music. I will definitely be buying one this Christmas.

By the way could you share with us the process you went through to get your songs on iTunes and for sale on Amazon?

I do not know a thing about the procedure and I am sure many of us here might benefit from knowing how.

Thanks.

Addison

[PieterK]

Originally Posted by 815C

PieterK, that was a pair of Shure KSM44A mics. One had the diaphragm pointed down to the floor, and the other had the diaphragm pointed up towards the ceiling. The engineer had me play a bit while he moved his head around in front of the guitar listening for the sweet spot where the tone was best. Then he put the mics there.

Very interesting! So it's as I suspected--looking at it.

I think your engineer knows his room and gear very well. That's not exactly an intuitive setup, even more so if the room as you describe it is rather unspectacular. Generally speaking, with reflective surfaces, the smaller the room, the more difficult it can be, and given that he's got the capsules facing up and down, that's a setup bound to capture a fair amount of room. He doesn't have much diffusion in there, it's not dead, and his absorption is rather ad-hoc.

But this helps prove that a small room need not necessarily sound bad, and with a talented engineer who knows the space and gear, you can yield great recordings.

Did he pan the two mics hard L-R for the final mix do you know? I do wonder what that might do to stereo cues.

I'm going to have to look in to this method. I have no recollection of ever seeing it before...and you've gotten something very nice out of it. Congratulations!

Of course, it starts with your playing and instrument, which are simply beautiful.

Originally Posted by 815C

Howard Klepper, I asked the engineer, "What did you do to get that tone?" He said the EQ was almost flat and that it was basically the true sound of my guitar. He said using decent mics, having a good room, and good pre-amps also helped a lot.

Yep.

Engineer skill is worth a hundred thousand dollars worth of vintage Neumanns or AKGs or Telefunkens or whatever. The gold standard for me is Rudy Van Gelder. The man makes absolute magic with nothing but his mic placement.

Originally Posted by 815C

Also, he recorded me to an old Studer A800 2" tape machine...

SWEET!!!

Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and be presumptive and say that if he's recording you on an A800, he really knows what he's doing. That's fantastic. These days, everything's just ProTools, ProTools, ProTools...which is fine, it's just a tool, but those old decks sound so, so, so good.

Originally Posted by 815C

So I think my inability to capture tone like this at home may be more a factor of my limited recording gear and engineering skill sets than it is the sound of the guitar?

Definitely.

No one should beat themselves up for not being able to capture the sound they want at home. It only goes to show that a real engineer with real knowledge and skill can't be easily replaced, even if there are all these myriad new(er) digital pieces of gear and cheap mics and computer based recording software that might tempt one to think it can be done.

The skill set of an honest recording engineer is as hard won as that of any pro musician I'd suggest.

[815C]

Originally Posted by Addisonbrady

Wonderful music. I will definitely be buying one this Christmas.

By the way could you share with us the process you went through to get your songs on iTunes and for sale on Amazon?

I do not know a thing about the procedure and I am sure many of us here might benefit from knowing how.

Thanks.

Addison

OK Addison, here you go. This is a high level overview of the process (as best as I can recall) that I went thru...

1. One day I realize I've arranged a few Christmas songs and say to myself, "Hey Dave - you should make an album!"

2. I decide what songs I'm going to record. I decide to record only songs that are in the Public Domain, so that I won't have to pay any publishers a portion of my sales. If you want to record songs that are NOT Public Domain (or your originals), go to harryfox.com and pay for the license that lets you legally record the song(s)

3. Practice until you can play the songs thru pretty easily and with feeling

4. Record your album (find a studio, engineer, other musicians, a producer if you want, etc.).

5. Sit down with the engineer and producer (if you have one) and edit what was recorded. This is the final mix which involves tweaking EQ, effects, identifying which take (#300 or 448) to use of you yodeling your highest note.

6. Have the final mix Mastered. Sometimes this is a separate studio/expert, and sometimes it just the engineer who recorded the album. I used Mayfield Mastering in Nashville. They're pretty good. Know that the mastering process is where you embed CD-Text (so that when your song is played on a stereo, the artist name and song name will scroll across the stereo's LED display). Walk away from the mastering session with a DDP Mastered disc in your hand.

7. Before you upload your CD to iTunes, you probably want to do this...

- Copyright your arrangements (https://eco.copyright.gov). Their process is not intuitive and I had to call their customer service phone line 2 or 3 times to get guidance on the process. Its a government operation, so expect to be on hold for at least 30 minutes each time you call.

- Register your songs with ASCAP or BMI. I used ASCAP just because I'd created a publishing company/songwriter ID with them years ago (there is a one time life time fee - I think I paid about $100 years ago - for membership. I had to call ASCAP customer service a few times to get guided thru the process of registering my songs. But ASCAPs customer service was pretty good and pretty friendly.

- Create the art work for the CD cover. I had to learn the buzz words for this (e.g. 4/0 tray card, 2 page 4/1 insert, etc.). Again, Google is your friend - or the guy you hire to do the design should know. ONE IMPORTANT NOTE - before you - or someone else - designs your CD cover, get the specs from the company about the art work - they will have specific quality and formatting requirements, as well as templates for how the art work will lay on their product. Do this BEFORE designing the art work. ALSO, you will need to obtain a BAR CODE for the CD cover. I got my Bar Code from Disc Makers (see below).

