It's very complex, difficult, expensive, interesting and fun to be an independent music producer. Volume three covers my attempts to: make acoustic improvements to the studio; cut down my production times; learn the art of mastering in-house ad muc...
Summer is over and the harvest is in full swing. The pic above is from the fields just down the street from me. I live in a beautiful place. BUT MY ALBUM IS STILL NOT DONE! How long is this going to take?!
A necessary distraction
One of the many distractions that have to be addressed from time to time is the effort to structure my work so that my husband can find what I am doing if I ever should pass away. He reasons that if I should die he would want to go on with submitting and letting someone else produce my songs. So, this week I have been moving all my telephone recordings of new song ideas to my Dropbox account and hard drives. I didn't know I had so much material that was useable until I took the time to organise the songs. I am done with the songs that were on my cell phone and have recorded the few songs I've written on piano.
in the future, when a new song is created and I record it on the fly in my phone, it will be immediately moved to my Dropbox account and backed up. ROUTINES MATTER!
Now I have yet the task of going through my ring binder full of song ideas and recording each song that is not yet either on Youtube, SoundCloud, my homepage or Dropbox. Ugh. ALL I WANT TO DO IS GET THE CHANGE MY MIND ALBUM DONE! :-(
Status Update
There are 5 songs left to fix and take from demo to commercial quality on my album
Rising (funk)
Everywhere (pop)
Questions (bossa nova)
Those Eyes (country ballad)
Change My Mind, the title song, (rock)
As you can see, they cover many different genres and this creates a few challenges: different instruments are used and they need special plugins or effects to name one. I am grateful for learning to tame all these songs. It's like taming a horse at a rodeo. But, when I started this fall after vacation, I felt that familiar gut feeling of lurking depression - I AM STILL NOT DONE & "How long is this going to take". That is one of the reasons that I was annoyed when my husband wanted me to use the month of August to record all the yet unrecorded song sketches. Sigh!
How do I do it?
I ask myself these kinds of questions as I fixing the demo:
1. Is it clipping anywhere (so loud that the individual tracks or the whole song sounds distorted? If so I need to gain stage (check the volume flow)
2. Is there anything needing fixing? Distorted or damaged tracks? Should I re-record the main vocal - my voice is so much better now. Is there too much reverb or too little? Do I need more compression for the bass or kick to punch, etc. Fix/replace and move on
3. Can I hear all the instruments clearly and the main instrument the most? (I flip into mono and mix until each instrument has its own frequency area and until it sounds just as good in mono as in stereo.) If I don't hear them clearly, then I need to EQ better.
4. Is there any way I can make the arrangement more interesting? I shoot towards a song that has emotion and that builds up. I wasn't aware of this when I started. Gosh! Often in this process, I need to write a arrangement chart in order to visualise what I am shooting for. Sometimes less is more. I only add what is necessary and then move onto the next question. (Here, below, is a pic of an arrangement for the song Now That I Have You)
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