7. OK, now you have a mastered disc and your art work in your hands. This is the process I used (I'm sure there are others).

I used Disc Makers to have my CDs replicated and digitally distributed thru CD Baby. You will need to upload your cover art work, and your audio files to Disc Makers. This is not an intuitive process - you have to down load a program from them to upload your audio. Customer Service is your friend - they are actually pretty good at guiding you thru the process.

Disc Makers/CD Baby will...

• provide a bar code that you will need for your CD cover
• assign an ISRC code to each track on your CD
• register your tracks with the GraceNotes database (which allows your songs to be identified when played on computers, radio, etc.)
• CD Baby will digitally distribute your CD to iTunes, Amazon, Shazam, etc, - CD Baby will track your sales and pays you

Disc Makers and CD Baby have two different customer service teams, but both were good to work with. I had to make multiple calls.

8. Now its up to you to market your CD (let the world know it exists)

That's the high level approach I used. I can't claim its the best way to get this done, but that's how I did it. It was quite the learning experience for me.

P.S. There was a completely different and parallel process I went thru to get my book up on Amazon. CreateSpace is the site you need go to for self publishing on Amazon. They will guide you thru the process (don't be shy about calling customer service). The only glitches I had were I bought the wrong type of IBDN number/Bar Code from Publisher Services (http://portal.isbn-us.com/) as a special IBDN/Bar Code is required if you are selling your product on Amazon. Also, the cover art work I'd had designed did not initially meet their specs for embedded font, flattened file, in CMYK format. I had no clue about all of this and leaned on my graphic design guy to work it out with CreateSpace.

Hope that helps someone have a more efficient project that I had! Needless to say, since the day I recorded the album on Oct 22, I haven't had much guitar time. I've been spending every spare minute going thru the process above. I need "people" (e.g. "have your people get in touch with my people and get that album on iTunes & Amazon"). But until I have "people", guess I'll do it myself.

[CyberFerret]

^^^ astounding level of detail and information.

I am sure you could publish a short eBook on the whole process and sell that too, and members here (myself included) would buy it...

[JoePa and Son]

Wonderful. May I ask what guitar you are playing?

[Doug Young]

Very nice sound and playing!

That mic placement is certainly not something I've seen before. I just gave it a quick try, and it needs more tweaking but the results are promising. Very wide, slightly ambient, but also natural sound.

Glad to see someone else doing books thru CreateSpace. It's a pretty cool setup. I wish they supported the slightly bigger size that most music books use, but most people won't notice the difference. Congratulations on the project!

[DesolationAngel]

Great video, great playing, great information... great post. Thank you.

[The Growler]

Great info on what you went through. I got the album on iTunes and really like it. Congrats!

Now, I need to order the book with your arrangements. Well done!

[Howard Klepper]

Originally Posted by 815C

So I think my inability to capture tone like this at home may be more a factor of my limited recording gear and engineering skill sets than it is the sound of the guitar?
David

David, I took you to be saying that you can't get the guitar to sound at home the way it does on the recording; not that you can't get the same recorded sound with your home recording equipment. Does the guitar itself sound to your ears the way it does on this recording? I've never heard your guitar, but I hear the recording as having a distinctly recorded sound that one would not hear coming just from the instrument--influenced a lot by the mikes, and with added reverb.

Again, very nice playing.

[815C]

Originally Posted by JoePa and Son

Wonderful. May I ask what guitar you are playing?

That is a Dell'Arte dreadnaught that John S. Kinnard built for me in 2005. My folks moved into a condo just outside San Diego and when I went to visit them and see their place, they said, "Hey, our neighbor 3 doors down builds guitars." I walked over and knocked on his door and long story short I had the guitar he built to my specs in my hands 6 months later. John is a great guy. I think he is having a lot of success now with his ukes.


The picture on his web site is the guitar he made for me. Although I had him build it for flatpicking (Adirondack top, mahogany back & sides, forward shifted scalloped bracing, etc.) its a wonderful guitar for fingerpicking too (as you heard in the video). It has great projection, really cuts through in an acoustic jam, and is very well balanced for recording.

Originally Posted by Howard Klepper

Does the guitar itself sound to your ears the way it does on this recording?

I don't get the reverb you hear on the recording when I'm sitting around the house. But if I let someone else play the guitar and get my ear down there in front of it, it does sound pretty much like the recording.

[JCook1]

Hi David,

Is your CD available as an actual physical CD, or is it only available as a download?

Jack

[Methos1979]

Very nice! Just purchased the album!! First online purchase through Amazon. Love being able to support AGF talent!

[815C]

Originally Posted by JCook1

Hi David,

Is your CD available as an actual physical CD, or is it only available as a download?

Jack

Physical CDs should be available thru CD Baby, but I'm not sure when that will be - should be soon. I will post the link when I know it.

Originally Posted by Methos1979

Very nice! Just purchased the album!! First online purchase through Amazon. Love being able to support AGF talent!

Thank you so much! Greatly appreciated!

[Shoreline Music]

For a split second, I thought you were implying that this tone came from the camera's onboard mic!

Lovely arranging, great playing

[815C]

Hey guys, just FYI that Amazon has started their Cyber Monday Sale already, and you can get 30% off on my guitar notation/tab book.

Here's the link with the promotion code for 30% off at Amazon --> 30% Promo

And here the link for my book is --> HERE